How do parents avoid raising entitled, self-absorbed adults?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very judgmental, that's a recipe for disaster.

Good parenting is about being curious, attentive, empathetic and flexible in guiding the kid you've been handed and the circumstances life throws your way.

I have learned there is always a good reason why people act the way they do.

This is so tiring. There are positive behaviors in life and non positive behaviors in life. We don't have to indulge all behaviors. The sister sounds very annoying to be around. It's reasonable how to ask how to help your kids avoid this problematic behavior.

It is tiring to people who have little mental flexibility and see things as black and white.

You are projecting and black and white. I'm sure OP cares about family members while also not wanting to raise a child with problematic behaviors. Even people who are this way don't want to hang out with each other. It's not an attractive behavior.

[Anonymous]

The teens in my family spent summers as counselors working with *severely* handicapped kids and other teens. Unpaid. It was not asked of us if we were interested in this type of work, it was an expectation. Certainly grounded us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound very judgmental yourself, in particular the disdain towards your sister. I'm sure your kids won't pick up on these character traits at all...

this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don't know and struggle with this. Just has a huge talk with ds and dd just yesterday about money. I knew something was wrong, and finally got to the root of it: They think we are loaded and cheap, and ds especially is resentful, and jealous of his friends who get so much more. No amount of talking to him about how saving is important, talking about expenses in life like mortgage, emergency repair, a car breaking down, would convince him we are not in fact so loaded we should spend much more freely. He is very materialistic as well. We are not, I shop at Goodwill and TJ Maxx because that is what I like. He looks down on it. DD was entirely different in her approach and she got it. Her main concern is that she too can be too frugal and not spend her money. I went to bed thinking that dd was raised right, and ds wasn't. We're the same parents to both. I fear how he'll be as an adult.

Is he surrounded by people that either have more than you or spend a lot more than you? It's a tough situation for a kid to handle. He may be more sensitive than your daughter in picking up social cues and/or have a harder time dealing with big emotions.

I think we are making slightly more than a lot of people but also are younger and have different benefits so it’s hard to say. Our area is not ultra wealthy, homes all under 1 mil and that’s not ours which we paid half that for. Yes, I would say people spend more as a whole. He claims only his friends whose parents are much less well off have as little as he has, does not understand why we do not spend more. We do spend a lot to visit my family abroad and just has a ski trip this winter, mostly for his sake.

It's hard even for adults to cope with feeling like they are at the bottom of the social pecking order. Just look at this forum how many posts there are about comparing houses, vacations, cars, schools and feeling inadequate etc. In your son's case he feels like you are putting him at the bottom of the pecking order even though you have the means not to. I don't think you need to indulge him, but try to understand his feelings. At the end of the day he sees the majority of the adults that sorround him on a day to day basis approach money differently than you.

I personally don't find it hard at all because i like what I do have. I understand envy to some extent, but not to the extent of actually telling my parents I feel entitled to their money and they should spend more on me and I should spend my money differently and x and y way.

[Anonymous]

I think ultimately a lot of this comes down to individual personality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very judgmental, that's a recipe for disaster.

Good parenting is about being curious, attentive, empathetic and flexible in guiding the kid you've been handed and the circumstances life throws your way.

I have learned there is always a good reason why people act the way they do.

This is so tiring. There are positive behaviors in life and non positive behaviors in life. We don't have to indulge all behaviors. The sister sounds very annoying to be around. It's reasonable how to ask how to help your kids avoid this problematic behavior.

It is tiring to people who have little mental flexibility and see things as black and white.

You are projecting and black and white. I'm sure OP cares about family members while also not wanting to raise a child with problematic behaviors. Even people who are this way don't want to hang out with each other. It's not an attractive behavior.

I agree, being this judgmental and agressive is not attractive. I feel for OP's sibling, she got the short end of the stick with a hypercritical mother and sibling.

