MORE FROM HUFFPOST
MORE FROM HUFFPOST
entitled kids
"The rules apply to everybody, except when they don't." A cursory look at some headlines from last week reveals this to be the new American mantra, a burgeoning sense of individual "exceptionalism" that pulls at the very fabric of fair play.
They say all kids are special. Well, if that's true, then doesn't "special" lose meaning? If every single child is special, does ordinary become extinct or nonexistent?
We wanted to give our kids everything we didn't have. The big house, their own room, a car when they came of age, nice clothes, lavish Christmas presents and family vacations.
Let's face it -- we all feel entitled and even ungrateful at times. That's just part of being a human. It's especially part of being a small, growing person who is steadily working through a predictable series of tasks and milestones.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
WHAT'S HAPPENING
Emma Jenner is a British nanny with over 20 years of experience caring for children on both sides of the Atlantic. And she's seen lots of changes in parenting over the decades...and not always for the better. She joins HuffPost Live to discuss.
I've worked with children and their parents across two continents and two decades, and what I've seen in recent years alarms me. Here are the greatest problems, as I see them.
Parenting is hard. Doing it in our culture is even harder. But it is possible to raise grateful, hard-working kids who put others first.
No one wants to listen to whining, crying or complaining, and we all want to spare our children as much heartache as possible. Unfortunately, our overzealous attempts to pave the way can result in spoiled, self-entitled children.
Most people in every generation try to make things easier for their children than they had it. In doing so, however, we may not actually be doing them any favors.
