How to Destroy Your Kid (In Two Easy Steps!)

I teach adults to teach kids to be better people for a living. As a lifelong educator of both kids and adults, I’ve learned that the human brain has trouble being taught what not to do. That’s why every week in this space I show adults what to do to improve the behaviors of kids.

But, maybe just for fun, this week I’ve decided to abandon that best practice, and instead, tell you the best ways to destroy your kid.

So parents, here are the two things that will do the maximum amount of damage to your kid.

Allow your kid to be resentful.

It is only natural for kids to feel resentful, defined as the bitter indignation of having been treated unfairly. Kids start out small, weak, and poor. The world is big, strong, and rich. Human beings don’t want to feel powerless, so it’s easy for a kid to resent their beginning-level station in life.

Resentment doesn’t work because it puts the locus of control over the natural bad feeling of being powerless outside of oneself. This creates a depressing and stressful feeling. The attitude of “my life is bad because of the world” makes kids feel angry and it makes them feel that there is nothing that can be done to relieve their anger. After all, if your kid thinks that the entire world is evil and against them, what can realistically be done about it?

Resentment can become a habit. When resentful people act in a resentful way, The World pushes back. The World will appear to be a bad, evil place to your kid if they interact with it with anger and resentment, creating a tragic self-fulfilling prophecy.

Allow your kid to be entitled.

Entitlement, defined as the belief that one is deserving of certain privileges, in your kid’s life really equates to “someone besides me is in charge of whether or not I am satisfied with my situation in life.”

Again, this starts innocently enough. Your kid wants something, and you get it for them. Maybe this happens over and over again, and the expression of a want may evolve into a rude demand for said want. Similarly, providing not only all of the goods wanted by your kid, but also providing every wanted service (you taxiing them whenever requested, you cleaning their room, etc.) can compound this hurtful belief. If you keep providing every good and service that they want, you are teaching them, with your actions, that someone else besides your kid is in charge of making sure that they are satisfied with their situation in life.

This creates another depressing and stressful feeling because, again, your kid is learning that the locus of control-- this time, over being satisfied with their life--lies outside of them.

Do you see the horrible parallel? If you allow your kid to feel resentful and entitled, you allow them to feel that they have no control over their own happiness.

If your kid feels that they have no control over their happiness, why should they get up in the morning? Why should they try to do anything? What’s the point? If your kid thinks that the whole world is against them, and they can’t do anything to make themselves satisfied and happy, why do anything at all?

Allowing kids to be resentful and entitled is the best way to lead them towards depression and lifelong misery.

The challenge is that your kid feeling that they are a helpless victim of an Evil World and feeling like it’s someone else’s job to make them feel satisfied with their own life is very comfortable for your kid. It’s easy: these beliefs require no effort or self-reflection.

Therefore, not allowing your kid to be resentful and entitled will make them uncomfortable. Your kid taking responsibility for their own anger and their own happiness, and thereby moving from being a victim to being a hero in their own life story, can only take place through uncomfortable struggle. However, the benefit (having a chance to be happy) will be worth the struggle.

Next week, I’ll get back to my old ways and show you exactly what to do to allow your kid to stop living a resentful and entitled life.