Is your Child becoming entitled?

Are you creating an entitled toddler?

This is something most parents come up against, especially as your child becomes a toddler and begins saying or doing things that suddenly start sounding very entitled and more like a mini dictator! I know for myself this was a hard realisation, because I felt like I was missing the mark with my parenting. Do you know the feeling?

This post will share some information about why we do not want to let our toddlers or children become entitled - and what might happen if they do.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support!

Firstly, a huge welcome from me - I’m Miranda, and Peaceful Living with Miranda is my business and blog. I’m a mum of 3 kiddos, experienced teacher, women’s emotional health coach and gentle parenting consultant. As well as coaching and blogging on gentle parenting & anything that helps you as a mum with stress relief & emotional healing, I create digital products and write books that help Christian women with their own emotional health and with parenting their children - because the two go hand in hand. Find out more about what I offer on my Emotional Health Bookings page here.

It’s so easy to shower our kids with love, isn’t it?

MINE are just the most delightful, most adorable and cleverest little things, we say with a proud smile.

We give our children special things often- even if those things are actually a bribe-and want to make SURE our kids KNOW we love them.

This should help build their self-esteem, right?

‘My little one is never going to have any issues of any kind-especially the ones I had’.

Isn’t that why many parents do this?

I know I often personally felt out-of-place and like I didn’t fit in, because we didn’t have brand name anything. I felt like my clothes didn’t fit right, like my shoes were ‘try-hard’, and that no-one would like me because I wasn’t ‘cool’ enough.

Many of us have similar hang-ups from our own childhoods- and we don't want that for our kids.

So even when they’re little, we get them the things we never had ourselvesand protect them from hopefully feeling like we felt.

But in the process, is your child becoming entitled?

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‘But I can show him that he really means something in the world-that he can do anything!’

And you’re right. That is completely true.

Our kids NEED the encouragement and confidence that comes from being loved unconditionally by their parents-from babyhood onwards. In fact, the environment we grow up in, especially up the age of 7, can have an undeniable impact on our mental habits, health and emotional regulation throughout life.

But it isn't necessarily through material items, and it can become a trap when we buy our kids too many ‘things’.

Your child can achieve great things by

by having great motivation, good self esteem and self-confidence, and a growth mindset, and
your unconditional support and love!

Much of which is established by effective, caring parents in the early years-which is what I’m all about.

An ‘entitlement mindset’ can result in people feeling like they’re ‘owed’ something by the world. They may feel more discouraged and letdown when they don’t easily get a job they expected, for instance.

Those with an entitlement mindset could also be more at risk of becoming vindictive or depressed when things stop ‘going their way’ in life.

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So are you creating an entitled toddler?

Check out this helpful set of questions to encourage thoughtabout this:

Do you give up your own time or priorities consistently, to make youryoung child happy? (Notethe emotion ‘happy’-this isn’t about their actual real needs as a smallchild.)

How do you react when your child falls over? Is it terrible to you to see your childhurt-more than the child?

Do you prioritise time with your child over your partner?

Have you thought about these questions before?

Will you think more about this as a result of getting intentional with me just there?

Why you should consider teaching your toddler consideration NOW:

The opposite to the entitlement mindset is to be thinking of others more than yourself, right?

how to teach your toddler to communicate

But children under 4 especially are known as being ‘egocentric’, with themselves at the forefront of their minds, constantly.(‘Ego’ = Self, ‘centric’= centre. Kind of self-explanatory.)

This is a proven fact, and well worth noting.

Therefore many parents don’t even bother starting to teach their toddlers to care about others, apart from the basic ‘don’t hit’ part.

This is fine (the children are still small, I know)-but a problem I often see is that they leave it too late!

Toddlers who aren’t shown and taught consideration for others can turn very quickly into pre-schoolers who have just a bit of attitude and entitlement.

If you want to know more about how you can start being the Mama you want to be, with that emotional processing element if you prefer, book a 1:1 session here by clicking on my Emotional Health Bookings page!

Age 3 is a tricky age to parent through, with most children.

The will and understanding of a three year old can be very hard to train. At this age too, independence, boundaries and connection are all in and out of balance with the parent/child relationship - and parents basically just get worn down!

(Can I get an AMEN?)

Many mums have a small baby at this time too, with lack of sleep, appointments and often the child feeling all those other feelings about going from 1-2 children in the family.

All of this only compounds Mum’s tiredness and the 3 year old’s moodiness, jealousy etc from the new ‘pecking order.

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Mum's ability to cope with the tantrums and defiance/resistance that the pre-schooler introduces is then reduced-which in turn can result in the threenager moments we all just love. (Not.)

It can be a vicious circle-but it’s a great reason to start gently teaching your toddler how to empathise and care for others when they are small.

This ensures these become ‘habits’ or ‘what we do in our house’ type expectations, rather than something new to introduce when the child is getting towards age 3 and 4.

Is your child becoming entitled - and what are you going to do about it, Mama?

Good news-it's a stage, but these practical ideas should help you help them, to stay on the right track without stopping them having fun and learning like the children they are!