|
Parenting Strategy 4:
Distinguish Between Your Children's Needs and Wants
BY ARLENE F. HARDER, MA, MFT
NOTE: Four of my first six strategies for confident and practical parenting are central to discipline problems parents often have with their children:
 Listen, talk and guide with love: Communication that works
Distinguish between your child’s needs and wants
Teach responsibility and respect
Discipline as consistently as possible
Notice that discipline comes last, since it is much easier after the other strategies have been put in place.
“America is a consumer culture, and when we change what we buy—and how we buy it—we’ll change who we are.”
— Faith Popcorn, The Popcorn Report, 1991
In an consumer-driven society, there is little differentiation between what we truly need to be comfortable, healthy and safe and what we believe we need to be comfortable, healthy and safe. Unable to make that distinction—coupled with a desire to do the best for their children—parents can easily overindulge their child.
The result is a generation of young people who very often:
Don’t feel responsible for what they have, because there is always more on the horizon if something breaks or is lost in carelessness.
See others as consumers, rather than citizens of the world, and don't realize that we are all responsible for the care of the earth’s resources.
Are less likely to be truly grateful for the abundance of what they have, because it comes to them so easily.
Have a sense of entitlement not only to material possessions, but to having the “best” of everything.
Find it difficult not to be the center of attention.
Compare themselves with others on the basis of what they wear or own.
Define their worth, and the worth of others, in terms of what they own or what they are likely to be able to have.
Believe they are only okay if they have lots of “stuff”.
Find it difficult to initiate activities on their own, other than those that can gain them more material possessions, because they haven’t had experience in being creative in filling their time productively.
Lose the opportunity to learn for themselves when they’ve had enough.
They are unable to take care of themselves because no one taught them how to work toward self-sufficiency.
Why Parents Give in to the “Gimmies”
“The gimmies” and the “I just GOTTA haves” are techniques children often use effectively in playing their part in the Parenting Game. Pleading for toys, candy, more time to finish something that should have been done long ago, clothes, privileges, entertainment, etc. puts pressure on you, their coach. In the immediate skirmish it’s hard to resist the pressure, and to know whether in that particular case you are giving what your child needs or what he or she simply wants.
The following attitudes of parents—toward buying their child things, or giving their child privileges—help distort the relationship between their child's needs and his wants:
 My child needs lots of the latest things to be successful in school
While computers and access to the Internet provide great learning opportunities and your child is unlikely to go to college, or even get through high school successfully, without knowing how to use one, are your child’s grades slipping simply because he doesn’t have the latest version of whatever program or technical gizmo that his friends use? In fact, it may be that the more toys (especially the electronic variety) he has, the harder it may be for him to do his schoolwork, because he’s so busy playing with them.
Lots of toys help my child be creative
What we are discovering about the climate in many early childhood education programs today—with their emphasis on testing and with all the time that is frequently spent preparing for rote learning—is that children can actually lose their ability to be creative by not giving them lots of free play opportunities. And children don’t need expensive toys to be creative. In fact, some “educational toys” with blinking lights with the voice that says, “That is RIGHT. You are s-o-o-o good,” when the child pushes the requested answer, teach just the opposite. They promote the concept of finding the “right” answer rather than experimenting in a natural way that allows them to internalize the process of finding what works and doesn’t work.
When I originally wrote this piece, I downplayed the importance of video games as opportunities for creativity, claiming that "your child doesn't so much play the game as the game plays the child." Then I read a new book by Steven Johnson titled Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter. I changed my mind. Of course, I realize that the title is meant to spark one's interest and it's obvious that "everything" bad isn't good. Arsenic isn't good for you no matter how you slice it. The subtitle of the book would have been more accurate.
Whereas I had once thought video games only good for development of hand-eye coordination, I can now see that "increasingly, the nonliterary popular culture is honing different mental skills that are just as important as the ones exercised by reading books." So I have to revise my opinion about video games. However, at the same time I can recognize that playing a video game offers a mental challenge for the brain, there are many ways to build creativity. Learning to play a musical instrument is one of them. Discovering how to solve a problem in cleaning up the environment is another. As I discuss in Instill in Your Child a Love of Learning, when you encourage your child to enjoy the process of discovery, he will find a thousand ways to engage his mind and to learn with enthusiasm.
I can’t stand my child’s tears and tantrums, especially when we’re out
If this is your problem, I strongly recommend you read Discipline as Consistently as Possible. If you’re afraid your bond with your child isn’t strong enough to withstand a firm “no,” also read Listen and Guide With Love.
