The Societal Consequences of Raising Spoiled Brats

As times have changed, parenting has become more and more permissive. In an age of materialism, parents want their children to have what they didn’t have when they were growing up, and they don’t help their children to realize that owning things should come with the cost of having to work for the item.

In my daily work taking care of a disabled person, I have constant contact with the spoiled children in his extended family. No limitations are set on their behavior. Daily, they scream at each other, hit each other, steal and break each others possessions, make accusations of each other. They don’t clean up after themselves, and they yell at their parents, sometimes hit their parents, and they are constantly fighting, cursing, and constantly in tears. One of the children was suspended from school for three months.

The consequences of not setting limits on the children’s behavior ricochet off of every single person who comes in contact with the family. One day rocks are thrown in the center lane in the road. The next day a maid is hired to come in every morning to clean up after all the messes they have made. The next day the kids are yelling and screaming at each other for two hours. The next day the mother is screaming at the kids for losing the phone when it was off of the hook and the father is yelling at the kids to get their messes cleaned up. Two hours after the maid has cleaned up all the messes, the whole house is a disaster again.

Children naturally are born selfish, and must be taught to share with others, be kind to others, and to bear responsibility. Every adult in the environment has a share in making the children who they are. (“It takes a village to raise a child.” If a child is rewarded with a cell phone and with sleepovers, as well as many Christmas presents, regardless of their behavior, what incentive do they have to do anything differently? Parents with messy children who can never find anything might investigate the causes of the disorganization. Does the child have their own dresser? Were they taught to put things away? Or do they leave their laundry in a heap and go through it every time they need something? They can be taught if someone in their environment would take it upon themselves to logically set up an organizational system and expect them to abide by it.