‘90s FAMILY : You <i> Can </i> Raise a Confident, Unbratty Child
Not many parents want a bratty kid. Experts offer these tips on how to foster self-esteem without being a spoiler:
* Acknowledge when a child makes you angry, said clinical psychologist Robert Karen, author of “Becoming Attached: Unfolding the Mystery of the Infant-Mother Bond and Its Impact on Later Life” (Warner Books, 1994). “The truth is that a kid can enrage parents and make them want to throw the kid out the window. . . . Anger is not a bad thing.”
Children are experts at reading--and manipulating--a parent’s feelings, experts said. “They see through any disguises,” Karen said. “Holding back anger is poisonous to the self-esteem of a child and parent.”
* Apologize if you overreact or have an outburst. “It’s OK for parents to make mistakes,” Karen said. “A few times won’t destroy a child’s self-esteem.”
“Heaven knows that most parents, no matter what their race or economic level, have wonderful intentions,” added Susan Ginsberg, who teaches parenting classes nationwide and publishes the newsletter Work & Family Life. “Parents try like hell to do it right.”
* Realize that with the enormous proliferation of parenting and self-esteem books, information will be contradictory, Ginsberg said. “It’s best to use your common sense.”
* Teach children empathy. Otherwise, Ginsberg said, they might grow up to be like the “young, spiffy-looking college student I watched on a train leaving New Haven (Conn.). He was tearing out inserts from a magazine and slinging them all over the train’s floor. I finally said to him, ‘This is not your train. What makes you think you can litter it?’ He was so snotty and nasty about it. He was the quintessential spoiled kid who grew up to be an entitled brat.”
* Resist comparing yourself to families in the ‘50s. “That time permeates the air in our culture. But it is a fantasy that produces guilt,” Ginsberg said. “Stay-at-home parents then didn’t spend all their time playing wonderful, educational games with their kids. They did other things, like cleaning the floors.”
* Do not rely on schools to teach children self-esteem. A few years ago, Ginsberg worked in a preschool in Upstate New York. “One of the goals of the teachers was to develop students’ self-esteem. Those are nice words. But none of the teachers called kids by their names.”
* Rid yourself of needless guilt about being a single parent, a working parent or a divorced parent, said therapists Craig and Sandra Volgy Everett, authors of “Healthy Divorce” (Jossey-Bass, 1994).
Divorce, in particular, compels parents to spoil. “They’re so worried about permanently harming the child,” Craig Everett said. “It’s more difficult to set firm limits and expectations and then follow through on them.”
* Discipline in the early years, Sandra Everett said. “Parents make the mistake of allowing their 3-year-old to act like a tyrant because the child is cute. Well, a child is not so cute at age 10.” By then, much of the child’s personality has formed.
* Avoid tiptoeing around kids’ feelings, said Fred G. Gosman, a father of two and author of “Spoiled Rotten: Today’s Children and How to Change Them” (Villard, 1992). “We don’t have to shield a kid from every bad feeling.
“Boomers put their children on pedestals. We bail them out of trouble, often when we shouldn’t. We don’t allow them to experience disappointment,” he said. He knows parents who award trophies to kids who have lost a competition “so the kid won’t feel worthless.” And parents who give presents to all siblings, not just the birthday boy. This breeds “an attitude that the world will always owe them.”
* Enforce family rules consistently. In most cases, Gosman said there’s no need to negotiate. “Kids today think they have the right to filibuster.”