6. Children are not entitled to a maid.
Our job is to be the parents. We are not the cleaning service. Let’s teach our children how to clean up after themselves and how to do simple chores. Let’s teach them that chores do not always mean a payment when they finish. This teaches them responsibility and ownership for their things and their house. Everyone in the house can be responsible for helping to take care of the house. These skills help them in school also.
7. Children are not entitled to fast food service.
Patience is a very hard thing to teach children and even adults. A child’s request to you for whatever it may be does not have to be fulfilled immediately. Sometimes it is a good lesson for them to wait patiently. Teaching children to wait is a life-lesson. There will be times in life they will have to wait, so they might as well get used to it!
8. Children are not entitled to pass to the next grade.
Our children are all brilliant, kind to others, and selfless, no doubt. We all want to believe that about our children. We know our children. The teachers also know our children. Children may think this, but they are not given a free ride to the next grade level. It is not an automatic pass at the end of the year. Having their hinder in their seat every day is not enough. Children have to work and learn the information necessary to get to the next level. If they don’t put in the time or the work, it is not a free pass. There are students who don’t do their work or don’t think it matters if they get an A or a D on their homework. It matters if they don’t have the skills they need for the next grade!
9. Children are not entitled to win every game.
We do not need to let our children win when we play games with them. We can keep score in a game and have a winner and, yes, a loser. Children can learn at an early age how to be a gracious winner and not a sore loser. We can teach them that they won’t win every game. We also teach them that we don’t stop playing games because we might lose or because we lost a last game. Competition is a natural instinct but learning how to lose is a lesson we have to learn at some point in life. This lesson will carry through our entire lives. If they learn this early on, adjusting to what life throws at them will be much easier.
10. Children are not entitled to be right all of the time.
Everyone wants to think they are right ALL the time. Whether we are willing to admit it or not…we are not always right. Similarly, children are not always right and they need to be taught that they are not. It is our responsibility to correct them when they are wrong. They will make excuses for their behavior or they will argue about why they are right. As parents, we need to curb this behavior early and teach them that it is okay to be wrong and how to admit to being wrong. It’s a hard pill to swallow, even for adults. If we don’t teach them this lesson they become disrespectful to anyone who tries to tell them they are wrong about anything. As a teacher, and the wife of a teacher, I know how disrespectful children can be when they are told they are doing something wrong. Children may be entitled to their opinion. However, let’s teach them how to voice it respectfully and at the correct time!
Children ARE entitled to parents who will teach them the difference between the things in life they have to work for and the things in life that are given freely.