Not being able to stand up to whining and pleading is a prime component of wanting your child to like you. That is understandable. No one wants their child to hate them. No one enjoys having a child make it sound as though the parent is the most horrible person in the world. But you are the adult. You know (most of the time) what is better for your child than she does. When she says she “hates” you because you won’t give her what she wants—and you give it to her because you want her to like you—you are teaching her that stomping her feet and demanding what she wants is the path to getting it. Not a pretty trait out in the world.
My child is bored if he doesn’t have toys and games to play with
If we only had one book, we’d be bored reading it over and over again. Having only one toy car, or one computer game, or one doll would admittedly be difficult for a child raised in the United States and other first world countries. We are fortunate in being able to provide for our children more than they can play with at one time. But just because having ten toys gives a child more options than having one, does he really need fifty?
We’ve come to believe that we must be entertained all the time. Not only must we have entertainment, but it must be provided for us. Movies. Videos. Amusement parks. TV. It’s no wonder children get the idea they are being deprived if their bedroom doesn’t have a large-screen TV, a computer with their own Internet access, superior sound system, a video-game center, and anything else that can accommodate the lifestyle the feel it is their right to have.
When we go to restaurants with my grandchildren, we bring along books to read the little ones while we wait for the food to arrive. Most two-year-olds can’t sit patiently without something to do. They’re supposed to be active at that age and need distraction. But what about older kids? Is it really so boring to be with members of your family that a teenager has to have a hand-held video game to play (see creativity note above), instead of discussing any of a thousand things with others at the table? Perhaps one of the reasons we see more impatience and rudeness today may be the tied to our children’s need for constant entertainment.
And is boredom really so bad? Out of boredom can come great creativity—that is, if a child doesn’t have instant gratification in the form of pre-formed entertainment. He may just have to create his own entertainment.
Besides, it’s hard for a child to be bored if there are storm windows to be installed, leaves to be raked, a lawn to be mowed, snow to be shoveled, programs for the poor to be supported, aging relatives to visit, community events to support, physical activities to pursue—provided those are considered as important for him as his toys.
I waited a long time to have a child and I have the right to spoil her if I want.
This is true. You have the right. But do you have the right to spoil her life? Because that is what is going to happen if she doesn’t learn that she isn’t the center of the universe. When she becomes an adult, she will have the problems listed earlier in this article and you may be surprised to discover a demanding grown child on your hands who does not know how to stand on her own legs.
I have to work long hours and don’t have much time to spend with my child, so by giving him things, he will know that I care about him.
This is the most pernicious argument, in my book, because a parent's sense of "guilt" has possibly created more materialism than any other factor. Because you don’t see your kids as much as you’d like, you buy them “a little something” each time you go to the store. Soon they’re expecting it and the line between what they want and what they need becomes a little more blurred.
What children really want from their parents is more time. They sense they’re being bought off with “stuff” and, though they’re willing to take the “stuff,” they’d rather have their parents take the time to listen to them and let them know they are okay without having to have so many things. They need to know, from their parents own words and actions, that their parents’ presence is more valuable than their presents. A hug, a smile, a kiss, a pat on the back as you walk past their chair as you sit down to dinner goes a lot further, in the long run, than some toy grabbed off the shelf of the local market or mall.
Being truly present with another person and experiencing that moment as a unique time for communication and connection, is hard to do when you’re working longer hours than ever and are exhausted at the end of the day. But knowing how to be present with anyone—child, partner, family member, employee, employer—even when you're not at your best, is a skill that will yield benefits far beyond simply helping your child.
I want my children to fit in with their friends.
TIME magazine said in an article titled “Do Kids Have Too Much Power” (Aug. 6, 2001) that, “According to the Maryland-based Center for a New American Dream, which dispenses antidotes for raging consumerism, . . . a majority admit to buying their children products they disapprove of—products that may even be bad for them—because the kids say they ‘needed’ the items to fit in with their friends.”
If your child tells you she absolutely MUST have the hippest clothes to fit in, this may be an opportunity to work with her on a clothes budget. Then, if she wants the latest style jeans and can only afford one pair, she can have it, but not more than the budget allows. Then, too, to ease the burden on your wallet, you can help her understand the pressures of Madison Avenue and explore the values you want to instill in her. See Teach Your Child to be Media Savvy.
I’m divorced and my former spouse can afford to buy things and I don’t want to seem like a cheapskate by comparison.
That same article in TIME also noted, “Nothing breeds wretched excess like divorced parents competing with each other and feeling guilty to boot.” If this is your situation, read all the reasons above on why parents get confused over needs and wants and remember that it doesn't matter whether you are able to, or simply want to, keep up with your ex (or whether you give your child things to keep up with the neighbor's kids), when you give your child more than he needs, you create a spoiled, indulged child who will have a hard time when he becomes and adult.
© Copyright 2005, Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT
| 
