Parents and pampering 1.0

Aryan is a 6 year old, who makes a lot of fuss when having food. The teacher always tries her best to make him finish what’s on his plate. The school provides lunch and it is always healthy and nutritious. It has colourful vegetables, different flavours, a balanced diet of proteins, carbohydrates, iron and more. Aryan just stays empty stomach or hardly has 3 to 4 bites.

One day the school has a big celebration and hence a huge feast. There is cake, sweets, fries, chips, sandwiches, noodles, pasta and what not. The teacher sees that Aryan not only eats everything on his plate, but also asks for more. Being surprised, the teacher talks to the parent about Aryan and his eating habits at school.

The parent just laughs and says, “oh, my boy is a very picky eater, he only loves junk and that’s all he eats. I don’t want him to be sad the whole

day, so I just give him what he wants. Even when he was younger, he never ate his vegetables, so I just never forced him to.” This left the teacher astonished. She then had to sit down and explain to the parent how important it is to make children eat all kinds of food and how this habit should be inculcated from a young age. The teacher had to explain how pampering Aryan and letting him eat junk all the time will affect his health (physical and mental), growth and overall development as well.

Disha loves her tab a lot. She plays games on it, watches cartoons, listens to songs and rhymes. She continuously cries in her preschool for her tab. She does not play with others or eat her tiffin or do any activities.

Even if she does sit to do something, she gets bored easily and asks for her tab again. On enquiring about this behaviour, the parent proudly explains how her 4 year old can open, search, type and choose on the tab. But on asking more questions the teacher finds out that Disha is addicted to her tab. She eats only while watching cartoons, sleeps only after playing games on it and doesn’t go out to play either.

She is always glued to her tab. The teacher explains how this will affect Disha, how it will make her obese later on and how she might have medical issues due to over screen time. The teacher also explains how she would have glasses at an early age and how she would never make friends or socialize. The teacher explained how this will affect Disha physically, mentally and socially.

Gaurav comes to school on his birthday wearing fancy branded clothes and expensive shoes. He is an 8 year old boy now. Everyone loves his outfit. Guarav keeps talking about how his parents got him this outfit from a high end store and how expensive it is. He kept on bragging about his huge house, 3 luxurious cars, trips and more. Gaurav has a habit of speaking like this. He always talks about his luxuries and how he has things that others don’t. Not only this, he also looks down at others who don’t have these branded luxuries. The teacher called Guarav’s parents for a meeting one day. The teacher explained his behaviour. After listening to the teacher, the parents just smiled and said, “what’s the matter in that, we can afford it so we buy it.” The teacher again explained how Gaurav is looking down on other students. But the parents did not bother. The teacher talked to them patiently about how there is no problem with him having a luxurious life, but he shouldn’t be pampered and shouldn’t brag about it to others and also that there should be a limit to these luxuries or else he will just get lazy and might go down the wrong path as well.

Have you experienced this with your children or with other parents? Do you feel awestruck when you see such behaviour and their parents' responses? These situations show how pampering can affect children now and in later stages as well. Love your child, provide them with the best, but set some rules and limits at the same time as well. Be firm where necessary and love and care for them with your whole heart all the other times.

Stay tuned for part 2