Four Steps to Raising a Brat

Future generations of your family will bloom and prosper if you teach your child self-discipline and respect. 

Dr John Rosemond's excellent book, "New Parent Power!" is a useful guide for raising responsible children. 

A child's character and personality are like  gardens. There is regular "weeding" needing to be done to ensure responsibility and character.  This is what  successful parenting accomplishes. 

The Four Steps to Raising a Brat

    1. Work hard  to make sure your child likes you all the time.
    2. Give them everything they want.
    3. Baby them - give in when they whine.
    4. Don’t ever hold them accountable.  No consequences  - ever.

I remember holding my newborn son upon arrival home from the hospital, and as I caressed his tiny perfect feet, I thought, “I don’t want him ever to be hurt.  Ever.”  My instinct to protect this precious baby I had birthed just a couple of days before, was so strong I knew I’d give my life for him.  

It is a confusing thing to love a child with that intensity, and to need to learn quickly (they grow so quickly) how to temper that instinct to give them everything they want.  

Even babies can be very convincing.  Their instincts to get everything they want are as strong as our instinct to give it to them.  

What a conundrum for the parent!  And, surely, as Jennie Scott says, “We’re killing our kids and calling it love.”  

Look at these definitions:
spoil / spoil/

• v. (past tense spoiled or Brit. spoilt) 1. to diminish or destroy the value or quality of;    2. to destroy or reduce the pleasure, interest, or beauty of; 3. to harm the character of a child by being too lenient or indulgent

brat / 

• n. a child, especially an annoying, impolite or spoiled child 
• Children and teens who are perceived as spoiled may be described as "overindulged", "grandiose", "narcissistic" or “egocentric-regressed”.

In spoiling our children we are diminishing or destroying their value as adults, harming their character by giving them everything they want (being too lenient or indulgent), and they are perceived by others as narcissistic.  Which is true.

Think about it - the selling of t-shirts that say, “I’m a spoiled brat - and proud of it!”
And, “I’m the one in charge here.”  These shirts on children reinforce that a child who is being spoiled (harmed) is somehow to be proud of it!  
Let’s get back to basics here:  

How are we spoiling our children?  How are we missing the boat in raising them?   

Here are the major ways.  I'll repeat myself, here. Society teaches you to:

    1. Work hard  to make sure your child likes you all the time.
    2. Give them everything they want.
    3. Baby them - give in when they whine.
    4. Don’t ever hold them accountable.  No consequences  - ever.

Diana, a dear friend and fantastic mom of eight  children (three  biologic and five  adopted),  once told me, “Our job as parents is to raise a child up to be a great parent.”  

Wow!  That puts it in perspective. 

We are our children’s hope for the future.  We are the world’s hope for the future.  

Your child will NOT like you all the time. 
 
- If you don’t give them everything they want, they will NOT like you all the time.      
- And if you DO give them “everything they want,” they will NOT like you all the time! 

That is because the more you give, the more they want.  Not only can you not keep up and cannot give them everything they want, the child comes to believe the world works like that. The parent is training the child to be demanding, expectant, entitled, whiny, and eventually possibly violently demanding. 

A temper tantrum in a two-year-old is tiresome and no fun. When it occurs at 13, it can be downright frightening. The only way to reduce that possibility is to stand your ground when they are two (and always).  It is right to deny them EVERYTHING they are demanding in the two-year-old tantrum, so they can learn that doesn’t work.  

It’s hard for you to realize that your child won’t understand why you stood your ground and why they were raised differently than their friends, until they are MUCH older.  It may not be until they have their own children that they understand.  That time seems very far off. 

It’s hard for you to deal with your child being upset now.  But, giving in to anything and everything they want is hurting their character. It will hurt the character of your future grandchildren (because your grandchildren’s parents will not have had a role model to follow in raising your grandchildren.)  It’s the opposite of loving your children. 

Giving in “eventually” when they whine and carry on teaches children that you have to whine and carry on to get what you want.  It teaches them that “No” means “Whine and carry on, and wait a few minutes,  to get what you want.”  It teaches your children that they can have what they want if they act badly.

This will destroy their lives, because the world doesn’t work that way.  Know what would happen if you whine and carry on when your boss says, “No”?   At best you wouldn’t get what you want.  At worst - ??  

Jennie Scott, in her writing about raising children, points out that “The measuring stick of successful parenting is definitely not happy children.  Well-adjusted, responsible, kind and selfless children?  Absolutely.  Happy and spoiled?   No way. “

Being a parent is hard work.  It’s harder to be a good parent.  It’s harder to get up off the couch and pick up your child who is not picking his toys up, than to sit on the couch and “count to three.”  But counting to three is spoiling the child.  It’s harder to insist the child takes his dish to the dishwasher than to carry it with yours.  It’s harder to be a great parent!  

I remember my mother, Joy, teaching us how to be great parents.  Joy would have been proud of me, after I had instructed my three-year-old granddaughter to pick up her blocks. When she looked at me with a bit of a sideways smile and did NOT begin to pick up anything, I got up and went to her, took her little hand in mine, and “picked up” a block with my hand and her hand, then another and another. 

She grinned, enjoyed it, then said, “I can do it!”  Then she picked up the rest of the blocks. 

Ka-ching!  Investment (leaving my comfortable chair, to teach her) paid off immediately!

Yes, it’s harder to be a great parent!

But you can do it.  Your love is strong enough to raise a child who is well-adjusted, responsible, kind and selfless.  Your love is strong enough to set boundaries that give your child security and teach how to live contentedly in a world of many boundaries.

Your love is strong enough to realize what is going on, and how to strengthen your child’s character, despite media and advertisers’ working to convince you to spend all your money on your child, to give them junk food, to support the gaming industry, all at your child’s expense, (as well as at YOUR EXPENSE).

Love them in the best ways!  Your “no’s” to the children are hardest for YOU.  They will cope.  And when you see them becoming less spoiled, less insistent, less demanding, you will be happy to know you are succeeding in raising a child of character.  And in so doing, you will be loving yourself.  

Next blog:  So what are some steps to raising a great parent of the future?