by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and www.patlambchristianauthor.com.
Train up a child…
Are We Raising an Entitlement Generation?
It is not uncommon to hear folks complain that we are living in an “entitlement” culture. Their complaint is that it seems that most people feel they are entitled to certain things whether or not they earn them. If this is true, and I believe that it is, one has to wonder if we aren’t making the same mistake with the younger generation we are raising now. To avoid making the same mistake twice, we need to try to understand the cause of this “you owe me” attitude and come up with ways to overcome those things that have given this result.
We hear over and over on the news that our country is in bad shape financially right now. In spite of all of this information, rather than being willing to sacrifice for the sake of the country, many are balking at the idea. Many seem to think that the government should take care of them. That is not the principle upon which our country was founded. It is not surprising that many feel that good things should happen to them even if they are not earned. For several years now, children from the first grade on up in our nation’s schools have been passed from one grade to another without being held responsible for achieving the work required for each grade. Even upon graduation from high school, time and again I have heard a principal or superintendent say, “I now present the class of ____ who has fully met the requirements for graduation.” Statistics showed, when I was teaching GED classes, that approximately one-third of high school graduates could not pass the GED test. In my GED classes, I have asked my students to tell me the last math course they took in high school. Quite often they told me that they were in algebra. I was amazed to hear this because they did not know their multiplication tables. I taught GED classes more than twenty years, and I could count on both hands the number of students I enrolled who knew their multiplication tables. The fact that children have not been held accountable in the past is one of the biggest reasons they feel that they do not have to be accountable in adulthood. If children are not held accountable and given rewards when the work is not mastered, they will grow up thinking it is the same way in society. They expect rewards without earning them.
We need to start helping children early in life to understand that they must be accountable for their actions. They also need to learn skills to become independent. From the time a toddler first starts putting on his/her own clothes, we need to let the child do as much as it can by itself. Sometimes it is easier to do things for the child, but the child does not learn to do things for self when this happens. Little things that may seem unimportant help shape a child’s attitude. If a child is told to finish eating vegetables before getting dessert, and the parent gives in and gives dessert anyway, this seemingly little act is teaching the child that good things will happen whether deserved or not. Children should be constantly helped to learn to take care of self and required to obey and perform according to instructions.
Teenagers should have to earn money for car insurance and be able to care for a car before getting one. I remember a student who told me that his dad said he would buy him a car if he got his GED. A couple of classes later, the student came to class and told me his dad had bought him a car since he promised to go ahead and get his GED. Naturally, the student dropped out of class. He already had his reward without earning it.
Another way teenagers can learn to be responsible is to give them a clothing allowance and require them to be responsible for buying their own clothes within the boundaries set by parents as to style. If they run out of money, they do without what they may want. It is surprising how fast some of the name brands lose importance!
If we are to change the entitlement culture in this country, we must start with ourselves and our families. We can all do better at being thrifty and self-sufficient!