My sister is like this; my mom calls her an "injustice collector" as she regularly comes to family gatherings and blathers on about how "abusive" my mom and dad were to her as a child (spoiler alert: there was no abuse at all). Because of her extreme sensitivity, inflexibility, selfishness, and lack of empathy, my sister has had a middling career and a divorce (with no kids).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was reading the Jobs and Careers forum when this question popped up:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1194239.page

TLDR: A 22 year-old girl from a wealthy family is bemoaning how "everyone in her life has abandoned her" because... She has the privilege of ending up with a Computer Science degree from an excellent college. But still, she can only focus on the negatives in her life and not the wonderful blessings she has!

My sister is like this; my mom calls her an "injustice collector" as she regularly comes to family gatherings and blathers on about how "abusive" my mom and dad were to her as a child (spoiler alert: there was no abuse at all). Because of her extreme sensitivity, inflexibility, selfishness, and lack of empathy, my sister has had a middling career and a divorce (with no kids).

How do I avoid raising such selfish, entitled kids? My parents mostly raised my sister and I the same way, and we ended up totally different. My biggest fear would be for my kids to end up as "injustice collectors" like my sister or the post in the Jobs Forum that I linked above.

I think it's worth looking at what's making that poster unhappy. She's spent four years hopped up on drugs to earn a degree in a field she hates because her parents made her. She's got no friends, no hobbies, nothing she does to make her happy. I don't think her issue is that she's entitled, it's that her life is kind of miserable. You can't control your kid's life enough to make sure they don't end up feeling that way, but do what you can.

+1, there are a number of things about that OP's experience I have empathy for and are directly related to parental actions:

- Her parents moved across the country in the middle of her high school experience, destabilizing her social life right before she left for college. That's tough.

- Her parents pushed her into a major she has zero interest in based on earning potential, which both made her miserable during college and is setting her up to have zero enthusiasm for her career post college. She even has empathy for why her parents did this, understanding they fear her falling into the poverty they experienced as kids. But they were incorrect-- she would have been better off with a degree in a less lucrative but stable field she actually likes. This is someone who could be happy as a teacher, office administrator, medical technician, etc., all of which are stable, in demand careers her parents pushed her away from because they wanted her to be a "top earner."

- Her parents clearly don't know how to offer emotional support or encouragement, which is a major reason she comes off as whiny and engaged in a lot of black and white and catastrophic thinking. You can teach kids emotional resilience by showing them how to weather difficult feelings and experiences. But you have to show up for them and let them know they aren't totally alone in their bad feelings, and definitely don't pile on with judgment and reprobation ("you have no reason to be unhappy, you have a Computer Science degree from a great school and should just stop complaining and get a job"). Empathy and being people your kid can come to with even petty problems can give them the support they need to work through those issues and then be more resilient out in the world.

Also I think that PPs college experience regarding Covid must have really sucked and her ex-bf was really harsh during their break up, it is no wonder she's struggling.

Are we reading the same post? You seem deluded.

If you offer a kid (yes, maturity wise, she's a kid, not the 22 year old she actually is) as whiny as this "emotional support" or "encouragement," they will become even more self-pitying and won't do anything.

Initially, maybe. But that is because for 22 years she has gotten little true emotional support from her parents (who likely have childhood trauma from growing up in poverty that has stunted them emotionally). I do think she could eventually learn though. I grew up with similar parents and was very whiny at that age because I had so many unmet emotional needs and had absolutely no clue how to meet them myself, so I complained a lot. It's called "externalizing" because you lack the personal reserves to work through this stuff yourself.

But OP asked how they can avoid this in the first place, and that's much easier than addressing it at 22. If you are emotionally supportive of your kids starting when hey are very young, you can naturally teach them emotional resilience and skills for working through emotional challenges so that they never get to the point as adults where the only tool they have for dealing with frustration, confusion, anger, or ambivalence is to complain.

