Are you worried about entitlement? I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach about parenting
and family communication all over the world through the lens of self-government and in this
video I'm going to be talking about how to avoid raising an entitled child with these seven tips.
In this video we're going to talk a little bit about entitlement to make sure that we understand
it and then I've got seven tips for you that will help you stop entitlement before it starts
and cure it if you've already started down that path. So what is entitlement? Entitlement is
actually a feeling that a person has that they need to be in control of everything, that they
should be able to get everything that they want. Maybe it's certain treatment, maybe it's a type
of respect from another person, maybe they should get a free pass to not have to follow through with
certain rules or regulations or maybe it's just stuff like that cell phone that so many children
ask their parents for. So, entitlement is this feeling of deserving and you start thinking of
the other people around you as a means to get what you want whether it's a feeling or a thing.
It's really unhealthy and it is definitely an epidemic right now around the United States and
even really around the world. In fact I've been asked to go to many countries and there is a huge
concern about entitlement. I'm not sure people are putting one and one together and recognizing
that they are actually creating entitlement. If you want to know some ways that entitlement is
created, be sure to check out my other video on entitlement called why are my kids so entitled,
that's going to give you some more insight there. So, let's talk about these seven tips for curing
entitlement before it even starts. Wouldn't that be nice? What if there was a recipe for creating an
environment where a child would not get entitled? There is a name for the perfect environment for
curing entitlement before it even starts and that perfect environment is actually family.
The family is the place where a person learns to be entitled or to not be entitled. Now of course
some parents work really hard at not promoting entitlement to their children but then they
start getting entitled ideas from other sources like digital and friends and stuff like that. I
do know that that can be a thing but I want you to know that the fix has to happen in the home.
If it does not happen in the home, oftentimes it just is not happening is what I've been noticing
as I've been working with people through a lot of their difficult family problems. So, what are some
of these seven things that we can do? Number one is you've got to make a deliberate plan
for where your family is headed. The family is the perfect environment for teaching a person
not to be entitled because the family is not about one person, it's not about one child. It's about a
group of people and they all have to give to each other all the time. So, you've got to teach your
child that this family needs to be sacrificed for. Parents should sacrifice willingly for each other
and for children and children should sacrifice willingly for each other and for their parents.
When we sacrifice in a family for a common goal, this actually undermines entitlement before it
even starts. In our family, we have what's called a family vision. There's actually videos here on
this channel that talk about family visions as well and creating those so you can definitely
look into those. But we have family visions in our family where we have determined where we are
headed as a family. We've said we want to be this type of a family this many years in the future
and these are the steps we are going to take to get there. It's super powerful actually. It keeps
everybody focused on this end goal. Now, can we control if everybody turns out that way that's
in the family vision? No way. But it's not about actually hitting that moment when you say we're
the perfect us, that's not what a family vision about is about. That family vision is an arrow, it's
pointing the family in a certain direction so that we don't get caught in all of the hard moments,
the emotional stuff that happens. Instead we say but where are we going, but where are we
going and we fix the problems so that we can keep going in that direction. In fact fixing a problem
and teaching your child how to do that is another key thing in combating entitlement. I teach skills
to people and I teach people these four basic skills. The most basic of all of the four basic
skills is the skill following instructions. If a person cannot do the five steps to following an
instruction, then that person usually is not going to have much success at controlling themselves
ever and they will start thinking it's everybody else's job to do everything for them to
make their problems go away, etc. So when you know that you can instruct yourself and follow through
with that instruction, then you also know that you have a bit of a control over yourself instead of
expecting to to control everyone else around you to get your outcomes. So, an entitled person does
want to control everyone else around them in order to get what it is that they want.
So, what are the steps to following an instruction? You look at the person or the situation, you keep
a calm face, voice and body, you say okay or you ask to disagree appropriately with the person you
might be talking to, you do the task immediately and then you check back. Now ideally following
instructions is learned from an authority figure and who better than a parent authority to teach
a child that they need to honor the parental authority and follow instructions from the parent.
If the child can learn to follow instructions from the parent, they can also learn to follow
instructions from employers, teachers and even themselves. A person does not learn self-government
unless they can instruct themselves and actually follow through. So when we teach our children vital
skills like following instructions, it actually changes the way they see themselves in all of
their relationships which in the end leads to more gratitude and connection and we all want
kindness, right? Well kindness doesn't happen if the bond is not there. So, the family vision
is going to start that bond going in the right direction, giving everybody a purpose as a group
and then we're going to learn some communication skills so that we can be successful in this group
and not have everything be about us all of the time. Before I get to the next skill, click
that subscribe button. There are so many videos you're not going to want to miss. Subscribe now.
