The Entitlement Problem

I went to the Y with the Boy the morning. Played some racquetball with him before I brought him up to the child-watch so I could practice a little and then do some other conditioning work before heading home. On the way in, he asked if he could swipe the card at the front desk. Naturally, I let him.

Of course, if the Lass had been there she would have demanded that she be the one to get to swipe the card. I’m guessing that most parents of more than 2 kids who are of comparable age and ability run into this phenomena. Pick any relatively trivial task and assign it to child A. Child B will, shortly thereafter, decide that they’d like to give it a try. Child A will defend their turf viciously- asking if they can do said task up to days in advance (if possible) so they can maintain an edge over their sibling.

The sucker punch of the situation is to play Solomon and let them alternate doing the task.

This seemingly reasonable approach opens up the “He did it last time, I get to do it this time!” wars. Woe be to the parent that forgets whose turn it is. The child, who can barely remember to brush their teeth after breakfast, will retain a detailed history of who did what and when. The ultimate mistake here is to brush off the “turn” thing with “Well, you did this other thing today, so we’ll let your brother/ sister do this now.” There is no bartering in the world of entitlements.

Ironically, the only sane path through all of this ridiculousness is to take the task away from them both. This approach consistently causes no fits, tears, silent treatment. It’s almost like they never really wanted to do it in the first place. Shame on you for trying to give them something different to do.