I appeared on a Huffington Post Live segment today to discuss
the topic, “Are Parents Raising Entitled Kids?” The segment was based upon a blog post I had written for my website and The Huffington Post Parents blog called, “Two Tales Involving 350 Kids, Entitlement and Lessons in Parenting and Life.” Two tales involving 350 kids and lessons in entitlement and parenting and life
It was fun to be on the show with Fred Goodall Mocha Dad Blog of Houston, Kelly Lynch out of New York, and Tara Kennedy-Kline in Pennsylvania.
Our discussion centered around the recent event in the news, where 300 teens broke into the home of a former NFL Player, ransacked his home, posted photos on Twitter and Instagram; and when given an opportunity to make good by the victim, a few parents of the guilty teens threatened to sue the home owner because he re-posted the very pictures that the teens had themselves posted. I contrasted that incident with another recent news event, where a coach benched his entire football team for having a bad attitude, and he insisted that community service was the only way back on the team.
We discussed, What are we missing as parents? What kind of kids are we raising? Elitist, entitled, irresponsible? We mused on possible reasons for a more me-centered generation, such as the fact that this generation of parents are so much more connected with their children and cannot separate themselves from them. In addition, parents want to be their best friend rather than parent now and befriend later.
Ideas for combating this issue that were discussed in the segment included making expectations clear to kids, allowing kids to set their goals, setting high standards as parents for our children, and teaching them to give back.
Click on the link to the entire segment here and feel free to share your own ideas. Link for segment: HUFF POST LIVE -ARE PARENTS THE PROBLEM
