How to Take Away Entitled Parents’ Ability to Be Right

Dear Kid Whisperer,

I am at a school with a demographic that has quite a few entitled students who don't think the rules apply to them, and sometimes their parents don't, either. I know that the year will get better--we have only been in school for 10 days-- but I am struggling right now. How do I handle this sense of entitlement?

If you are using Traditional Discipline, with its demands and punishments, you are in big trouble. These parents will be all over you with a bunch of complaints such as:

“My sweet child says that you are speaking to him in a tone and with words that are not befitting someone of his stature.” (He’s 5, by the way.)

“You are just putting pain on my child and he shan’t be treated this way. My dearest should be free of any and all pain and adversity forevermore. You are ‘targeting’ my child. I heard that word on the internet and now I’m using it.”

While parents who would make these complaints are snooty, and should expect their kids to be resilient, they are not 100% wrong. It is correct that you should not use a mean tone or say mean things. We also should not be arbitrarily putting pain on kids, entitled or not, in an attempt to change their behavior.

By contrast, if you have a comprehensive way of not being mean and not punishing while making behaviors better, you take away the entitled parent’s ability to be right--even being 1% right-- because we all know that if an entitled parent is 1% right, they will hang on to that 1% for dear life.

You can do this by using Gentle Guidance Interventions instead of demands, and instead of using punishments usually given immediately and in anger, you can use Delayed Learning Opportunities. These are delayed in the moment and given later after a careful assessment of how to create and administer a lesson that is not based on pain, but instead, requires learning.

So, for minor behaviors, you won’t say, “Stop it!”  or “Be quiet NOW!” or “I said SIT DOWN!” You might give a kid a confused look, as if to say, “I am confused about why such an awesome person would do something that is not awesome.” You might simply say, “Think,” or ask the question, “What should you do now?” with a wide smile.

When a major behavior occurs, instead of yelling, “You should be ashamed of yourself! YOU OWE ME RECESS!” you could say a memorized script for getting to later without anger: “Sheez. This is a tough one. I’ll help you learn about this later.”

After calming down and perhaps talking to colleagues and/or your administrator and really considering how the kid may learn best, you can do an authentic lesson (just like you would for academics) that either teaches the positive behavior, or requires that the student solve the problem that they caused.

Once you have taken away the entitled parent’s ability to be right, it will lower the chances that they will bother you about it. They still might, but you will be in a 100% defendable position. It is still possible that they could go up the chain of command at your school, but again, the parent will be wrong, which is a great place for them to be. Also, if you had the Delayed Learning Opportunity pre-approved by your principal as described, this will also work to your advantage.

Finally, if your administrator refuses to support the teaching of a positive behavior or the solving of a problem with a Delayed Learning Opportunity, here’s how I would set a limit with that administrator.

Administrator: I just cannot support what you are doing with Kid. His father is very angry that his child is being required to become a better person. He doesn’t feel that the rules of the school should apply to Kid because they are paying tuition and he is a generous donor to the school and the library is named after him.

Kid Whisperer: I will be happy to continue working here as long as I am allowed to teach my students to use positive behaviors through non-punitive lessons about using positive behaviors and being responsible.

Administrator: You are not being reasonable!

Kid Whisperer: And what did I just say?

Kid Whisperer walks away.