Entitled parents raise entitled children. And unless you speak up, set some healthy boundaries, and stand your ground, they’ll walk all over you and your loved ones. Not only that, but they might put your health and safety in danger, too.
A concerned mom opened up about how a toxic father and son combo put her sick daughter’s life at risk at the hospital. The entitled boy wanted to ‘play’ with her daughter’s heart monitor and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Read on to see how the situation quickly devolved from annoying to mind-meltingly dangerous.
You would think that strangers would have more empathy for you when they see you with your sick child. Unfortunately, some are too selfish for that
freepic.diller / magnific (not the actual photo)
An exhausted mom revealed the disturbing drama that happened at the hospital when an entitled kid tried to take her daughter’s heart monitor to ‘play’ with it
magnific / magnific (not the actual photo)
magnific / magnific (not the actual photo)
ufabizphoto / magnific (not the actual photo)
Excessive technology and screen use is linked to poor emotional development and more entitled behavior
It’s hard to say anything definitive about someone you haven’t met or spent a lot of time interacting with. But broadly speaking, the toxic dad in the story seems to have issues with entitlement and narcissism, and likely has anger problems, too. Meanwhile, he seems to have passed on some of these behavioral problems to his son as well.
Children naturally look to their parents—and other authority figures—for guidance. So, if you allow your munchkin to do whatever they want with no respect for other people or their boundaries, that’s what they’ll continue to do. And when someone pushes back, they probably won’t take ‘no’ for an answer and might lash out.
According to Sean Grover, L.C.S.W., an author and psychotherapist, technology has had a profound impact on children’s lives. “The Internet, social media, video games, and cell phones have inundated children with devices and fundamentally altered their daily routines,” he writes.
This overreliance on tech has led to more anxiety, depression, and social isolation. Furthermore, the knock-on effects are poor frustration tolerance, impaired social skills, and lagging emotional intelligence development. Kids who struggle with these issues may have been raised by parents who intended well but simply did not know about the effects of excessive tech use at the time.
Children who spend more time around screens than kids their own age don’t mature as quickly. Those delays in their emotional maturity lead to entitled behavior. “Rather than work for independence and autonomy, entitled children remain attached to their parents and demand that they meet their every need,” Grover explains.
Parents who want to teach their kids to steer clear of entitlement need to be able to tolerate their temper tantrums
Entitled behavior leads to difficulty tolerating and working through frustration, weakened problem-solving skills, poor work ethic, social problems, and a tendency to have temper tantrums and meltdowns. What’s more, entitled kids are often poor team players and avoid social gatherings unless they’re at the center of attention.
Meanwhile, their overreliance on tech makes them expect that they can get whatever they want “at the click of a button.” Grover warns that “entitled children expect that they can get what they want, whenever they want it, without working for it.”
Claire Lerner, LCSW-C, notes that parents should not try to control their children through tactics such as nagging, bribing, threatening, or using logic, as this “puts all the power in their hands to decide if they will or will not follow an important direction or respect a limit.”
What parents may want to do instead is simply protect the boundaries they have set for their kids’ behavior, without turning it into a punishment. You enforce the boundary, ignore the emotional meltdown that might follow, and show that you can tolerate your child getting upset at you. In other words, you start behaving as a real adult and parent, not someone who is at the mercy of a kid’s temper tantrums and mean words.
What would your response have been if you were in the author’s shoes and some random kid tried to play with your child’s heart monitor? How would you react if their parent then started raging at you in public? Have you ever personally experienced anything similar? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Readers were shocked by what happened, and the author interacted with some of them in the comments of her post
Meanwhile, here’s how other internet users reacted to the waiting room drama
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