You start with little kids, allowing them to have feelings not shutting them down when the cry or get upset. You empathize with them, even with things that seem very small and unimportant to you, recognizing that to a 3 or 4 year old, it might feel like a very big thing. But you also stay calm when they get upset, so you are always modeling for them the idea that you can have big emotions, big reactions to things, but also you can stay clam and level headed and return to a place of practicality -- okay, how do we proceed? At first you have to teach them the tools for moving forward, for bringing rationality and productivity into problems so that you a solve them instead of wallowing in them. With time you let them do more of this themselves while you are just nearby, supporting and encouraging. Eventually you wind up with teens and young adults who can experience a set back like realizing they don't like their chosen profession, or feeling like Covid robbed them of a "normal" college experience, or feeling socially isolated and out of step with peers, and they can feel their justified anguish over these things, but also return to those skills of residence to work through them. Ideally also kids like this will be self-aware enough to avoid some of the worst mistakes, but people make mistakes and there are some things (like a global pandemic or your parents moving you across the country at the age of 16) that you might not have control over. People have to learn how to work through tough problems, but it's clear that this young woman's parents didn't do much to provide her with that education. You won't get it in school.

I think it might be the biggest legacy I leave my own kids. They are resilient, practical people who might complain now and then but know how to figure it out and push through to make better or different choices. They are also very self aware and will often check themselves when they get whiny or start spiraling and realize, eh, they are just hungry or need to get more sleep, and then can tackle the problem again later with a better attitude. I did not have those skills AT ALL at 22 but my kids already have them as teenagers. I think it makes a huge difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don't know and struggle with this. Just has a huge talk with ds and dd just yesterday about money. I knew something was wrong, and finally got to the root of it: They think we are loaded and cheap, and ds especially is resentful, and jealous of his friends who get so much more. No amount of talking to him about how saving is important, talking about expenses in life like mortgage, emergency repair, a car breaking down, would convince him we are not in fact so loaded we should spend much more freely. He is very materialistic as well. We are not, I shop at Goodwill and TJ Maxx because that is what I like. He looks down on it. DD was entirely different in her approach and she got it. Her main concern is that she too can be too frugal and not spend her money. I went to bed thinking that dd was raised right, and ds wasn't. We're the same parents to both. I fear how he'll be as an adult.

Is he surrounded by people that either have more than you or spend a lot more than you? It's a tough situation for a kid to handle. He may be more sensitive than your daughter in picking up social cues and/or have a harder time dealing with big emotions.

I think we are making slightly more than a lot of people but also are younger and have different benefits so it’s hard to say. Our area is not ultra wealthy, homes all under 1 mil and that’s not ours which we paid half that for. Yes, I would say people spend more as a whole. He claims only his friends whose parents are much less well off have as little as he has, does not understand why we do not spend more. We do spend a lot to visit my family abroad and just has a ski trip this winter, mostly for his sake.

It's hard even for adults to cope with feeling like they are at the bottom of the social pecking order. Just look at this forum how many posts there are about comparing houses, vacations, cars, schools and feeling inadequate etc. In your son's case he feels like you are putting him at the bottom of the pecking order even though you have the means not to. I don't think you need to indulge him, but try to understand his feelings. At the end of the day he sees the majority of the adults that sorround him on a day to day basis approach money differently than you.

I personally don't find it hard at all because i like what I do have. I understand envy to some extent, but not to the extent of actually telling my parents I feel entitled to their money and they should spend more on me and I should spend my money differently and x and y way.

It's the family's money. No one tells a SAHM she is not entitled to her husband's money because well it's the family's money. Children's needs, preferences and experiences should be taken into account when making financial decisions. It's hard to go to the book fair with $20 when most of your schoolmates were given $100. Double hard if your parents can afford it. I get it most kids can't afford even the $20 but this boy is not surrounded by those kids. He may understand rationally that he has a better life than most yet feel awful on a day to day basis because on a day to day basis he is at the bottom of the pecking order.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don't know and struggle with this. Just has a huge talk with ds and dd just yesterday about money. I knew something was wrong, and finally got to the root of it: They think we are loaded and cheap, and ds especially is resentful, and jealous of his friends who get so much more. No amount of talking to him about how saving is important, talking about expenses in life like mortgage, emergency repair, a car breaking down, would convince him we are not in fact so loaded we should spend much more freely. He is very materialistic as well. We are not, I shop at Goodwill and TJ Maxx because that is what I like. He looks down on it. DD was entirely different in her approach and she got it. Her main concern is that she too can be too frugal and not spend her money. I went to bed thinking that dd was raised right, and ds wasn't. We're the same parents to both. I fear how he'll be as an adult.

