Abundance or Overindulgance?

 I often hear from parents who have concerns about the quantity of “stuff” their children have, or who wonder if the enrichment activities their children are enrolled in are worth the toll they are taking on the family’s time and resources. What do kids need to be strong, happy and well rounded people, anyway? A few months ago I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Jean Illsley Clarke, a much sought after parenting educator from Minnesota. I had facilitated a workshop several years ago based on the helpful book she co-authored called How Much Is Enough, so it was stimulating to have the chance to meet with her in person and revisit this topic.

Clarke has a keen understanding of human development and the formative role parents play in children’s lives. Her research and publications have opened for many a new understanding of the effects common parenting styles have upon children over time. Her research reveals that when parents understand their own patterns of interacting with their children and why, they can become empowered to turn around inadequate, even destructive behaviors that may be held-over patterns from their own upbringings.

In her book with Dr. Connie Dawson, Growing Up Again, Clarke contends that children need both nurture and structure. It is the interplay between the varying degrees of nurture and structure parents provide that shapes children’s lives. She says to think of our nurturing behaviors toward our children as being like the soft tissue of our bodies. The structure we provide our children forms the skeleton upon which the soft tissue is supported. It takes both enough nurture and enough structure to provide children a healthy upbringing. Too much or too little of either and things begin to go awry. She lists nurturing behaviors on a scale of six positions, from harsh to nonexistent, that parents might act from. These are: 1) abuse, 2) conditional care, 3) assertive care, 4) supportive care, 5) overindulgence, and 6) neglect

Similarly she lists structure positions parents commonly act from as: 1) rigidity, 2) criticism, 3) nonnegotiable rules, 4) negotiable rules, 5) marshmallow, and 6) abandonment. Unquestionably, all parents recognize the positions 1 or 6 at the extremes of either scale are destructive. Despite knowing this, however, parents do find themselves operating far from the working center of 3 or 4. Some feel stuck in unhelpful patterns they don’t quite see clearly or understand.

Clarke and her research partner Dr. David Bredhoft discovered one of the most common pitfalls American parents find themselves stuck in is overindulgence. They surveyed adults who themselves had been overindulged in childhood and formed the composite definition below which was built directly from their in-depth interviews.

            Overindulging children means giving them too much of what looks good, too soon, too long; giving them things or experiences that are not appropriate for their age or their interests and talents. Overindulging is the process of giving things to children to meet the adult’s needs, not the children’s needs.

            Parents who overindulge give a disproportionate amount of family resources to one or more children in a way that appears to meet the children’s needs but does not. Overindulged children experience scarcity in the midst of plenty. They have so much of something that it does active harm or at least stagnates them and deprives them of achieving their full potential.

            Overindulgence is a form of child neglect. It hiders children from doing their developmental tasks and from learning necessary life lessons.

 How can we know if we are overindulging our children? Clarke uses the “test of four” to see if something is overindulgence: 

1.      If I give this or do this in this amount at this time, will it hinder my child from doing his or her needed developmental tasks at this age? 

2.      If I do this or give this in this amount, will it use a disproportionate amount of the family’s resources  of money, physical space, time, or mental energy, 

3.      Whose needs are being met? Are unmet parental needs being met through the child? 

4.      Would doing or giving this at this time cause harm to the community or the environment?

Since many families have a tradition of gift giving at birthdays and holiday times, gifts are a good place to begin taking stock of any tendency parents might have to overindulge children with things. Then parents can check other areas, like any patterns of doing things for children that children are capable of doing themselves, or of packing the schedule with enrichment activities which the child did not request or which have a negative impact on family time and finances. I’ve put in parent mailboxes an in-depth handout, Are My Kids Overindulged?, that you can use as a conversation starter with your partner.

I get a lot of questions this time of year about how to sensitively talk with relatives about limiting the amount of presents they give children. If you’ve had a successful conversation with relatives such as grandparents who tend to overindulge your children, please share with us in the comments section how you approached this delicate topic and what agreement or compromise you reached.