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Authors: Dr. Carla Fry

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GRATITUDE Tip
Speaking It*
is best in a reciprocal fashion with others—at the dinner table, bedtime, or in the car. If you do not have anyone to Speak It to, then tell your cat. It is still spoken and communicated, which has the same positive impact.

Whereas thinking about gratitude is good, speaking about it is better. Research by Lyubormirsky and her colleagues
26
has shown that when we speak our gratitude aloud, we are more present in the moment, and that can be very valuable to children’s emotional and psychological wellbeing.

*See Appendix 3 in which we give you a template for Family Gratitude Dialogue to help with Speaking It.

Verbalizing gratitude with others, teaches children to have an awareness of what goes on around them, including how people feel about them. When children speak about gratitude, they start to express it more effectively.

Studies by our colleague Sara Algoe
27
have also suggested that expression of this appreciation can repair damaged relationships within the family unit. As children grow, communication can become difficult, and the family can struggle when entitlement is constantly wearing down the bonds of love and kindness.

When a child speaks about gratitude, and begins to express it within their own lives, there will be a natural change in the family dynamics. Getting excited about good things that have happened to us is a lot healthier than the negative mindset of “want” that fosters selfish chatter and negative perspectives on life.

Step 3: Writing It

Without a doubt, the most effective method of actively increasing the levels of gratitude in your life is to keep a gratitude journal—every day or even once a week. For children that have experienced emotional periods of negativity, entitlement, and anger, there is simply no better remedy than writing down their feelings.

  • Fully appreciating gratitude comes when you write about it regularly.

GRATITUDE Tip
Research tells us
Writing It
once a week is enough to reap all the benefits.

As mentioned earlier, writing in a gratitude journal does not need to be overdone: a few single lines into a plain and simple journal is just as powerful as a jazzed-up notebook that your child has enthusiastically decorated with bling.

It shows that not only are children thinking about gratitude more often, but they are speaking about it more in an attempt to make it part of their lives. The writing stage is an explorative exercise in trying to gain a better understanding of how gratitude improves and enhances their own lives. Seeing a child change their perspective with a gratitude journal is incredible.

Writing down the things that they are grateful for is the easiest way to get children to take that in-depth step and further explore this fulfilling emotion.

Begin with bullet points if you have to. Many children will not like the idea of having this extra bit of homework to do all the time. But you will notice a change in attitude once the words sink in. That is because writing inspires new thought, which begins the learning cycle all over again. When children are thinking, they are learning and growing.

Get your child to write down their thoughts and chat about these thoughts afterwards during family time.

Eventually, the me
ssage will sink in. Children want to be happy, and you have to show them that the most direct route to happiness is by gaining adequate understanding of the things they could appreciate in their lives.

Learning from the Gratitude Journal

Children learn a lot from their gratitude journals. They become more self-aware as they are able to go back and see what they have been grateful for over the past few weeks. It really calls them into the moment, something many children struggle with in this busy modern age with all its distractions.

Gratitude Tip
Begin by jotting down three to five things that you are grateful for every day. One line is enough. Ask your child questions like, “What rocked your world today?” and, “What positive learning experience did you have today?” to get the thoughts flowing.

Exercise: Try This Journal Exercise with Your Child

What if your child responds with an
“Umm…I don’t know!”
to the question
“What rocked your world today?”

Then you can cue your child.

  • If you are stuck, met with resistance, and are looking for a few good ideas, then remember the multisensory experiences that we discussed earlier in this chapter, and try asking:
  • What’s the yummiest TASTE that hit your tongue today?
  • What did you HEAR that put a smile on lips?
  • What did you TOUCH today that felt _____________?
  • What did you SEE today that helped you to be happy?
  • What did you SMELL that was delicious for your nose?

You need to guide your child on how to keep a gratitude journal so they can experience the personal gains and learn from it. When they are feeling down, it can be an exceptional tool for reminding them about the things in life that matter. Appreciation during the development years should never be underestimated—it is an essential part of being a happy child and teenager.

As we have said, we always recommend parents keep their own gratitude journals. Remember that our children learn more from what we do, than what we say. When they see our positive modeling of working to enhance our own gratitude, our children will notice. When we use a gratitude journal, it shows solidarity and is more likely to keep our child persisting at the exercise for longer. With the right motivation, eventually our children will begin to mentally store-up the good things that happen in their days in anticipation for the evening’s journal entry.

After a few weeks of journaling and reflection, your child’s perspective should begin to change. You can look forward to them sleeping better, interacting with you and others better, having higher energy levels, and beginning to foster a sense of empowerment—something entitlement tends to rob them of. When gratitude becomes action, lives change.

As your child notices and appreciates gratitude more often, they will become happier as people, and the “bad” things that happen to them in a day will not seem as bad.

