I have a niece who still did - successfully - the “Mom! Mom mom mom mom mom mom…” thing at age 17. :smack:
Totally a WAG, but I think that being used to finding your own entertainment may lead to being more able to work on your own as a student or adult.
I had a coworker who had ADHD. His mother’s solution, she watched him constantly while he did his homework. Years later, as a grown-up in a factory, he would finish and finish beautifully any task he’d set for himself; tasks that had been set by others, including tasks for which he clearly saw the need (he was able to explain them to other people, giving reasons that had not been given to him but which were real)… he didn’t do them unless someone was sitting there, staring at him. A number of my school classmates had ADHD (or thereabouts) and grew up without that quirk - but then, nobody spent their childhood watching them!
My youngest brother hated books, as a kid. He saw them as “the enemy”, because often he’d come say “I’m bored, entertain me” and we’d respond “I’m reading, entertain yourself.” Then one fateful day he grabbed the Lord of the Rings and never again asked to be entertained.
I find my 22mo nephew’s company a lot more interesting than that of his mother or his maternal grandmother; with my SiL around, there’s a lot of things I can’t talk about with my brothers or mother.
SiL is one of those people who expect people in her house to be “for her” of “for the group”… it’s ok if you’re for her kid, but any time there happen to be several people visiting at the same time and they start talking to each other in privateish conversations, she frets (she doesn’t yell or anything but you can see her blood pressure raising).
It kind of worries me that I may be a part of teaching the li’l brat that he’s the most important person around, though, although he knows that if Mom, my brothers and myself are talking to each other, we will not drop it for him, which he finds intriguing because we’re the only adults on his life who do this. SiL and her mom have already declared that the kid belongs to my side a lot more than to theirs - he likes the same kind of games that me and my brothers and cousins liked at his age, for example. Which explains why I like his company 
Our definition of spoiling? Giving a child something (or letting them do something) only to avoid a fight/conflict.
That’s been our working definition and though our kids might be bit indulged, they are absolutely not spoiled.
To be fair to the other parents, some kids are just hardwired with that “extra-clingy” gene - I can think of a number of examples from my immediate knowledge of kids who seemed to be parented exactly like mine (or, maybe, one random sibling form a family where the other(s) were fine) who simply would not cope without Mummy (or Daddy), or couldn’t handle being put down, or wouldn’t let Mum out of the creche room without howling down the house, or something like that.
OTOH I can see the babysitter’s POV completely - a permanently fractious child is going to play hell in a situation where she’s got other kids to deal with (because one crying child can set others off) so she might have no choice but to offload the kid. I still feel sympathy for the parents though.
Tell them how their life will end.
His adults don’t pick The Nephew up. Well, mostly. A relative who recently visited them for a week spent the whole week picking him up (she hadn’t done it in previous visits). Now The Nephew keeps asking for “upa” and being told no, but it’s going to take a while to reeducate him. Yes we know it’s less tiresome to be carried than to walk - tuff luck, you were strong enough to walk or run everywhere at 21mo, you’re strong enough at 22mo!
It can be as little as 6 days of being picked up constantly by someone who isn’t even part of the kid’s usual social makeup.
I am going to work backwards to answer this one.
Spoiled, in my definition, is a child who has no concept of boundaries. A child with an overinflated sense of entitlement, self-worth and greed.
It is easy to create one of these little monsters – don’t set boundaries. When you tell the child that no, she can’t have that PSP, don’t give in and buy it because she whines and cries and tells you that you are a bad mommy. My kids have pretty much never been denied anything that I could afford – my time, my attention, clothes, toys, whatever. But when I say “no, you may not have that,” that’s exactly what it means. As much as I hated doing it, my daughter got grounded Sunday night – she was late getting home and she knows the rules. She’s not being pissy about it, she knew the rules, she knew what time it was, she will suck it up, even though it means being grounded through labor day weekend.
My kids are awesome. They have no sense of entitlement, they know that they are awesome, but so are other people, and they are not greedy. While they’re still kids and have a hard time with the whole interrupting people thing, they aren’t as bad as most kids I have been around.
I’ve read that separation anxiety (clinginess) comes and goes, and comes back again. That’s been our experience. I bagged the stroller a long time ago and it mostly worked (more important to wear them out via walking than to wear ME out pushing the doggone stroller), but there were a few spells when we really battled.
That was her problem. It’s one thing to have a clingy child to babysit, but it’s another thing to have other kids to watch. She didn’t think it was fair to the other parents to have to spend so much time with this screaming child and not enough time with ours. She was hoping it was a phase and was waiting it out, but it soon became clear that this was the child’s nature and couldn’t be dealt with any longer without affecting the other kids.
When the babysitter needs a few days off, my mother comes to watch Susie and at the end of the first day back, the babysitter always asks, “What did Grandma do?!” It does take about a week to get her back on track, so she’s less clingy and/or bold.
Make sure the chld knows that nothing is ever their fault. If they get poor grades, it is the teacher’s fault. If they take another child’s toy and the other parent complains, tell them “Don’t make such a big deal over it. It’s just a toy. It’s not like they hurt your kid.” If they do hit another kid “Well, that kid probably deserved it.” If they steal from you, tell them it’s okay. If they steal from someone else, offer restitution if they don’t call the cops. If the child burns the school down, say “Well, you don’t know they did it. The tapes could have been doctored. Other chldren are a bad influence.” If the child ends up in jail “What’s wrong with setting the school on fire? Lots of children want to do it.” The three main arguments for the child’s bad actions:
It’s someone else’s fault.