Number three, teach your child to accept no answers. Sometimes we don't get things our way, that's life.
Sometimes there's a boundary line that we should not cross over, that's life. You have to teach your
child how to accept that that is part of life. You have to set that up by requiring that they learn
the skill accepting a "no" answer or criticism. In order to accept a "no" answer, you look at the person
or situation, you keep a calm face, voice and body, you say okay or you ask to disagree appropriately
with the person and then you drop the subject, which means you don't think about it anymore. This
means that you can learn how to adapt, that you can recognize things won't always go your way. This
is a great lesson for a person who's struggling with entitlement. This also means we need to tell
our children no from time to time. In fact kind of regularly would be a good idea. If we do not
tell our children no on a regular basis and expect that they can accept those "no" answers, we actually
might be promoting entitlement and disabling them. We don't want to do that so make sure that
you give your children a lot of opportunity to use that skill accepting "no" answers. Number four,
teach your child the skill accepting consequences. When a person accepts consequences, they're taking
responsibility for their own actions. This goes completely against entitlement. When a person is
entitled, they think it's everybody else's fault that something happened to them. So, there are six
steps to accepting a consequence and if a person does not get the opportunity to learn
those skill steps, then they actually won't learn self-government either.
So to accept a consequence, you look at the person, keep a calm face, voice and body,
say okay or ask to disagree appropriately, do your consequence and then you check back and drop the
subject. A person can do that if they want to even if it isn't their favorite to be told that they
did something that was wrong. An entitled person should be able to be corrected if they have to
be right in everything they do, that is entitlement as well and it's just another controlling behavior.
So what if your child needs to be heard? All of these skills that we've been talking about so far
are things that they need to do to basically comply with what the family plans are but what
if they want to tell us something? What if we don't understand something that they need to express
to us? Well when a family is self-governed, they actually should have a lot more discussion, not
less discussion. We shouldn't be shutting them down from talking to us. We should be opening up the
door to talking to us. So there is a skill called disagreeing appropriately, it's one of my favorite
self-government skills and actually for the children, it's usually their favorite too because
it is the perfect skill, it's the gateway skill to self-government. It disengages the emotional
and it engages the logical prefrontal cortex and gives them an opportunity to be understood
all at the same time. It's so beautiful and it sounds like this. The child might
say to me mom, may I disagree appropriately about not being able to go outside to play? Oh, sure, I
would say and they'd say mom, I know you don't want me to go outside and play because it's dinner time
but when I came in to wash my hands, I told my friend to wait out there for me and I don't want
them to have to wait for a really long time so can I just go outside for maybe five more minutes and
then come into dinner? Guess what I'm going to say? I'm going to say sure. Wow, you did such a great job
of disagreeing appropriately with me. You looked right at me, you kept a calm face, voice and body,
you sought to understand my point of view and then expressed your point of view. I totally get
where you're coming from and I don't want you to be rude to your friend. Yes, you go ahead and go out
there and how awesome that that child's thinking of their friend because that right there is a
sign that hopefully they are going in a direction that won't lead toward entitlement. Compassion is
important, service is important, all of these things are very important for developing an
attitude where a person will not have entitlement. So, learning to disagree appropriately and seek
to understand other people before you seek to be understood is going to be a skill that hopefully
can permeate in other aspects of their lives as well. Number six is we need to give a response to
their behavior and their actions and I don't mean a reaction, I mean a response. When a child doesn't
do one of these four basic skills that I've just talked about in our family, they get corrected
and a correction is something we do with calmness which is really powerful so that they don't feel
like they're being attacked or being pulled into an emotional manipulation. So, we correct them
consistently every time, same words every time, super predictable which lowers anxiety which
helps a person also not feel like they're being mistreated which can hopefully deter any other
little thoughts of entitlement that they might have creeping in. Another thing that we need to do
as far as responding is make sure that we praise the good. When a person learns self-government, they
learn cause and effect in all things that means good equal good and bad needs to equal bad
and you should praise your children regularly. Most people do not praise their children enough so
definitely putting a focus on that will show your child that you are noticing when they are making
an effort but you're also consistently correcting things when things go wrong. Number seven is
calmness. So if you want your child to learn to not be entitled like so many of the other children are
right now, then you've got to let them know how to be calm. When things are welling up inside, when
they're starting to feel emotional, how can they be calm? You've got to teach them the skills that
they need for success. This is super important. In fact there is a video that I have all about this
and I think that would probably be the very best video for you to watch next, that video is called
how to teach children to be calm power skills. So, learn the power skill calmness for yourself
and your child and you will definitely be able to combat entitlement in your family.
Click on the link to the calmness class now and I'll see you there.