Entitlement Hurts Children and Parents

In my new book, I tell the story of some friends whose daughter lost a significant part of her portfolio in the 2008 financial downturn. Their daughter had promised her own children that they could go to horseback riding camp the following summer.
Instead of explaining to her children about why she couldn’t afford to send them to camp, the daughter approached my friends, her parents, and suggested they provide the money for their grandchildren instead of taking their own long planned cruise.

This is an example of how entitlement cascades from generation to generation if no one heads it off. Entitlement is a one-way mindset, a pattern of focusing on what we are owed in all relationships without awareness of our own obligations. Children raised with entitlement, rather than learning a sense of personal responsibility, believe the world revolves around them. When it comes to grandchildren, this can present even more of a problem.

Children and grandchildren need to learn the meaning of the words “We can’t afford it.” When you can’t afford, on your own, to do something, you explain to your children  that they can’t have something until you can afford it, or until they earn the money to do it. Children can handle disappointment if you’re straight with them.

How else can you prepare children for the real world? And why should two grandparents give up a trip they’ve been planning for themselves to send their grandchildren to horseback riding camp? And why would their daughter expect them to do so? You’ll be happy to know they didn’t do it. Wisdom may be late in coming, but better late than never.