Exercise: Your First Journal Entry

Parents can make the process of keeping a gratitude journal a very fun experience for children. Young children will love to spend a few hours decorating a special book with family photos, pictures, art, and stickers to personalize it. Older children will often enjoy doing the same thing, although they may like to do it on their own.

Gratitude Journal En
try:
February 19, 2013

Small:

I’m thankful for the chunky peanut butter on my toast this morning.

Medium:

I’m thankful for my cat, Roger.

Large:

I’m grateful that I have all my fingers and toes.

It is your job to guide this process as best you can, encouraging the act of writing at a set time every evening, preferably after homework if the child is old enough. You should also pay attention to the way that your child learns. If they are more visual, then have them add a drawing to each entry.

Once you’ve chosen your gratitude book, you will need to create the first entry. Spend some time chatting to your child about gratitude and what it means in your life. Show them an entry from your own gratitude journal, and encourage them to take five minutes out of their day to consider the positive things that happened.

Then have your child write a simple line about their day, split into three sections—small, medium, and large. Small things will constitute the little things that your child was grateful for today, medium things will be something with more impact, and these will lead up to the large things, which can include anything more significant in their lives that they are happy to experience or appreciate.

Focus on being as specific as you can, and tell your child to do the same, to get the most out of the journaling experience. Be consistent, and make sure to encourage your child to write in their journal regularly.

Points to Remember, Actions to Take

  • Key 1: You should keep a gratitude journal.
    Aside from literally rewiring your brain, gratitude journaling influences your brain to develop an
    attitude of gratitude
    , drawing attention to the good things in your life. This promotes awareness, abundance, and appreciation during the day. Not only do you attract more kindness and gratitude, but you give more of it as well.
  • Key 2: Your child will benefit from keeping a journal.
    Depending on the child’s age, it is more beneficial to start with a single line and build your way up to longer, more in-depth entries that involve significant detail. Focusing on
    people
    and
    experiences
    is also important, as being grateful for
    things
    can be superficial
    and empty.
  • Key 3: Use the three-step process.
    We have found that we absorb information best through a three-step process, which allows us to remember and be mindful of the subject on which we are focusing. By first thinking it
    , then speaking it, and then writing it down, we can change our behavior and gradually fill our lives with
    a positive outlook.
  • Key 4: Think about gratitude.
    Gratitude is a practice, like any trait that you want to nurture. Intelligence is nothing without constant learning, just like gratitude is nothing without daily application in your life. It is no secret that keeping a gratitude
    journal promotes positive thinking.
  • Key 5: Speak about gratitude.
    Verbalizing gratitude with others teaches children to be conscious of what goes on around them, including how other people feel about them. When children speak about gratitude, they start to express it more effectively.
  • Key 6: Children should write down their feelings.
    Writing down the things that children are grateful for is the easiest way to get them to take that in-depth step and further explore this fulfilling emotion. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have already proven that gratitude journaling works.
  • Key 7: Learn from your gratitude journal.
    After a few weeks of journaling and reflection, your child’s perspective should begin to change. Your child should sleep better, interact with you and others better, have higher energy levels, and begin to foster a sense of empowerment—something entitlement tends to rob them of. When gratitude becomes action, lives change.

    GRATITUDE ACTION
    Use the natural process outlined in this chapter to get your child to focus on what he/she appreciates in his/her life. By thinking, speaking, and then writing about these things, they will soon invite gratitude into their daily actions. Get that gratitude journal started!

26
. Lyubomirshky, S. (2013).
The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy.
Penguin Press

7

What if Entitle-mania has Already Hit Our Household?

“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.”

[Carl Jung]

We get it—you have fears that your child is already entitled and that maybe it is too late. This is the reason we wrote the book. In this chapter, we are addressing children, teens, and young adults that have already had their behavior and attitude shaped by their environment. This is where ninja parenting comes into play. Armor up and keep reading: it is not too late.

Since instilling gratitude and kindness, and
busting entitlement
, is dependent on change on our part, we can have a positive effect on our children at any age, whether three or 23. Change is always possible, but of course, rarely easy. And your child may not welcome such change. We challenge you to do it anyway.

We have seen how the entitlement bug can infect your child, and spoken about how to crush it quickly. Now, let’s look at the remedy when the
entitlement bug
has already taken hold.

Lasting, sustainable change, that allows your child to be resilient, independent, interpersonally connected, and successful, takes more than techniques or understanding. These are necessary, but not enough. If you think that your child is already infected by the
entitlement bug
, we first need to discuss what it will take to change your approach. Once you change, your child will follow.

