The Entitlement Mentality can start at 5

Most of our children these days have things served on a platter to them. Enrichment classes like sports, swimming, art, music, dance which were major bonuses to have when I was growing up, has become a must-have for most children. I would not even go into the area of things, as I know most kids I know (including my own child) have too many toys and clothes.

Entitlement mentality can start really young with children these days. It may not be as defined as, “My parent’s owe this to me as they brought me into the world, what I have is what I deserve and it is mine”. But there are many signs of child taking these privileges for granted when they see their peers enjoying similar privileges.

Screen Shot 2012 08 27 at 5 07 21 PM

I have found out recently from K, that at 5, he already knows how to take some things for granted. He tends to treat his enrichment classes as a given, since most of his classmates have enrichment classes in school and are attending various classes on weekends.

It started with his Tennis lessons that he attends with Spex. He was enjoying the social interaction he was having with his friends in the class and he stopped paying attention to his coach. All it took was a short chat an afternoon before his class. We told him that we will stop the class immediately if he did not make the effort to pay attention and listen. It costs money for his grandparents sponsor his class so he needs to make an effort to learn, not just focus on having fun with his friends. Hb and I made him understand that these enrichment classes were not something we wanted him to do, but a privilege for him to attend as he enjoyed playing tennis.

Some parents might tell me to take it easy since it is just sports enrichment. But I need to teach my child about good work ethics, to be responsible and independent, to try his best at whatever he has been privileged to have. This also applies to things that he doesn’t like to do; helping around the house, cleaning up after play, etc. All these things needs to be done without having to whine or complain and he needs to make sure he does a good job at it.

If I don’t address this now, he will gradually become a teenager/young adult with the entitlement mentality. And I think teaching my child these things really cannot wait.

I hear this quite often from people from my parent’s generation, “He is still young, slowly teach him. When he reach a certain age, he will understand.” When children were ‘forced’ to help their parents make a living during the 50s – 60s. They could learn from real life experience that hard work is needed to bring home every cent, every bowl that the parent fills with rice.

There seems to be less learning opportunities for our children, simply because our world have changed. Children are being institutionalized in school at a tender age and are very sheltered. And since there also fewer children in most families, children are treated like little princes and princesses and are freely given most things that they want.

Can we raise privileged children without the entitlement mentality? Do share your thoughts here.


 

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It’s my money!

I stopped buying flowers for the home for the last two months.

Started feeling that $10-$14 a week can be better spent elsewhere.

It was really timely to have chanced upon this article, that world population have reached 7 billion on 31st Oct 2011 and what really stood out from this article was the statement; 'Seven billion is already facing us with horrendous problems, including almost 1 billion people hungry.' It was a shocking number really, 14% of our world population is going hungry every single day. The article listed some solutions to the problem, but I felt that none really could address the current problem that we have. We can control population with birth control, with abortion (a big NO NO!) or women given equal opportunities with the rights with men etc, but it doesn't even alleviate the current problem that we have with the world today; 1 billion people are still going hungry every single day!

I spoke to Kyle about this yesterday.

I asked him, "Are you able to give some of your piggy bank money to help the poor children who have no food and are going hungry?"

He thought for a while and replied. "No! It is my money and I cannot give it to anyone!"

My response to him was, "I think we need to pray to ask Jesus to change your selfish heart. God has bless us so much and we have so much here to eat, and so much leftover, all we need to part with that little money so that we can help the poor children with some food to eat."

I read to him the parable of the poor widow from Mark 12:41-44 that evening, and we prayed for Jesus to change his selfish heart to a heart that is giving. And I told him to think about it and tell me his decision.

This morning, he came to me and told me, "Mommy, I will give $3 to the hungry children."

I asked him, "Are you sure you thought about it and want to give the money? What made you change your mind?"

He replied, "Jesus changed my heart."

I was really surprised and heartened to have heard this from him this morning. I thought that he would have forgotten all about it until this is mentioned to him again.

