fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2638 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2638 ⌋

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Hey FS, I was wondering your opinion on this. Thinking back on the teen that got away with murder due to the "affluenza defense" made me wonder, is spoiling your kids just as detrimental as child abuse? Obviously they're the opposite in extremes of bad parenting. But is it as equally harmful in creating dysfunctional individuals?

What line do you think crosses into spoiling a child territory? For me, it's when a child's actions (no matter what age) are rewarded or brushed off even if they put other people in harm's way. An example would be a teenage boyfriend who abused his girlfriend but had a mother who coddled him and excused it with "boys will be boys". When do you think parents are accountable for how a child turns out? Do you think there's an age limit for that? And do you know any spoiled kids or spoiled young adults? How do they treat others?

I wouldn't mind the affluenza defense if it meant the parents/guardians got punished in the child's place, because it's directly their fault. Then you'd see a whole bunch of parents suddenly wise the fuck up...

yes but I don't think it should be an excuse for getting out of a crime

It's not nearly as detrimental I think but it's obviously pretty fucking awful. And that affluenza shit pisses me off like nothing else.

As a defence it is kind of iffy.

But I knew someone who was so spoilt that when I came home with her there was a stain on the wall. When I asked what had happened se said: o my parents got me the wrong kind of sandwich so I threw it against the wall. I can personally attest that she was spoilt and pretty crazy because of it.

Well I think the level of spoiling does affect the way a person turns out as an adult. I met a lot of people in my first year of college who expected shit to just be handed to them (NO I AM NOT MAKING A SANDWICH FOR YOU MAKE ONE YOUR DAMN SELF YOU ARE 18 /annoying dorm memories). If they're old enough to live away from their parents, then I'll start holding them accountable even though the parents are probably at fault for the way they turned out but at that point the parents probably can't do much about it.

Well it's never good, but I think it depends somewhat on the person and the circumstances and what kind of spoiled they are.

I'd say letting one's child become the ill-mannered, tantrum-throwing, undisciplined and disrespectful type of spoiled is borderline abuse (not only of the child but of everyone they encounter!)

Merely overindulging a kid, without letting them become a screaming self-entitled brat, is somewhat less destructive, but it's not really doing them any favors if they're eventually going to be expected to get by in the world on their own. Going from a relatively secure and easy lifestyle where money is never a problem, to one where cash has to be earned and carefully managed, can be a big shock and make it very very easy to get into financial trouble.

I'd say that putting others in harm's way is one definite line. Doing everything for the kid and failing to impart the most basic necessary life skills may be another.

Both of those things have such ranges of "treatments" and results that it's hard to say definitively. I'd say abuse is more harmful at its worst; at least with spoilage, you can get perspective and get out of it with work and time, but I think the scars of really bad abuse never truly go away.

Edited 2014-03-25 01:11 (UTC)

...To be honest, this nurture vs. nature debate is one that's gone on for practically a century in developmental psych, and it swings back and forth between deciding parents are responsible for the personality traits and mannerisms of their children, and claiming that parental actions don't really do anything to influence morals and development.

I'm in the 50/50 range. Ultimately, you can't control anyone's behaviour without extreme coercion (and sometimes even that fails). On the other hand, that certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't attempt to demonstrate how to be a good person and let that be one of the (many and vast) influences your children use to determine the best way to model their own behaviour. The only advantage we have as parents is that our example is usually the first example a child sees, and may therefore be one of the most memorable.

We left the same comment. LOL

Ahahaha we rule *brofist*.

this is something I think about a lot without coming up with a cogent answer.

The nature vs nurture debate is still alive and well for a reason. For instance, my elder daughter is extremely well-behaved, kind and ambitious and respectful. Some of her good behavior can be attributed to our parenting, I think, and some of it is just her and whatever was in her from birth.

One of the things that has astonished me, though, is seeing how early on troubling personality characteristics manifest in childhood. I didn't expect for the cliques to start at five. Or the bullying. Or the anger management issues. Or any of a myriad of other issues I've seen in the children my elder daughter has interacted with over the years. Some of that bad behavior is attributable to parenting (when you don't put kids to bed at a reasonable hour, remembering that twelve hours of sleep a night is pretty much what elementary school kids need, and let them eat sugar all day, bad behavior pretty much follows), but some of it just innate.

So IDK. I don't think every person who turns out shitty is shitty because her parents fucked her up. I don't think every person who turns out awesome does so because her parents rocked. I do think parenting plays a vital role, though, in where somebody falls on that continuum.

Basically lunabee's comment, but since it's hard to predict beforehand when it will does have an effect like that, yeah, I do think in extreme cases it's as bad as child abuse, just in a roundabout way (paving the way for them to become horrible people who will be hated and have a miserable life or wind up in jail for swindling or raping someone).

Also, I can't be the only one whose mind immediately went to that scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince where Dumbledore coolly tells the Dursleys they ought to be ashamed of the horrible things they did to their boy...Dudley. :D

And if I remember correctly JK Rowling did say she thought how Dudley was raised was a form of abuse. One that it might be hard to sympathize with, but abuse none the less.

[ SECRET POST #2638 ]

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