Let’s go over the necessary building blocks for the treatment of the
entitlement bug
. To build a remedy that lasts and provides protection from re-infection, you must:

  • Cultivate the belief that you can impact the entitlement that exists.
  • Fully digest the knowledge and acceptance that entitlement is extremely negative and hurtful to your child—now and in the future.
  • Focus on the long-term effects of the entitlement bug on your child, not on the short-term wants of your child, or the short-term comfort for yourself.
  • Kick your own desires and wants to the extreme backburner (desire to be liked, desire to be the favorite, desire to be responsible for pleasing your child, desire to save or rescue your child from discomfort, etc.). This is not about judgment— we promise.
  • Have the ability to take some time to think about and to admit to yourself what you have done to unwittingly encourage entitlement. This will be the beginning of hatching a plan to bust the entitlement cycle.
  • Build a tight plan to undo misguided efforts— reducing your child’s upsets, protecting them from any uncomfortable experiences, etc. We have found that without a plan, we all tend to slide back easily into old patterns.
  • Adjust your belief that emotional discomfort for your children is all bad. Without changing this belief, it will be very challenging for you to not step back in to rescue your child from their problems.
  • Adjust any belief that you may be harboring that it is primarily your responsibility to make your child happy, comfortable, etc.
  • Ask yourself whether life skills (cooking a meal, washing clothes, organizing belongings, changing their own light bulbs, managing their money, sewing on their own buttons, checking the oil in their car…) are in any way important to you. If so, now is the time to teach these things. These skills do not magically appear when a child turns 18.
  • Determine if you have been over-prioritizing your child’s studies, competitive dance, football, or any other single skill to the detriment of giving them the opportunity to develop responsibility socially within the family and for themselves (Junior does not do chores because he is working hard to get in to an Ivy League school…).
  • Be motivated to
    stop making excuses
    for
    your child.

    I know he’s 15, but if I didn’t tell him to brush his teeth, he wouldn’t do it, and my dental bills are already too high.

    I’ll help her with her project—just this one time—because
    if I don’t, she will miss the deadline and she will lose marks.

    I guess I’ll let him get away with yelling at me today—
    he’s had a really hard day.

Notes from the Real Parenting Lab on the Ages and Stages of Entitlement Busting

It is not easy to know what to do to make changes, and what you might do varies according to how old your child is. Here are a few things to reflect on before we get down to the business of rehabilitating your environment and making a clean sweep of any
entitle-mania
that has taken hold in your family.

The Ca
se of the Entitled Young Child (0–6)

If your child is four-and-a-half and is acting in ways that are lacking empathy, gratitude, and patience, you are fortunate—because at this age, kindness and gratitude are relatively easy to boost. With a well thought-out plan and consistency of approach among caregivers, entitlement busting is rapid and may be somewhat painful for parents but not as painful as it will be later on.

The Case of the Entitled Child (7–12)

This is the second most challenging age range to redirect entitlement that has already set in. It is not pretty to make changes with a child this age, but you want to make serious adjustments now. Once your children are teens and entitlement is a way of life, the blood, sweat, and tears involved in shifting are considerably greater.

At any of these ages, the key to success is choosing a path of action before you do or say anything new. With middle childhood—aged children, this is more crucial than with any other age, because their job at this developmental stage is to push back and gain independence, and their energy and egocentrism are both hitting new peaks naturally.

Before we show you how to construct a plan of
entitlement- busting
(Appendix 2)
, you must have the following:

  1. Backup: family or friends to support you.
  2. Energy: do not take on entitlement-crushing with a feisty 11-year-old at the same time you start that huge new project at work.
  3. Time: modeling, discussing, and being patient, are time-consuming and cannot be rushed.
  4. Motivation, stubbornness, and a determination to stick to the plan, come what may.

The Case of the Entitled Teen

You might want to sit down for this one. It should be no surprise that if you have an entitled teen whose behavior has been entrenched for over a decade, you are in for some trouble. Expect extreme pushback, anger, sullenness—maybe even some,
I hate you
s—and for things to get worse before they get better.

Start with small changes. Begin by targeting disrespectful tone, words, and body language. Firm limit setting might be called for—but we would like to see you take action without punishment if you can:

  • Look for natural consequences.
    I will not drive you to the
    concert, because I feel disrespected by the way I’m being treated. I don’t believe that special privileges such as being driven to the concert today have been earned. You may walk or take transit if you would like.
  • L
    ook for special ways to occasionally recognize and encourage even the smallest act of kindness toward a family member.
    Hey, I really appreciate you tidying up the bathroom before your sister needs it to get ready for her dance recital. You know that’s important to her. Can I take you out for a latte after your homework is done?

The Case of the Entitled Young Adult

The English language is evolving in interesting ways to keep up with the concepts we are exploring in this book.
Helicopter Parenting, Hyper Parenting,
and
Invasive Parenting
did not exist in any dictionary anywhere 50 years ago. Nor did the terms that are now used to describe the young adult, and adult offspring, of this protective, entitlement-inducing parenting;

adultescent
[ad-uhl-tes-uhnt]

noun combining “adult” and “adolescent”

  • Definition: a
    young adult
    or middle-aged person that has interests, traits, etc., that are usually associated with teenagers
    28

Also somet
imes called
kidult
[kid/adult] or
rejuvenile
[juvenile again], these fusions of the English language are generally used to describe the phenomenon of the entitled, child-like behavior of North America’s teens and young adult offspring.

