Over Indulging our next generation.. is this justified or is this going to turn into a curse for our next generation ?

How often do I hear parents telling they want to give the BEST for their child ? How do one define BEST, is it the dollar value of the things that will be given or BEST in terms of what value that particular thing will add to your child’s life ?

Unlike previous generations like my Mom and Dad’s generation this generation with the globalization background have far more opportunities and better paying jobs which enables them to give that BEST to their child without second thoughts..

First child in a couple’s life is always a exciting and awesome experience, the couple usually go overboard with the stuff they want to do for their child and this tends to diminish as you have your second child, the lucky first  will start having stuff to play around, the equipments to ensure he/she is taken care of right from the time she/he is in the womb and most parents tend to go overboard and clutter the home with stuff that they would never ever use.

I am not arguing that nothing should be bought, again this is a matter of putting lot of thought into, is the stuff bought really going to be of any use or are we buying for the heck of it ? How about the availability of this product, is it easily available, if yes can I defer it and buy when there is a real need instead of stocking it at home without knowing if it’s really required ? And these simple thinking can save couple lots of dollars and also help reduce the clutter in the house.

As these kids grow up the intention of giving the BEST never diminishes, parents are on a constant roller coaster to provide the best to their child, starting from the First birthday of the child which has now turned into a EGO trip for most parents, the birthday parties are getting ridiculously lavish and more often than not is a chance for the parents to SHOW OFF to what extent they can go to make their child happy, but the fact is how much does a One year old really enjoy these parties ?

I have seen so many parents getting expensive toys or gifts that the child demands without giving any thought and in the process they are sending a wrong message to the child that  he/she is going to get everything in life easy and this prevents them from learning the art of handling situations when things don’t go their way, it might sound funny but these abilities needs to be built into the in kids right from young age, we need to consciously prepare them for the REAL world where they may not get whatever their heart desire and this trend of parents satisfying their child’s “unjustified” needs worries me to the core.

This trend has reached a point where young kid between ages 4 -10 years have started emotionally blackmailing parents into buying them stuff , they need Ipad as birthday gifts, they need vacation in Disney world as birthday present and the list is never ending and I have heard some demands which can really make your jaws drop, kids these days associate their “self-worth” to the things they possess and parents just because they cannot handle a child’s rejection will give in each time they blackmail, as parents we should know when to put our foot down and assess if the demands are justified and again what value is that going to add to child’s life ?

It’s scary to imagine a world where  individuals are associating their self worth to materialistic things and in countries like US this has become a major epidemic, the kids expect a lavish sweet 16 parties, they want big cars, big house and they associate their true value with how much money they have and no one is to blame but parents who feed their child’s ego right from young age and as they grow this turns from buying things for pleasure to buying things for just keeping them happy and avoid rejections and just FIT into societies NORM.

At the end of the day its again striking the right balance, there are certain things which a child needs and we should never ever deny these things from them but if the things are just to indulge and make the kid feel they have best of everything then this needs some serious thought, right from young age we as parents need to prepare them in some way for the REAL world, we should teach them to handle rejections, disappointments so that when they are teenagers or in college they handle disappoints better and in this instance I would like to bring the example of a recent incident of a 23^rd old ending her life just because her boyfriend dumped her and she wanted to take revenge on him, does this somewhere tie d to not getting what she desired among other emotional elements ? In a way yes, if she was used to disappointments and rejections I think she would have handled this situation better, here again there is a  element of ego, how did he dump ME ? Where is self worth here, why was she associating the value of her life to another person ? She could have taken revenge in so many different ways and these are the life skills we need to teach out kids right from young age.

We need to bring them up with lots of self confidence and self worth, we need to appreciate for what they are and hone their skills and capability and if money needs to be spent for these then it’s money well spent as these in the long run will make a strong individual will all the skills to take on this world and they will survive no matter how the external situation is and again in life who knows, one day you could be rich and top of the world and next day you can lose it all and that’s how lucid our world is moving to and no man is immune to this rule.

So it’s essential we build our next generation to face any situation head on and this can only be done when they believe in their true value and this strength can only come from within and not with(out) materialistic things.

Time to shun books which show pics of how a apple looks like, how a tree looks like and time to take our kids into the kitchen and show them how a apple looks or onion looks and take them to a park and show them how a tree looks like and get them to tough and feel the same , now this is real education without spending a dime and these simple techniques can be implemented at all level of their life but as parents we need to be strong to resist peer pressure and dare to be different and bring up our kids to be not one among the mob but STAND OUT and be proud about it !!