Too much screen time, over-scheduling, sports, phone time, too much everything!
KEY POINTS
- Overindulging your child involves giving too much of almost anything: e.g, sports, toys, clothes, time, etc.
- Parents overindulge for a variety of reasons including guilt, competition, and a way to control their child.
- Children who have too much grow up not knowing what is enough, disrespectful, and can't delay gratification.
What Is Too Much
Giving too much is giving your child too much of almost anything. It can be money, time, experiences, clothes, sporting goods, toys, sports events, movies, TV, electronics, computer games, screen time on a phone, and stuff! "Giving too much can also mean allocating a disproportionate amount of family resources to one or more children. Often the "too much" form of overindulgence can appear to meet a child's needs but does not" Clarke, et al., (2014, p. 12). Do you give your child too much?
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Why Do Parents Overindulge?
- They want their child to have what they didn't have.
- To relieve feelings of guilt.
- To compete with their spouse or partner, or the children's grandparents.
- Because the child arrived after a miscarriage or infertility treatments.
- Because this is an only child.
- It is seen as a way of controlling children.
Parents Who Overindulged Their Children:
- Feel being a parent isn't rewarding and they are frustrated with their children.
- Go to bed and wake up feeling they have not accomplished much.
- Feel that they are the ones being manipulated by their children.
- Believe their parents were better prepared to parent compared to them.
- Don't know whether they're doing a good job or a bad one.
- Feel like they're not getting anything done.
- Don't believe their talents and interests are in parenting.
- Believe that they would be motivated to do a better job of parenting if their child were more interesting.
- Feel that being a parent makes them tense and anxious.
What Happens When We Overindulge With Too Much
Research indicates that children who were overindulged with a steady stream of too much usually grow up:
- Not knowing what is enough.
- Disrespectful towards others and property.
- Having a difficult time delaying gratification.
- Believing and acting as though they are the center of the universe.
- Having a hard time taking on personal responsibility.
Learning about childhood overindulgence and how it affects children is just the first and most important step. The next step is to surround yourself with other like-minded non-overindulgent parents who support each other on a mission not to become part of the new normal, our overindulgent culture.
Practice Aloha. Do all things with love, grace, and gratitude.
© 2025 David J. Bredehoft
References
Bredehoft, D. J., Mennicke, S. A., Potter, A. M., & Clarke, J. I. (1998). Perceptions attributed by adults to parental overindulgence during childhood. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences Education, 16(2), 3-17.
Bredehoft, D. J. (2013). Empirical connections between parental overindulgence patterns, parenting styles, and parent sense of competence. Executive Summary: Study 9. Retrieved from: http://www.overindulgence.org/about-our-research/empirical-connections-betwe.pdf
Clarke, J. I., Dawson, C., Bredehoft, D. J. (2014). How much is too much? Raising likeable, responsible, respectful children - from toddlers to teens - in an age of overindulgence. NY: Da Capo Lifelong Press