Richard Watts - Entitlemania: How Not to Spoil Your Kids, and What to Do if You Have

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Copyright 2017 Richard C. Watts, Inc.

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Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62634-349-8

eBook ISBN: 978-1-62634-346-7

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First Edition

To my three wonderful sons: Russell, Todd, and Aaron. Thank you for appreciating life and for enabling your mom and dad to sleep with dreams... instead of nightmares. The more you are not like us, the more proud we are!

Love, Dad

PS: To my wife, Debbie,

the consummate wife, mother, and grandmother.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Anne Justus, for braving through unending editing and organization.

Thanks to Lisa Harer and Victoria Vega, my coworkers, for allowing me to engage this passion amid a busy day.

Thanks to Nick Lehnert, Tony Madrigal, Rick Mathis, Dan Moore, Bill Noble, Dave Richens, Chris Smith, Bobby Weinberg, and Scott Dickson for keeping me grounded in all things.

Thanks to Roger and Cheryl Spurlock, for modeling terrific grandparenting.

Thanks to Steve Nassau, for brilliant titling and insight to unique thinking.

Entitlemania is not my word. It has been used before in many blogs and parenting articles. Thank you, Laura Kastner, PhD, for encouraging me to use it for the title.

INTRODUCTION

Entitlemania Exposed

ENTITLEMANIA APTLY DESCRIBES THE STATE OF MIND IN WHICH children believe they should have anything they want, while also believing they shouldnt have to make any effort to get it. Remarkably, we parents, who are responsible for creating these children, are typically unaware our actions are the single cause of this result.

Whether you are a new parent and are concerned about teaching your young children to appreciate what they receive and to earn what they desire, or if you are the parents of preteens, high schoolers, college students, or adult children, Entitlemania: How NOT to Spoil Your Kids... and What to Do If You Have will help you recognize what behaviors of yours might be germinating the seeds of entitlement. If your kids are already suffering from this epidemic, as many of our children are, let me show you what you can do to slow this train from barreling down the tracks toward directionless lives, in which your children have yet to make the connection between effort and achievement.

My name is Richard Watts. Some of the richest families in America retain me to shadow their daily lives. As a personal advisor and their legal counsel, my job is to predict obstacles in their lives and figure out how to save their children, and their childrens children, from the perils of wealth, which, when applied improperly, can cause kids to become downright train wrecks. Some become unappreciative, entitled ingrates; others seem lost; and still others who start life with every advantage end up drugged out. For thirty years, I have witnessed scores of children grow up and become successful and others become dismal failures. They all have one thing in common: parents.

In my first book, Fables of Fortune: What Rich People Have That You Dont Want, we discover the counterintuitive nature of becoming wealthy and examine how the more things we acquire, the more difficult it is to find happiness. My second book, Entitlemania, looks at the ways in which well-meaning parents often weaken their children by overindulging them and overmanaging their lives. Moreover, when parents give their children too much, it often prevents those children from recognizing their true aspirations. It takes away their opportunity for discovery and the self-pride and contentment that follows adversity and struggle.

It IS Your Fault

Most well-intentioned parents hope to minimize their own difficulty and maximize their pleasure... I will help you (my child) have a wonderful life, and you will feel good about it... and yourself!

Undoubtedly, any parent knows this is easier said than done. All you have to do is look around and you will see children who have been given countless opportunities and guidance at every turn by experienced and loving parents. Yet, despite living in a world of instant access and unlimited knowledge resources, many children appear unequipped for their futures. Why? What did we miss? Our parenting program was thought out carefully and executed with tireless dedication. Our script was a combination of minimizing failure in our kids lives and providing the opportunities we missed in our own lives either through neglect or lack of money. We gave our kids everything we ever wanted!

We gave ourkids everythingwe ever wanted!

Does that work? Beware, as Robert Woodson says, In the process of giving our kids everything we didnt have, we forget to give them what we did have.

Convince yourself of this simple and certain truth: For everything you give your child, you take something away. Our responsibility as concerned parents is to determine what you are taking away. The self-actualized parents of today exchange concerns over coffee, golf, shopping, and dinners. When did our children develop this sense of entitlement to what we, their parents, have; what they, the children, want; and what they expect? These parents experience no cognition of blame and no introspection. It cant be our fault. Society, college, or peer pressure created these little ingrate children of ours, not us! Wrong! It is us. Feeling entitled isnt a bad thing. In fact, the entitled child doesnt feel entitled at all. It is the parent who feels unappreciated and misunderstood!

Surprise! Its Not New

The entitlement problem, although seemingly a current-day phenomenon, is not a new trend. The nineteenth-century psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, addressed it back in his day. This is what he had to say about the process that leads to entitlement:

They are impelled to ascribe to the child all manner of perfections which sober observation would not confirm, to gloss over and forget all [their] shortcomings... The child shall have things better than [their] parents, [they] shall not be subject to the necessities which they have recognized as dominating life... restrictions on [their] own will are not to touch [them]; the laws of nature, like those of society, are to be abrogated in [their] favour; [they are] really to be the center... of creation.