Is he surrounded by people that either have more than you or spend a lot more than you? It's a tough situation for a kid to handle. He may be more sensitive than your daughter in picking up social cues and/or have a harder time dealing with big emotions.

I think we are making slightly more than a lot of people but also are younger and have different benefits so it’s hard to say. Our area is not ultra wealthy, homes all under 1 mil and that’s not ours which we paid half that for. Yes, I would say people spend more as a whole. He claims only his friends whose parents are much less well off have as little as he has, does not understand why we do not spend more. We do spend a lot to visit my family abroad and just has a ski trip this winter, mostly for his sake.

It's hard even for adults to cope with feeling like they are at the bottom of the social pecking order. Just look at this forum how many posts there are about comparing houses, vacations, cars, schools and feeling inadequate etc. In your son's case he feels like you are putting him at the bottom of the pecking order even though you have the means not to. I don't think you need to indulge him, but try to understand his feelings. At the end of the day he sees the majority of the adults that sorround him on a day to day basis approach money differently than you.

I personally don't find it hard at all because i like what I do have. I understand envy to some extent, but not to the extent of actually telling my parents I feel entitled to their money and they should spend more on me and I should spend my money differently and x and y way.

It's the family's money. No one tells a SAHM she is not entitled to her husband's money because well it's the family's money. Children's needs, preferences and experiences should be taken into account when making financial decisions. It's hard to go to the book fair with $20 when most of your schoolmates were given $100. Double hard if your parents can afford it. I get it most kids can't afford even the $20 but this boy is not surrounded by those kids. He may understand rationally that he has a better life than most yet feel awful on a day to day basis because on a day to day basis he is at the bottom of the pecking order.

He is not though, he just feels that he is. And we absolutely do give him money. Just because someone buys $300 in shoes and clothes every week doesn’t mean we should be spending that on him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was reading the Jobs and Careers forum when this question popped up:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1194239.page

TLDR: A 22 year-old girl from a wealthy family is bemoaning how "everyone in her life has abandoned her" because... She has the privilege of ending up with a Computer Science degree from an excellent college. But still, she can only focus on the negatives in her life and not the wonderful blessings she has!

My sister is like this; my mom calls her an "injustice collector" as she regularly comes to family gatherings and blathers on about how "abusive" my mom and dad were to her as a child (spoiler alert: there was no abuse at all). Because of her extreme sensitivity, inflexibility, selfishness, and lack of empathy, my sister has had a middling career and a divorce (with no kids).

How do I avoid raising such selfish, entitled kids? My parents mostly raised my sister and I the same way, and we ended up totally different. My biggest fear would be for my kids to end up as "injustice collectors" like my sister or the post in the Jobs Forum that I linked above.

I think it's worth looking at what's making that poster unhappy. She's spent four years hopped up on drugs to earn a degree in a field she hates because her parents made her. She's got no friends, no hobbies, nothing she does to make her happy. I don't think her issue is that she's entitled, it's that her life is kind of miserable. You can't control your kid's life enough to make sure they don't end up feeling that way, but do what you can.

+1, there are a number of things about that OP's experience I have empathy for and are directly related to parental actions:

- Her parents moved across the country in the middle of her high school experience, destabilizing her social life right before she left for college. That's tough.

- Her parents pushed her into a major she has zero interest in based on earning potential, which both made her miserable during college and is setting her up to have zero enthusiasm for her career post college. She even has empathy for why her parents did this, understanding they fear her falling into the poverty they experienced as kids. But they were incorrect-- she would have been better off with a degree in a less lucrative but stable field she actually likes. This is someone who could be happy as a teacher, office administrator, medical technician, etc., all of which are stable, in demand careers her parents pushed her away from because they wanted her to be a "top earner."

