Spoiled Kids

The information that was originally here has been moved to a page called Generosity. I've added related links for anyone who has found this page from an old link.

An article I wrote in 2000 called Magical Thinking and Spoiled Children ends with

"You can't give what you don't have," some people say, and if you want your children to give generosity and kindness and patience to others, you should give them so much they're overflowing with it.

It works with Respect, too.

Having a feeling of abundance is also useful.


Happier, easier

little red wagon
"There's a common parenting myth that making our kids' lives easier, being sweet and kind and gentle with them, makes them greedy and unfit for adult life. It is not true. Kids learn from experience. When they experience a lot of kindness, they learn the value of kindness in very real, concrete ways. When we make their lives easier, we make it easier for them to learn more and more richly. And they're happier. And that makes parenting easier, because we're not dealing with kids who are stressed out and frustrated."
—Meredith Novak

New writing by Meredith (new in 2013), a little like SandraDodd.com/spoiled
photo by Sandra Dodd

Other Parenting Considerations