I was looking through this the past couple of days, which lists the top 25 organisations and charities for kids. And I shortlisted this organisation Children's Hunger Fund which we can help to raise some funds for.

This year, 6 million children will die from hunger related causes if we don't do anything about it…

We can work with this organisation to do something…

Just think about it, 6 million children, that's more than the whole population of Singapore! According to Children's Hunger Fund, US 5 cents is enough to provide a hungry child a meal, with Kyle's SGD $3 it works out to almost 50 meals!

So I am appealing to all friends for your participation in this little fund raising activity. All you need to do, is this:

1. Crop and paste any of this above information or pictures on your blog site, together with this logo (just right click and save image in your hard drive or copy the html for this to add as a widget to your site)

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/catchfortywinks/6308510246/" title="CHF by catch40winks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6045/6308510246_604f399a76.jpg" width="250" height="87" alt="CHF"></a>

 

2. Appeal for friends and readers on your site to go directly to this page to make direct contributions. All it takes is US $5.00 for 100 meals for the children. Of course, it will be great if you can contribute more. You can also go to this page to make a direct contribution to areas that are most needed; like disaster relief.

3. Organise your own fund raising activity. Pauline and I will be making handmades the next couple of weeks and all sale proceeds will go into Children's Hunger Fund.

There are plenty of  ideas that you can adopt to raise the funds;

  • Bake sale
  • Make and Sell a product
  • Give up a birthday gift
  • Lose weight by missing a meal and contributing what you might have spent on the meal to the Children's Hunger Fund

4. If you have a preschooler or a child who has learnt to save some money, talk to him/her to see if he can give a little of his money to help to feed hungry children.

So many of us take it for granted that we always have a hot meal ready on our dining table for ourselves and our children and always have something to snack on whenever we are hungry. But the reality is not the same for many children around the world.

It's our money, and all it takes to help is that little bit of it and some time and effort to be able to make a difference to the poor and needy children in our world. Help us and Children's Hunger Fund to show a child in some remote corner of our world that he / she is loved.

Do drop me a note if you are interested to participate and will be putting this fund raiser activity up on your blog or FB page. My deepest appreciation and thanks in advance for your kind and giving contribution to Children's Hunger Fund!

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Who needs initiative?

"If I don't raise my voice at you, you don't listen!"

"You cannot be looking at me everytime before you swing your club, you know what to do as you have learnt the process!"

"I don't shout at my students, you give me no choice. When I don't raise my voice, you don't listen."

"You have learnt this so many times, I find myself repeating the same things over and over but you are not correcting your mistakes. You just don't seem to care…sigh…"

I heard these remarks from Kyle's golf coach behind the doors of the classroom during his last lesson. However, it was not directed at Kyle but at another boy who was taking the golf classes together with Kyle. Each time the coach made a remark like that, I strained to hear whose name he was calling, since Kyle's classmate's name also starts with K. It was not Kyle that he was speaking to each time he raised his voice, as I will be certain that Kyle would have burst into tears and ran out of class if the teacher was so stern with him.

Yeah, Kyle is a softie and tends to cry very easily if he is reprimanded at home or in school, as his kindergarten teacher have fed back previously that Kyle cries very easily when he is being reprimanded for misbehaving blush

When the golf lesson ended, Kyle's coach gave his feedback to his classmate K's grandmother and maid who was sitting outside of the classroom. He said that classmate K lacked initiative, tends to be too dependent on him before he takes a swing, and seemed to be expecting specific instructions each time. When in fact, he has already learnt the techniques and knows the techniques that needs correction. Then the golf coach asked K classmate's grandma, "Is he like that at home? And is the caregiver always doing his things for him?" His grandma nodded her head to his question and replied, "Ah, his mother and father always want to give him the best," The coach was rather dumbfounded when he heard that response, but he added, "It will be good if he is not so sheltered. I am concerned that he is not taking the initiative to make improvements to the point that his classmate Kyle's skills has surpassed his, even though Kyle has joined much later." Then coach turned to me and said, "So far so good for Kyle, he is very confident in his swing, just that he tends to be a bit impatient at times."