- Her parents clearly don't know how to offer emotional support or encouragement, which is a major reason she comes off as whiny and engaged in a lot of black and white and catastrophic thinking. You can teach kids emotional resilience by showing them how to weather difficult feelings and experiences. But you have to show up for them and let them know they aren't totally alone in their bad feelings, and definitely don't pile on with judgment and reprobation ("you have no reason to be unhappy, you have a Computer Science degree from a great school and should just stop complaining and get a job"). Empathy and being people your kid can come to with even petty problems can give them the support they need to work through those issues and then be more resilient out in the world.

Also I think that PPs college experience regarding Covid must have really sucked and her ex-bf was really harsh during their break up, it is no wonder she's struggling.

Are we reading the same post? You seem deluded.

If you offer a kid (yes, maturity wise, she's a kid, not the 22 year old she actually is) as whiny as this "emotional support" or "encouragement," they will become even more self-pitying and won't do anything.

Initially, maybe. But that is because for 22 years she has gotten little true emotional support from her parents (who likely have childhood trauma from growing up in poverty that has stunted them emotionally). I do think she could eventually learn though. I grew up with similar parents and was very whiny at that age because I had so many unmet emotional needs and had absolutely no clue how to meet them myself, so I complained a lot. It's called "externalizing" because you lack the personal reserves to work through this stuff yourself.

But OP asked how they can avoid this in the first place, and that's much easier than addressing it at 22. If you are emotionally supportive of your kids starting when hey are very young, you can naturally teach them emotional resilience and skills for working through emotional challenges so that they never get to the point as adults where the only tool they have for dealing with frustration, confusion, anger, or ambivalence is to complain.

You start with little kids, allowing them to have feelings not shutting them down when the cry or get upset. You empathize with them, even with things that seem very small and unimportant to you, recognizing that to a 3 or 4 year old, it might feel like a very big thing. But you also stay calm when they get upset, so you are always modeling for them the idea that you can have big emotions, big reactions to things, but also you can stay clam and level headed and return to a place of practicality -- okay, how do we proceed? At first you have to teach them the tools for moving forward, for bringing rationality and productivity into problems so that you a solve them instead of wallowing in them. With time you let them do more of this themselves while you are just nearby, supporting and encouraging. Eventually you wind up with teens and young adults who can experience a set back like realizing they don't like their chosen profession, or feeling like Covid robbed them of a "normal" college experience, or feeling socially isolated and out of step with peers, and they can feel their justified anguish over these things, but also return to those skills of residence to work through them. Ideally also kids like this will be self-aware enough to avoid some of the worst mistakes, but people make mistakes and there are some things (like a global pandemic or your parents moving you across the country at the age of 16) that you might not have control over. People have to learn how to work through tough problems, but it's clear that this young woman's parents didn't do much to provide her with that education. You won't get it in school.

I think it might be the biggest legacy I leave my own kids. They are resilient, practical people who might complain now and then but know how to figure it out and push through to make better or different choices. They are also very self aware and will often check themselves when they get whiny or start spiraling and realize, eh, they are just hungry or need to get more sleep, and then can tackle the problem again later with a better attitude. I did not have those skills AT ALL at 22 but my kids already have them as teenagers. I think it makes a huge difference.

PP, you seem insufferable. You are definitely one of those annoying parents who believe in "gentle parenting" and validating your kids' emotions. Guess what? That shouldn't apply to posters like the one OP linked, or her sister, because these narcissists will just take, take, and take. If you give these children (and that's fundamentally what they are, kids, because regardless of their age they will never mature until they are invalidated) an inch, they WILL take a mile.

This is why basically every kid I knew growing up who had "gentle parents" who "validated their emotions" ended up being insufferable, self-indulgent young adults. Pushing past your kids' emotions to make them choose reasonable decisions (whether it's forcing themselves through a lucrative but boring major, which BTW, I'm sure this poster will thank her parents for in a couple of years) and DISREGARD their emotions is the most valuable gift you can give them as an adult.

I am glad that your kids have self awareness and are able to stop whining when they go down a negative spiral. But strict, tough-love parenting is the best way to produce such a result. Indulging in your kids' emotions is a one-way ticket to get them to navel-gaze and excessively ruminate on their emotions.

