Megan C is a mother of three daughters and she has always wanted to give her children the very best.
She and her husband have a modest family background. And both of them work hard to provide for the education of their three daughters.
What to do if you have spoilt kids?
“I have thought that I am actually loving my children by giving them what they want. Other than schooling, I ask very little of them,” said Megan.
Megan sensed something wrong with the relationship with her daughters, and decided to seek help from relationship expert Hellen Chen.
Megan found something wrong after a while when her relationship with her daughters became rough. She would come home and see her kids sitting in front of the television. And when she’d ask them to stop watching TV, she would get swear words thrown back at her.
Whatever she tried to say to her children, she would get the most disrespectful behavior — to the degree that she felt like her kids were treating her like a lowly servant.
“They are not horrible children. But I do not know what went wrong,” Megan said. As all parents, even she wondered if she had spoilt kids!
Stepping up to seek help for spoilt kids
Relationship expert and bestselling author Hellen Chen has helped couples and families to solve conflicts in the area of relationships. Megan sought Chen’s help in finding out what went wrong in her household.
Family expert and relationship master Hellen Chen cuddles a baby at a baby naming ceremony.
“Both Megan and her husband have the simple goal of providing for their children with education and material comfort. But they are missing a huge part of raising children and, thus, they managed to raise spoiled irresponsible kids instead, and worst of all, their children do not feel their love at all,” said Chen.
Indeed, Megan confessed that her children would be so dependent on her for the simplest tasks and yet, as mother and daughters, they could not have deep conversations about anything.
The biggest parenting mistake of all with spoilt kids
In a magazine interview on parenting, Chen talked about one of the biggest mistakes well-meaning parents commit, which causes them to raise irresponsible kids. She called it the “all-you-need-to-do-is-study” concept.
“All you need to do is study.”
According to Hellen Chen, that’s the biggest mistake that most parents make with their kids.
Chen explained that parents who want their children to focus only on academic end up teaching them not to care for other aspects of their responsibilities.
“So a child graduated from a good college. But he or she has no skills to have friends or carry a lasting relationship or start a family. Or be responsible at a job. The truth is, if those skills are not learned from very young [sic], that child will pay the price when they reach adulthood,” said Chen.
People who failed in their marriage may have missed out on basic social responsibilities from young.
“It is no coincidence that when you look at someone who fail [sic] in their marriage, they have missing education in social responsibilities from young [sic]. A parent who trained the child to only look at his or her academic accomplishments is telling the child that life is all about getting a degree. You set the stage for that child to fail miserably in life,” Chen added.
When asked about the high divorce rates in the US and in Asia. Chen related part of the problem to the misguided education at home from ‘well-meaning’ parents.
Let’s make love work!
Hellen Chen is the author of 22 books that focuses on relationships, marriage, parenting and personal accomplishments.
Chen has written 22 books on the subject of relationships, marriage, parenting and personal accomplishments. Her latest book, Hellen Chen’s Love Seminar became the #1 marriage and relationship book in the US. It highlights the concepts of how one can have a happy relationship.
“If we are raising our children to only think about themselves, do not then be surprised that child grows up to be a man or woman that only asks for ‘how could you make ME happy?'” said Chen.
Article written by Ms Yin Chew, Community Affairs Director of HellenChen.com.
Also read: Are Singaporean kids spoilt?
