Dr. Becky Shares The One Thing Parents Should Do To Avoid Raising Entitled Kids

Fun fact about me: I spent one summer post-COVID working at a (rather pricey) summer camp. I was prepared for kids to be kids, but one thing that shocked me was the number of temper tantrums thrown almost anytime a camper lost a board game or was “out” during tag. It got to a point where the camp actually called in a child psychologist to help deal with the issue (like I said, it was a pretty fancy camp). She explained to us staff that, during pandemic lockdowns, exhausted parents had let their kids win everything from board games to arguments, and now, they simply didn’t know how to lose — they felt entitled to winning.

Nobody wants their kid to be the one flipping the Candy Land board into the air because they got stuck on a licorice space. But well-meaning parents can fall into patterns that ultimately lead to entitled kids. To understand how this happens, we have to understand what entitlement really is. Thankfully, our favorite clinical psychologist Dr. Becky explained it perfectly.

“Entitlement is the fear of frustration,” she explained in a TikTok. “Entitlement is the accumulated experience of feeling frustrated and then having someone else give you immediate success.”

Dr. Becky recalled a former patients of hers, a 16-year-old boy who had thrown a temper tantrum in an airport bathroom when he found out he wouldn’t be flying first class.

“I know this is every parent’s nightmare, and everyone wonders, how do you get such an entitled kid?” she said. “But here’s the thing, these were really well-meaning parents, and this was actually a really nice kid.”

She explained that, after speaking with the boy and his parents, she could see the exact patterns in his childhood that led to his teenage attitude.

“Every time this kid felt frustrated when he was younger, there was a quick exit ramp,” she said. “And as a result, what happened is this kid learned to be fearful of his frustration because he saw that everyone else was working so hard to always make him happy. And so at age 16, he didn’t really have any better skills to manage frustration than he did when he was 2.”

Dr. Becky continued to explain that parents need to teach their kids how to tolerate frustration, rather than trying their best to make it disappear.

Commenters thanked Dr. Becky for sharing her analysis of entitlement with her signature nonjudgmental attitude.

“Love your compassionate understanding of frustration. It has been truly helpful. Thank you!” one user said.

“Such a valid point. Kids follow the pattern they have gotten used to. As parents, we need to be aware of what kind of patterns are being formed. To do that, we need to be aware ourselves. It all comes back to us,” another said.

It was an exhausting summer, trying to reteach children how to lose — and I can only imagine how tiring it must be for parents who don’t get to clock out from raising their kids. Learning how to deal with their frustration is a life skill your kids will probably never thank you for teaching them, but it will set them up for success all the same.