When you imagine a spoiled child , you may imagine a child in a house full of toys. But it is not the gifts or the toys in excess that cause a child to grow up spoiled, but it is the parents’ behaviour and the way they bring him up that will really affect his future personality.

Getting along with a spoiled child may be easier if you let yourself be carried away by their demands and give in to their manipulation, but all this does is make it clear to them that they can get what they want when they want it.

Although sometimes giving in to blackmail may seem the most appropriate thing to do, in the long run the person who is going to suffer from poor parental education is the spoiled child himself.

If you have a child, how can you recognize that you are spoiling him? Here are the 8 mistakes you can make if you are a parent.

1. Make your child the center of the universe

Sure you want the best for your child, but doing what they want is your priority in any circumstance, it teaches them that the world is only for them . This can have a negative effect on your child’s development, as he or she may not consider other people’s needs in the future. Children must learn to give and receive, not just receive. They must also learn to understand that not everything in life can be achieved without effort. Progressively, the child must be freed from the self-centered attitude.

Not reinforcing positive behavior

Busy parents may not notice when their child is quiet without doing anything wrong. If you don’t reinforce your child’s positive behaviors, he may not understand that he is doing well .

3.Reinforce negative behaviors

In many cases, parents not only ignore positive behaviors, but reinforce negative behaviors . If you only recognise your child when he or she cries, you are sending the wrong message, as he or she may associate that only crying gets all your attention.

4.Do not set limits for your child

If you don’t set rules and don’t enforce them on your child, he or she may grow up to be rude, uncooperative and disrespectful . Young children need to know where the line is so that they don’t become uncivilized individuals. Part of a parent’s job is to teach social values, such as respect or patience .

5.Failure to consistently enforce the rules

While some parents do not set limits on their child’s behavior, others set ambiguous or inconsistent limits . For example, a parent who doesn’t let his child play with food for a few days but lets his older brother. If the rules you set for your child are not consistent or are ambiguous, this will harm his learning of rules.

6.Give your child gifts when he or she is not playing

What you give your child is not as important as when you give it to him. For example, buying your child a bicycle just because he is bored with the one you gave him two months ago can teach him not to value the things he has.

7.Giving in to tantrums

Giving in to your child’s temper tantrums is a way of reinforcing negative behaviours , and teaches your child that he can get as much as he wants by crying, kicking and throwing constant tantrums and outbursts, and not by talking or doing things.

8.Acting like a spoiled child

You are a role model for your child, and how you interact with your family members is something she can learn. If you behave in a childish way in front of your child, it is very possible that he or she will think that this is the way to act .

One more strategy: learning the importance of children’s self-esteem

Children’s self-esteem should not be based on excessive and artificial praise of their merits. When we are able to make the child have a positive but realistic self-concept about himself, it is very likely that he will relate to his environment in a healthy way.

Here’s an article by educational psychologist Bertrand Regader that can help you: “10 strategies to improve your child’s self-esteem”