[Anonymous]

Entitled self indulgent adults raise entitled self indulgent children. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

As an example, whenever my children introduce me to a friend who is great, I want to meet their parents because I know they will be great. Same goes if the kid is crappy. I don’t want to know their parents.

There are a few exceptions to the rule of course, but this is the norm.

[Anonymous]

Teach them personal responsibility and accountability for their choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don't know and struggle with this. Just has a huge talk with ds and dd just yesterday about money. I knew something was wrong, and finally got to the root of it: They think we are loaded and cheap, and ds especially is resentful, and jealous of his friends who get so much more. No amount of talking to him about how saving is important, talking about expenses in life like mortgage, emergency repair, a car breaking down, would convince him we are not in fact so loaded we should spend much more freely. He is very materialistic as well. We are not, I shop at Goodwill and TJ Maxx because that is what I like. He looks down on it. DD was entirely different in her approach and she got it. Her main concern is that she too can be too frugal and not spend her money. I went to bed thinking that dd was raised right, and ds wasn't. We're the same parents to both. I fear how he'll be as an adult.

Is he surrounded by people that either have more than you or spend a lot more than you? It's a tough situation for a kid to handle. He may be more sensitive than your daughter in picking up social cues and/or have a harder time dealing with big emotions.

I think we are making slightly more than a lot of people but also are younger and have different benefits so it’s hard to say. Our area is not ultra wealthy, homes all under 1 mil and that’s not ours which we paid half that for. Yes, I would say people spend more as a whole. He claims only his friends whose parents are much less well off have as little as he has, does not understand why we do not spend more. We do spend a lot to visit my family abroad and just has a ski trip this winter, mostly for his sake.

It's hard even for adults to cope with feeling like they are at the bottom of the social pecking order. Just look at this forum how many posts there are about comparing houses, vacations, cars, schools and feeling inadequate etc. In your son's case he feels like you are putting him at the bottom of the pecking order even though you have the means not to. I don't think you need to indulge him, but try to understand his feelings. At the end of the day he sees the majority of the adults that sorround him on a day to day basis approach money differently than you.

I personally don't find it hard at all because i like what I do have. I understand envy to some extent, but not to the extent of actually telling my parents I feel entitled to their money and they should spend more on me and I should spend my money differently and x and y way.

It's the family's money. No one tells a SAHM she is not entitled to her husband's money because well it's the family's money. Children's needs, preferences and experiences should be taken into account when making financial decisions. It's hard to go to the book fair with $20 when most of your schoolmates were given $100. Double hard if your parents can afford it. I get it most kids can't afford even the $20 but this boy is not surrounded by those kids. He may understand rationally that he has a better life than most yet feel awful on a day to day basis because on a day to day basis he is at the bottom of the pecking order.

He is not though, he just feels that he is. And we absolutely do give him money. Just because someone buys $300 in shoes and clothes every week doesn’t mean we should be spending that on him.

How do you know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don't know and struggle with this. Just has a huge talk with ds and dd just yesterday about money. I knew something was wrong, and finally got to the root of it: They think we are loaded and cheap, and ds especially is resentful, and jealous of his friends who get so much more. No amount of talking to him about how saving is important, talking about expenses in life like mortgage, emergency repair, a car breaking down, would convince him we are not in fact so loaded we should spend much more freely. He is very materialistic as well. We are not, I shop at Goodwill and TJ Maxx because that is what I like. He looks down on it. DD was entirely different in her approach and she got it. Her main concern is that she too can be too frugal and not spend her money. I went to bed thinking that dd was raised right, and ds wasn't. We're the same parents to both. I fear how he'll be as an adult.

Is he surrounded by people that either have more than you or spend a lot more than you? It's a tough situation for a kid to handle. He may be more sensitive than your daughter in picking up social cues and/or have a harder time dealing with big emotions.

I think we are making slightly more than a lot of people but also are younger and have different benefits so it’s hard to say. Our area is not ultra wealthy, homes all under 1 mil and that’s not ours which we paid half that for. Yes, I would say people spend more as a whole. He claims only his friends whose parents are much less well off have as little as he has, does not understand why we do not spend more. We do spend a lot to visit my family abroad and just has a ski trip this winter, mostly for his sake.

