While parents are constantly trying to do their best with parenting, especially during the pandemic which brought immense challenges upon households, schools, kindergartens, and after-class activities, it’s easy to let the kid have their own way. Usually out of love and care, sometimes from lack of a strict voice, and especially now due to the confusing routine courtesy of the pandemic, children start showing their adverse side. Whether it’s the lack of motivation, aggressive behavior, or lack of gratitude, kids are getting more spoiled than ever.

It's easy to tell if a child has been spoiled. They insists on having their own way, use tantrums and whining to get their way, feel superior and entitled to more or better things than others. Other signs include a very low tolerance for frustration, making unfair and excessive demands to others, and complaining about being bored. According to Pediaclinic, the main cause of spoiled children is a lenient, permissive parenting style. Permissive parents at the extreme may not set any limits or boundaries, as a result, parents give too much power to the child and the inevitable happens: the kid is spoiled, and that’s not to be taken lightly.

“Do you know anyone who has trouble keeping their emotions in check when they don’t get their own way? It may be that they were spoiled as a child and this hasn’t done them any favors as they move into their adult life,” Lynn How, the author of “Positive Young Minds” told Bored Panda in an interview. Lynn specializes in supporting parents, teachers, and children navigating through mental health issues and prevention.

“These children may turn into adults who show less resilience when things go wrong and they may give up easily when things aren’t working out. Also, they want it all and they want it now whereas most adults can tolerate delayed gratification,” Lynn explained.

Other traits that reveal an adult was likely spoiled as a child include, Lynn argues, “a lack of independence as their problems were generally solved for them, an inability to take criticism as nothing they did badly would invoke the appropriate feedback and the idea that everything should just come to them easily without too much work.” Lynn added that this last point is also coupled with a huge sense of disappointment when it doesn’t work out. “All in all, this doesn’t set a child up to have positive relationships or good mental health as an adult,” she warned.

Moreover, when a child is growing up in an environment that feeds their spoiled behavior, a lack of appropriate boundaries can be very confusing. “Although on the outside, these children can seem argumentative and rude, this stems from a lack of self-confidence on the inside as they have not been given these tools.”

Lynn also said that “Once their safety blanket of the parents spoiling them has been removed, coping on their own would bring on anxiety which could manifest itself as a tantrum. Often these children will have friendship issues as they find it challenging to let others have their own way and they may find it difficult to form positive relationships with other adults such as teachers due to difficulty with conformity.” In conclusion, this adds up to a childhood that is more challenging that it needs to be.