Spoiled children: how does it affect their personality? 2026

Being a spoiled girl or boy is poorly considered by our society. We must educate our children to be strong, autonomous, with self-esteem, to know how to defend themselves, to not allow themselves to be trampled on by others, but at the same time to be respectful, friendly and grateful. I could continue the long list of wishes that we parents have so that they can be our best version, but this is enough to give you an idea of what I am going to explain to you now. Pampering a girl, a boy, is giving her love, affection, understanding. Pampering, according to my opinion, a lot of consent. I consider that they are two totally opposite terms and that we often confuse them. When you pamper your child, you look at him, you hug him, you hold him. As I told you, this is different from spoiling your child in everything. When we educate by consenting, it has a negative effect. You give in to everything you want. That doesn't benefit you.

Do any of these two situations sound familiar to you?

First, your son wants ice cream before dinner and you know that it's going to spoil his appetite, but you buy it for him, because you know how he's going to get and you'd rather avoid making a fuss in front of everyone.

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Second situation. You are about to go to the supermarket checkout, when suddenly your child sees the package of candy that he likes so much. Again, to avoid the guaranteed tantrum every afternoon, you buy it for him, you give in, even though you had warned him before entering that you would not buy anything.

How does it affect the personality of our children when we turn them into spoiled children?

Notice that when we educate in a sense and we change our mind without a justified reason and with common sense, your child is observing: okay, I can do what I want at any time when my mother is overwhelmed. That's how I get what I want. What do they perceive? That there is fear behind it. Fear of not knowing how to manage, perhaps, that moment. Which doesn't mean your child needs what they want. Of course, with this I am not saying that you cannot change your mind at a certain moment, of course you can. What I consider is that on many occasions we have no on the tip of our tongue, the gratuitous no, the no that has no meaning, no weight, no reason for being, because it will be replaced ipso facto by a yes. By granting the wish that your child has and wants at that moment. It is crucial to know how to manage our emotions as mothers and fathers. And to be able to educate with respectful limits, which can even be agreed upon by everyone in order to be able to solve a tantrum or tantrum more quickly and easily when we remind them: this cannot be now, do you remember that we agreed that before dinner we cannot eat ice cream because otherwise we will lose our appetite? Here you can accompany it with a joint solution, for example like this: do you think we leave it for dessert?

Respectful parenting is often confused with conscious parenting, and a very wrong meaning is attributed, leading to the belief that, if we do not educate our children with demands, orders, norms, limits and authority, we will be giving way to what some call: the soft generation. It is clear that, if we raise our children teaching them that for every act they do, every decision they make and every word they say, has consequences, we educate them in responsibility and awareness.

I firmly believe that we are giving them a wonderful gift when we do not paint their lives in roses. Of course, it is not positive to fall into drama either, but neither is it a “happy flower” education. Finding a middle ground is the best. Educating with common sense is making your values ​​grow. Insist on the importance of being responsible, or for example on effort, will and perseverance. These points are part of the key for your child to become a capable child, adolescent and adult with life skills, far from being a comfortable or weak adult who waits for everything to be handed to them on a plate.

In conclusion, it is not incompatible to educate from love and respect. I invite you to leave fear aside, and give yourself the opportunity to pamper, rather than consent. You will not have tyrant children, nor will they have the emperor syndrome. Love is the basis of parenting, and I insist, pampering is not consenting. Pampering is loving.

Article prepared by Noe García de Marina, Pedagogue Therapist. Intelligence and Emotional Development. Director of Noe Batega