It's hard even for adults to cope with feeling like they are at the bottom of the social pecking order. Just look at this forum how many posts there are about comparing houses, vacations, cars, schools and feeling inadequate etc. In your son's case he feels like you are putting him at the bottom of the pecking order even though you have the means not to. I don't think you need to indulge him, but try to understand his feelings. At the end of the day he sees the majority of the adults that sorround him on a day to day basis approach money differently than you.

I personally don't find it hard at all because i like what I do have. I understand envy to some extent, but not to the extent of actually telling my parents I feel entitled to their money and they should spend more on me and I should spend my money differently and x and y way.

It's the family's money. No one tells a SAHM she is not entitled to her husband's money because well it's the family's money. Children's needs, preferences and experiences should be taken into account when making financial decisions. It's hard to go to the book fair with $20 when most of your schoolmates were given $100. Double hard if your parents can afford it. I get it most kids can't afford even the $20 but this boy is not surrounded by those kids. He may understand rationally that he has a better life than most yet feel awful on a day to day basis because on a day to day basis he is at the bottom of the pecking order.

He is not though, he just feels that he is. And we absolutely do give him money. Just because someone buys $300 in shoes and clothes every week doesn’t mean we should be spending that on him.

How do you know?

Because he has more money to spend than a lot of kids. He gets an allowance and I pay for meals, gas, some clothes on top of it. He also works. He just doesn't like to ever spend any of "his" money, but he gets money from us too and also will in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was reading the Jobs and Careers forum when this question popped up:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1194239.page

TLDR: A 22 year-old girl from a wealthy family is bemoaning how "everyone in her life has abandoned her" because... She has the privilege of ending up with a Computer Science degree from an excellent college. But still, she can only focus on the negatives in her life and not the wonderful blessings she has!

My sister is like this; my mom calls her an "injustice collector" as she regularly comes to family gatherings and blathers on about how "abusive" my mom and dad were to her as a child (spoiler alert: there was no abuse at all). Because of her extreme sensitivity, inflexibility, selfishness, and lack of empathy, my sister has had a middling career and a divorce (with no kids).

How do I avoid raising such selfish, entitled kids? My parents mostly raised my sister and I the same way, and we ended up totally different. My biggest fear would be for my kids to end up as "injustice collectors" like my sister or the post in the Jobs Forum that I linked above.

I think it's worth looking at what's making that poster unhappy. She's spent four years hopped up on drugs to earn a degree in a field she hates because her parents made her. She's got no friends, no hobbies, nothing she does to make her happy. I don't think her issue is that she's entitled, it's that her life is kind of miserable. You can't control your kid's life enough to make sure they don't end up feeling that way, but do what you can.

+1, there are a number of things about that OP's experience I have empathy for and are directly related to parental actions:

- Her parents moved across the country in the middle of her high school experience, destabilizing her social life right before she left for college. That's tough.

- Her parents pushed her into a major she has zero interest in based on earning potential, which both made her miserable during college and is setting her up to have zero enthusiasm for her career post college. She even has empathy for why her parents did this, understanding they fear her falling into the poverty they experienced as kids. But they were incorrect-- she would have been better off with a degree in a less lucrative but stable field she actually likes. This is someone who could be happy as a teacher, office administrator, medical technician, etc., all of which are stable, in demand careers her parents pushed her away from because they wanted her to be a "top earner."

- Her parents clearly don't know how to offer emotional support or encouragement, which is a major reason she comes off as whiny and engaged in a lot of black and white and catastrophic thinking. You can teach kids emotional resilience by showing them how to weather difficult feelings and experiences. But you have to show up for them and let them know they aren't totally alone in their bad feelings, and definitely don't pile on with judgment and reprobation ("you have no reason to be unhappy, you have a Computer Science degree from a great school and should just stop complaining and get a job"). Empathy and being people your kid can come to with even petty problems can give them the support they need to work through those issues and then be more resilient out in the world.

