Richard Bromfield - How to Unspoil Your Child Fast: A Speedy, Complete Guide to Contented Children and Happy Parents

Offers lots of practical advice with great empathy and wit, and shows parents how they can drastically improve their family life.

Rochelle Sharpe, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist

A lively, engaging, helpful book that offers a look at our generation of parents and why were tempted to indulge our children.

Cookie magazine

Describes helpful, pertinent, and loving ways to correct spoiled behavior before it becomes a serious problem.

ParentWorld

A snappy read, so you cant claim you dont have time. And the methods simple, so you cant pretend you arent qualified to use it.

Newsday

Copyright 2010 by Richard Bromfield
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bromfield, Richard.

How to unspoil your child fast : a speedy, complete guide to contented children and happy parents / by Richard Bromfield.

p. cm.

1. Child rearing. 2. Parenting. I. Title.

HQ769.B6814 2010

649.7dc22

2010010672

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the parents and children whove taught me well.

I swear, my dear, youll spoil that child.

THOMAS CONGREVE, 1694

I WISH TO THANK Rochelle Sharpe for reading and advising on an earlier version of the book. Thanks to Whitney Lee for generously carrying my message to parents in other countries. And, most of all, my gratitude goes to Shana Drehs at Sourcebooks whose editorial enthusiasm and wisdom get much of the credit for transforming my original manuscript into this book.

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.

SOCRATES

ARE OUR CHILDREN INDULGED AND SPOILED?

Check out the numbers. According to a 2007 survey conducted by AOL and the family magazine Cookie, 94 percent of parents say their children are spoiled, up from the 80 percent measured by a 1991 Time and CNN poll. This percentage may sound high, but to me the question is, Who are these other 6 percent, and who are they kidding?

Though you might be years from thinking about your childs adolescence, consider these sobering statistics: A Schwab Foundation survey found that 31 percent of teens owe an average of $230, and 14 percent owe more than $1,000! Is it any wonder that about half of these teens expressed concern about whether they would ever be able to repay these debts? In another poll that sampled the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, 57 percent of parents felt that their children had failed to learn the value of money and how to work for it. And in a Center for a New American Dream survey, a vast majority of parents (87 percent) reported that the consumerism of modern society makes instilling good values in their children a much harder job. That the amount of advertising dollars targeting youths is nearing $20 billion$20 billion!and is being aimed at younger children, even toddlers, underscores the fact that parents fears are well founded.

The numbers dont lie, and there are too many of them to ignore or dismiss as random static or propaganda from any one interest group. The overindulgence thats epidemic in America and most other industrialized countries is an equal-opportunity illness. It plagues the rich, the middle class, and the poor, without regard for a familys race, religion, or politics.

But those are statistics about all children. Lets talk about specific childrenchildren like six-year-old Gabe. In his short life, Gabe has already made substantial progress in his quest for every set in the Playmobil catalog. Last I heard, Gabe had saved $200 of his own money to put toward an expensive Playmobil collectors set that his parents agreed to purchase on his behalf the exact day that he has enough money, a goal he expects to reach quickly.

Callie is a bright kindergartner whose demands and tantrums hold her parents hostage. Callies intelligent parents struggle through day after day of perpetually surrendering and kowtowing to their petite daughters every whim and wish.

Eleven-year-old Ashanti wears only first-run designer fashions while her hardworking mother buys her own professional wardrobe at outlet and discount stores. Ashanti thinks in terms of outfits, so her frequent shopping sprees include necessities such as matching footwear, jewelry, and even makeup.

Four-year-old Clark, though he is a strong, healthy, and athletic boy, likes to be carried by his mothereverywhere and all the time. When Clarks mother needs to do something or her arms get tired, Clark screams as if the ground were made of hot coals. In many ways, Clarks mother treats Clark as if he were still an infant.

Last but not least, the third grader Devin insists on not only what he wants but also what everyone should want. Devin serves as uninvited consultant to all of his parents decisions: the color laptop his mother bought, the car options his father chose, the restaurants the family eats at, the movies they see, and the driving routes his parents take.

For thirty years now, as a psychologist working with children and families, I have heard and seen the stress, misery, annoyance, and inconvenience of spoiled children. More so, I have been called in when the fallout of that indulgence has begun to surface or take hold, when children have become impossible to live with or have grown constantly unhappy and insatiable. Frequently, Ive entered the scene after many years or even a decade of overindulgence, when parents bring in their malcontented teens who are unable to manage the trials and tasks of growing up toward adulthood. And often Ive found that, whatever the childs and the familys issues, parents straightening out their indulgent parenting has helped to improve everything.

Ive written this book with one simple and clear mission: to help parents unspoil their spoiled children. Though the book can help parents to remedy overindulged adolescents, it is aimed squarely at parents of young children, ages two to twelve years old. My method is based on what parents have taught me, over thirty years of clinical experience, about raising children who are contented, happy, and fulfilled. Theres little virtue in reinventing your own parenting wheel. Why shouldnt you and your child profit and learn from other parents missteps, trials, and errors?