This is a guest post by Beth Sanborn, daughter, wife, and mother to a 2 year old little boy. You can find Beth on her blog: Far From Camelot where she’s tell you “The South is my conditioning, history is what keeps my attention and Spring Training is what gets me through winter.”
In thinking about Only Children, what is the first attribute that comes to mind? A child that is spoiled by material items may be an answer to that question. Parents that lack the will power to say “no” would be another. Do you ever think of an only child being spoiled in positive ways?
A definition of “spoil” is to weaken the character of a child by complying unrestrainedly with its desires. What every child desires most is love and stability. In today’s world, the thought of abuse, divorce and the unrelenting fad of putting our children last and us first is highly prevalent. Children often take the brunt of their parent’s selfish ways and lack the love and support they crave. A child deserves its parent’s best.
People often assume that my husband and I are spoiling our only child with material items. It is not easy to change their minds as the stereotype has been long ingrained. Quite frankly, I tell them we cannot afford to give him everything he wants, but we make up for it by quality family time and one-on-one time with each parent. At that point, I have been told that we are giving him too much and he will grow to resent us.
How can a parent give too much love? How can a parent give too much of their time? How does this harm the child?
We spoil RB by giving him as much attention or as little as his needs change. There are no other children to take up my time. Each activity can be fully completed with all my focus, and his, on the task at hand. Do not public schools long for smaller class sizes to aid in the proper teaching of its students? He is learning to be independent when needed and also working together as a team-the team with mom and dad.
We spoil RB by not having to limit what we do with him or for him. We spoil RB by having a calm household at times and an active household at other times. We spoil RB by having a less stressful household and caregiver (me). We spoil RB by following through on discipline and/or consequences consistently because we think for his future and not what is easiest for us in the present. We spoil RB by being the best parents we can be for him.
I am proud to be able to spoil my child in every good way. Sometimes Grandparents don’t get all of the fun!
See Beth’s other posts on Raising Boys World
