The news is reporting a story about a young man who pushed his BMW into the river. His reason for drowning the luxury car was that he had asked his parents for a Jaguar, and instead, they had given him a BMW. It appears to be case of overindulgence in parenting.
Not having met either this young man or his family, this blog is based upon psychological profiling or similar cases and not this case in particular.
All of us are dismayed at this uncouth behavior of destroying a luxury car, filming it and then posting the video on social media.
The moot question is, who is to blame, the youth or his parents? While most of the readers will hold the youth responsible for this. It appears to be a case of bad parenting. Most likely since childhood, the boy wasn’t taught the value of things and instead tantrums were tolerated, encouraged and condoned. He was never taught what is right or wrong.
Destructive behavior of this nature is seen when the parent is overindulging their child.
Are you guilty of giving your child too much, too soon, and for too long? Studies show that parents who give their children too much are harming the child instead of helping them.
The outcomes of overindulging children aren’t pleasant: Study shows that overindulgence leads to selfishness, unwillingness, greed, self-centeredness and a lack of accountability for their actions, to list only a few of the obnoxious characteristics seen in children and adults who got too much, too often.
One of the primary reasons for this overindulgence by parents is that this generation is more affluent than previous generations and therefore feel it is appropriate to give more to their children.
According to researchers, there are three types of overindulgences that parents fall prey to:
Giving their children too much: This can be too many toys, too many clothes, or even too many activities
Over nurturing: Doing things for their children that the child should be doing for themselves. This could be as simple as polishing one’s shoes, doing their homework for them, etc.
Soft structure: Not having rules for the child to obey, or not disciplining the child for not following the rules. This could be as simple as limiting the number of hours of video games or television.
Coming back to the BMW story, as much as I deplore the actions of this young man for ruining such a very expensive car. It is an example of poor parenting. The parents most likely overindulged him in his childhood and didn’t discipline him when he intentionally broke his toys and replaced those toys with even more expensive and better toys.
It is very important to teach your child to value his belongings. If he breaks or loses something intentionally or due to carelessness behavior; appropriate punishment needs to be given. It is the parents’ responsibility to give correct values to their child.
To learn more about Dr. Prerna Kohli click here
All images are courtesy Pixabay