Reality Blast
Your adult child may not change for five years, 10 years, or ever—but YOU CAN.

No matter the age of your child, any positive change that you make is worth it. Even if your child is 32 and used to behaving in an entitled fashion within the family, when you stop your part of the cycle, the seeds of responsibility will be planted and may eventually grow. By the time your child has interacted with you and the universe in a negative pattern for decades, change is difficult. It’s never impossible, but there is no quick fix.

What we hear about Entitled Adult Children

Frustrated parents come in to our office when they have not squashed entitlement early enough. The stories of a minor life setback (not getting a hoped-for job) resulting in an adult child moving back home, partying late at night, wandering around the house in pajamas, and living off their parents, are not infrequent.

Parents report paying off their adult children’s credit cards after shopping sprees, paying for college tuition semester after semester for a child that fails class after class—even fighting battles with boyfriends or girlfriends on their behalf.

They generally recount these events with frustration, guilt, and—most noteworthy to us—presenting a version of reality where they had no choice but to rescue their child. They believe that their child could not handle the financial strain, emotional heartache, or other significant life challenges.

Of course, we all know there are choices—even the parents who face these situations know that they have a choice. Most of these parents have lost perspective and no longer trust themselves to make good decisions.

The Reality of the ‘Adultescent’ Phenomenon

There are a radically increasing number of young adults that still live at home. Modern polling trends measured by Harris Interactive and The National Endowment for Financial Education in conjunction with Forbes.com
29
, revealed that some 23 per cent of non-student adults (aged 18–39) live with their parents, with males dominating this statistic.

Although this is only a poll (not a peer reviewed study) if the results are representative, in the U.S. alone, close to 14 million adult children are struggling to leave their home of origin. We are no longer living with a minor problem when it comes to entitled adult children.

What about Us Parents?

If you have an adult child who is clearly behaving in entitled ways and has regularly sported a “me, me, me” attitude over the past 20 plus years, you have likely been giving way more than you received. You are probably weary of being underappreciated, treated poorly, and unvalued. And you are doubtlessly feeling ineffective. If any of this rings true for you, this entitlement cycle has been destructive for both your self-esteem and your
parent-esteem
30
.

Your emotional
health at some point has likely taken a hit, expressed through unwanted anger attacks, spikes of worry, or deep sadness over the situation. And your relationships with your child(ren), your partner or spouse, and probably with your extended family and friends, have been negatively affected. If your child is in his/her 20s and still depending on you to save him or her financially, emotionally, or otherwise, it is high time to start thinking about
you
.

Quite aside from reading this book, it is time for some soul-searching. Be open to support from psychotherapy pep talks from no-nonsense friends — anything that will help you stay strong, assertive, and focused on standing up for yourself as you back away from entitlement-encouraging behavior.

At the very least, you will be engaging in excellent self-care modeling for your child, even if they do not like or appreciate your changes or, worse, respond with angry threats to never call, visit, or talk to you again, if you cut him or her off.

Rehab for Entitlement-Enhancing Parents

Step I:
The Issue of Expectations

Let’s take a more specific look at what you
can
do.

Below is a rating scale asking you to think about the expectations you have coached, modeled, or encouraged in your children.

Expectations are different from hopes. Expectations are massive precursors for entitlement growth. When our child does not accept they might not get what they want, or that they might have to cope with disappointment, or use their resilience skills, this is a problem.

Throughout this next exercise, keep in mind to what degree you expect these things for yourself. Rate
yourself
to what degree you have coached your child—purposefully or accidentally—to expect:

Expectation-O-Meter

Rarely

Frequently

Never

A “yes” in response to their requests

 

 

 

To have their needs regularly met by others

 

 

 

To receive what they want

 

 

 

Immediate gratification

 

 

 

Special or exceptional treatment

 

 

 

To be entertained or stimulated at all times

 

 

 

That life has to be happy or in their favor

 

 

 

If you checked anything in the category of “rarely” or “frequently”,
it is time to rehabilitate your focus. Here’s how:

  • Cue your children verbally:

    “This may or may not work out…”

    “What’s your plan to have a good day even if things don’t
    work out?”

    “How are you goi
    ng to be okay even if you have to wait for
    what you want?”

  • Positive modeling behavior:

    Show that you never expect any of the above for yourself, and be very specific about the difference between having expectations and goals, wishes, and desires.

    Show that you can cope when any of the above does not work out for you, with calm facial expressions, relaxed body posture, resilient self-talk: “It’ll be okay”; “I can handle this.”

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