I am not quoting this incident as I am brimming with pride that my child is better than his classmate, but rather, I am worried that if I don't make a conscious effort to build good habits in Kyle, he might one day lose his initiative and become an older child who will have little or no initiative in anything that he undertakes, as he will always expect that his mom or helper will help him along.

When a child grows in an environment when he has alot of help, he tends to develop an overdependency and then cease to make a conscious effort to take an initiative to do things for himself, and eventually lose that ability to do alot of things if there is no prompting or direction from others. I am already seeing some bad habits developing;

–  Not picking up his dirty clothing and putting it in the laundry basket

–  Shouting for the helper's help to search for something, when he hasn't even started looking

–  Asking the helper to throw away his used sweet/biscuit wrappers

I have taken all these bad habits very seriously and started berating him by asking him if he is a handicapp, always needing help to do simple things (I tend to be quite harsh, think I really need to manage what I say at timessad). Correcting the habit needs alot of patience; so as to guide him along towards the correct behaviour, I had to walk with him to the waste paper basket and watch him exhibit the correct behaviour and then praise him for it.

Some areas that that I have managed to train Kyle;

– Clearing up his toys after every play session

– Clearing his own used plate + cutlery after every meal and putting them in the sink

– Choosing his own clothes and wearing the clothes himself

– Putting on his socks and shoes

– Getting himself ready every morning for school or making sure he is dressed and ready before we go out.

The last point has been rather tough to achieve, as it came with alot of stern reprimands for weeks. It was only recently that it finally dawn on him that he is sick of being scolded while walking to school and starting the day with a bad mood.

Still work in progress :

– Learning to take his own bath, or clean himself after a poop

– Doing his homework (from school) every weekend without having to be reminded

– Taking his own food or snack and pouring his own drink.

– Making his own bed, tough to achieve since he is bunking in my room 80% of the time these days

– Getting him out of bed in the mornings

– Helping out in chores (it is quite hard to achieve especially with domestic help, but for a start, he cleans up his table and the brushes after a messy art session)

It gets alot more challenging to develop positive habits due to a presence of a domestic help at home. To ensure that habits training is followed through, I have to remind my helper not to lend a helping hand each time and then watch carefully that my instructions are being followed through.

I try not to encroach on my child’s developing initiative by trying to control every moment of his day, also allowing him to learn to invent his own games, without depending on me to amuse him. He is also given the freedom to add his personal touch to school work within my boundaries. This is a valid consideration since formal education seems to lean the other direction, 

“In their work, too, we are too apt to interfere with children. We all know the delight with which any scope for personal initiative is hailed, the pleasure children take in doing anything which they may do their own way; anything, in fact, which allows room for skill of hand, play of fancy, or development of thought. With our present theories of education it seems that we cannot give much scope for personal initiative. There is so much task-work to be done, so many things that must be, not learned, but learned about, that it is only now and then a child gets the chance to produce himself in his work. But let us use such opportunities as come in our way…and our non-success in education is a good deal due to the fact that we carry children through their school work and do not let them feel their feet” (Charlotte Mason Vol. 3, pp. 37, 38).

I really wonder how working moms/parents are able to develop good habits in their children when quality time is limited to after work hours / weekends. Is this achievable for a full time working parent? Can they instruct domestic help or grandparents to follow through, or all these are just neglected as being something that 'The child will eventually grow out of'?

Call me micro whatever, but I don't want to raise a boy like most asian men that I know, whose moms tend to smoother them while growing up and then become adults who hope to have wives or domestic help to clean after them all the time. So training of the habit of initiative in Kyle needs to start right now.

“The busy mother says she has no leisure to be that somebody [who informs and gives direction], and the child will run wild and get into bad habits; but we must not make a fetish of habit; education is a life as well as a discipline. Health, strength, and agility, bright eyes and alert movements, come of a free life, out-of-doors, if it may be; and as for habits, there is no habit or power so useful to man or woman as that of personal initiative” (Charlotte Mason Vol. 1, p. 192).

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