Lots of people do it.
The accuser does it, or something equally as bad (My child raped your child. Well, I hear you cheat on your spouse (The accusation doesn’t have to be true.)
Please note that all these actions were used at OJ’s trail, and he was found “Not Guilty”
Part of this may be Grandma, but I bet lots of it is just the change in scenery and routine. She loves her babysitter, and she misses her, and she’s determined not to let her leave again. Think about how you feel when your SO comes back from an extended trip away, and you just want to hug him (her) and never let go. Now magnify that feeling so it’s the only feeling you have and the only thing you can think about ('cause that’s how babies and toddlers feel about everything - very intensely) and smoosh all that feeling into a little body which can’t talk very well yet. Looks like separation anxiety, doesn’t it? It’s actually intensely good feelings of relief and affection, which are heartbreakingly over every time the sitter walks into another room.
That makes a lot of sense. We’re very lucky that she loves her babysitter and her kids and the feeling is mutual all around. Her kids love her too, and she’s going to be very upset when they go back to school, with the youngest now going to kindergarten. She loves playing with her.
Totally unsolicited advice: drop her off with a new box of crayons or supplies to make something special to give the kindergartener coming home from her first day of school. A bookmark, a placemat, whatever. Something to focus your daughter’s attention on “Sophia’s coming home soon and then you can give her your present!” Make the focus of the day “Sophia’s coming home!” instead of “Sophia’s not here.” Might help the babysitter, who’s seeing the last of her brood off to school, as well. That’s an emotionally draining day for any mother.
Bastard, you beat me to it 
I wonder (in a non-parental sort of way) if the reason children aren’t able to entertain themselves (at a reasonable age) is because of the fact that so many parents shove the kids into structured activities so early and so hard that they never have any time to learn to entertain themselves? I was always able to entertain myself, and so was my brother (and all of my cousins and all of the other kids I knew) because we had plenty of unstructured time to figure out how to play (in addition to do homework and chores.)
While at the supermarket one day, I saw two ladies standing in the middle of an aisle chatting amicably with one another. One of the ladies had a child of about three who was strapped into the seat of her shopping cart. As the ladies conversed, the child started calling out “Mommy…Mommy.” The mother ignored the child and continued the conversation. After about ten or fifteen seconds, the kid screeched at deafening volume “MOMMY!!” At that, the mother stopped talking, turned to the child with a sweet smile and said “yes?”
*That *is one certain recipe for spoiling a child. Teach them that screaming and shouting is more productive than patiently waiting one’s turn.
That’s a good point. I remember a show a few years ago…uh…Sports Kids Moms and Dads, that’s it. The one girl was about ten, and besides being on two cheerleading squads, her mom had her taking multiple dance lessons, performing with another dance team, and other activities as well. Then she had a birthday, and one of the gifts was a keyboard. Surprise! Now she was going to take music lessons!
At which point another poster groaned, “Jesus Christ, doesn’t she ever get to just play?” And went on at length about how unstructured playing was crucial to a child’s development. I think she said it’s how they discover the limits or scope of their creativity, how they learn to resolve conflicts, and I don’t know what all. Anyway, I know I heard some of my peers in the '70s and '80s saying, “I wish I had more time to just hang out, but my mom’s head just about exploded when I said that.” Because a kid who was not in activities every minute they weren’t in school was going to join a gang, I guess.
One of my hubby’s brothers had a wife named Linda. Linda had a pre-teen daughter who we’ll call Vicki. Vicki was a brat. She’d get in fights at school, bring home failing grades, refuse to do her homework, etc. Linda would say “If this behavior continues, you’re not going out with your friends Saturday night”. The behavior would continue, and Linda would say “That’s it, you’re not going out with your friends Saturday night”. Saturday would roll around, Vicki would spend the day being annoying, obnoxious, whiny, and just flat-out bratty, and Linda would cave and let her go out with her friends. Thereby teaching Vicki that her actions had no consequences. That’s how you spoil a kid.
On Saturday morning there was a really interesting piece on NPR about this type of unstructured play - basically the idea was that it seemed chaotic and almost violent at times when a lot of kids were playing together without any particular purpose, but all the kids seemed to be having a lot of fun and appeared to be learning things like empathy, teamwork, etc. Here’s a link to it: Speaking of Faith.
When I was little I remember being involved in a ton of scheduled activities. Eventually my mom simply said no because she was tired of schlepping me all over the place to go to violin, piano, dance, jazz, vollyball, choir, etc. I’m really glad she did. I had a great time running through the cornfields when I was younger.
ding ding we may have a winner, folks – perhaps one of the reasons why so many parents lose control of their kids in public settings (as evidenced by threads here) is they’re spending their Parenting Currency overseeing their kids’ recreation.
Right now, at this point in their development, I actually don’t play with my kids anywhere near like I used to. We used to play - together - on the floor - for at least 5 hours a day. Now it’s more like 2, including the time I spend reading them stories. I feel somewhat guilty about that at times.
But the thing is, they burn through tons of my energy still. More than before, actually.
My energy’s been reallocated to the “Limits Testing Olympics”, with events such as whining (separate heats for Extreme Volume and Effective Timing), fit-throwing, sassing, destruction of parental property and Chinese water torture-style questions. 