Also I think that PPs college experience regarding Covid must have really sucked and her ex-bf was really harsh during their break up, it is no wonder she's struggling.

Are we reading the same post? You seem deluded.

If you offer a kid (yes, maturity wise, she's a kid, not the 22 year old she actually is) as whiny as this "emotional support" or "encouragement," they will become even more self-pitying and won't do anything.

Initially, maybe. But that is because for 22 years she has gotten little true emotional support from her parents (who likely have childhood trauma from growing up in poverty that has stunted them emotionally). I do think she could eventually learn though. I grew up with similar parents and was very whiny at that age because I had so many unmet emotional needs and had absolutely no clue how to meet them myself, so I complained a lot. It's called "externalizing" because you lack the personal reserves to work through this stuff yourself.

But OP asked how they can avoid this in the first place, and that's much easier than addressing it at 22. If you are emotionally supportive of your kids starting when hey are very young, you can naturally teach them emotional resilience and skills for working through emotional challenges so that they never get to the point as adults where the only tool they have for dealing with frustration, confusion, anger, or ambivalence is to complain.

You start with little kids, allowing them to have feelings not shutting them down when the cry or get upset. You empathize with them, even with things that seem very small and unimportant to you, recognizing that to a 3 or 4 year old, it might feel like a very big thing. But you also stay calm when they get upset, so you are always modeling for them the idea that you can have big emotions, big reactions to things, but also you can stay clam and level headed and return to a place of practicality -- okay, how do we proceed? At first you have to teach them the tools for moving forward, for bringing rationality and productivity into problems so that you a solve them instead of wallowing in them. With time you let them do more of this themselves while you are just nearby, supporting and encouraging. Eventually you wind up with teens and young adults who can experience a set back like realizing they don't like their chosen profession, or feeling like Covid robbed them of a "normal" college experience, or feeling socially isolated and out of step with peers, and they can feel their justified anguish over these things, but also return to those skills of residence to work through them. Ideally also kids like this will be self-aware enough to avoid some of the worst mistakes, but people make mistakes and there are some things (like a global pandemic or your parents moving you across the country at the age of 16) that you might not have control over. People have to learn how to work through tough problems, but it's clear that this young woman's parents didn't do much to provide her with that education. You won't get it in school.

I think it might be the biggest legacy I leave my own kids. They are resilient, practical people who might complain now and then but know how to figure it out and push through to make better or different choices. They are also very self aware and will often check themselves when they get whiny or start spiraling and realize, eh, they are just hungry or need to get more sleep, and then can tackle the problem again later with a better attitude. I did not have those skills AT ALL at 22 but my kids already have them as teenagers. I think it makes a huge difference.

PP, you seem insufferable. You are definitely one of those annoying parents who believe in "gentle parenting" and validating your kids' emotions. Guess what? That shouldn't apply to posters like the one OP linked, or her sister, because these narcissists will just take, take, and take. If you give these children (and that's fundamentally what they are, kids, because regardless of their age they will never mature until they are invalidated) an inch, they WILL take a mile.

This is why basically every kid I knew growing up who had "gentle parents" who "validated their emotions" ended up being insufferable, self-indulgent young adults. Pushing past your kids' emotions to make them choose reasonable decisions (whether it's forcing themselves through a lucrative but boring major, which BTW, I'm sure this poster will thank her parents for in a couple of years) and DISREGARD their emotions is the most valuable gift you can give them as an adult.

I am glad that your kids have self awareness and are able to stop whining when they go down a negative spiral. But strict, tough-love parenting is the best way to produce such a result. Indulging in your kids' emotions is a one-way ticket to get them to navel-gaze and excessively ruminate on their emotions.

IME, this kind of parenting is a good way to produce compliant kids who follow all your rules until at some point they freak out, melt down, and spend the next 20 years in therapy trying to figure out why their parents hated them.

It is not the best way to develop independent, confident, resilient kids unless by "independent" you mean "doesn't really speak to me anymore, recently blocked me on Facebook for some reason."

But best of luck to you and your kids!