The Age of Entitlement

The hidden cost of helicoptering and self promoting is the development of entitlement. By constantly having a white night coming to the rescue whenever a situation is too challenging, we ingrain habits in our children. The idea of self worth becomes distorted, and more importantly the concept of the worth of others totally changes. Teens will soon develop the behaviour patterns and habits of a 'learned helpless'. But the downside soon develops in that they expect and in some cases demand the same consideration from all around them. The language and demeanor becomes aggressive and the relationships with others suffers, sours, becomes toxic and eventually disintegrates.

We are the source of many of the habits of our children as well as providing a moral and ethical compass. The language, attitude and postures we adopt are soon mirrored. The helicopter squadron around our children provide a picture of constant support and a view that the self-promotion is fact. This is promoting a very skewed view of the world, and more importantly a very dangerous moral and ethical compass. 

These students are fed with the idea of elitism and enter the closed mind view of things. In this context I am referring to the moral and ethical closed minds, although they can also easily have the closed mindset associated with intellectual development and growth. Closed minds are not open to change and see things as static and in some cases "black and white". But inevitably, the result is them being a winner. If we also take into account the accelerated tendency to socialize, a very toxic situation can occur. I refer to the classic situation that accompanies the release of college positions early in the final year of school. The 'entitled' are soon crowing about their success and often decrying and denigrating the success of others. After all, the whole point of being entitled is that it does not apply to all others. I have often seen this situation become very toxic with the fighting and confrontations  (usually verbal and digital, but occasionally physical) that occur. Again it seems to involve the "winners" expressing their pleasure and displeasure at the allocation of the college offers. In the worse case scenario it seems the entitled are also able to be the be extremely judge mental!

Again it seems that the parenting style seems to have a lot to do with the feeling of entitlement. Helicoptering creates the inevitable - a feeling that everything will be done for you, and more importantly, that you will always get what you ask for. There is no real growth in self. It also works against the idea of growth mindset in many ways, and this will have its own problems in the future. Eventually the "by then young adult" arrives at a situation either in terms of work or college where the self-worth attitude cannot be reconciled with the performance levels. Unfortunately not everyone in the workplace or wider society will have the same tolerance, and there will undoubtedly be conflict.

An interesting online article "16 signs you have a Sense of Entitlement Complex" by Aletheia Luna asks whether or not you are entitled? It provides us with reasons for and outcomes of as well as a list of signs that indicate the onset of entitlement. It appears that we all have a tendency to feel entitled, but to what degree. I would advise reading the article (linked above) as it gives a bit of insight into entitlement. I think the most telling symptoms is the use of emotional blackmail at the first sign that something is not going their way. I'm sure we can all relate to that!