You’ve met them before. That person who walks through life with their hand out, expecting the world to fill it, yet rarely offering anything back. We shake our heads and call it entitlement. But where does a story like that begin? Not in an office or a boardroom. It begins in the quiet moments of childhood, nurtured not by neglect, but by a love so fierce it sometimes paves the wrong path. This isn’t a story about pointing fingers at parents. It’s about seeing how the kindest hearts can sometimes build the toughest hurdles for the children they adore.

The entitled adult wasn’t born demanding. They were shaped by small, seemingly harmless actions that, over time, gave them a warped idea of how the world works. Understanding these patterns isn’t about blame. It’s about lighting up a path toward raising kids who are not just happy, but also resilient, responsible, and ready for real life. Here are nine of the most common ways this foundation is laid.

1. Not Setting Boundaries

At its core, entitlement starts when boundaries get blurry. It happens when “no” becomes a negotiation instead of a decision. A parent sets a rule—bedtime at 8 PM, one hour of screen time—but when faced with tears or tantrums, the line bends, then breaks. This isn’t just about giving in to keep the peace; it’s about teaching a powerful lesson: rules are suggestions, and a little emotional pressure is a tool to get what you want. This pattern is often driven by a parent’s own discomfort with their child’s unhappiness, but the short-term relief comes at a high long-term cost.

This cycle keeps a child from developing a crucial life skill: frustration tolerance. When a child never has to truly accept a firm “no,” they don’t get the chance to practice managing disappointment. They learn that boundaries are not firm walls but flimsy fences that can be pushed over with enough persistence. Experts agree that consistency is the key to healthy boundaries. Without it, a child learns that the world should bend to their will—a belief that sets them on a collision course with reality.

2. Giving Empty Praise

Praise can be a powerful tool, or it can be a trap. The difference is in the substance. When praise is given for just showing up, or for natural traits—”You’re so perfect,” “You’re a natural”—it builds a fragile, hollow ego. It teaches a child they deserve praise not for what they do, but for who they are. This links their entire sense of worth to an identity that feels fixed, making any failure feel like a devastating personal flaw rather than a learning opportunity.

Real self-esteem, on the other hand, is built on effort. It comes from praising the process: “You worked so hard on that,” “I love how you didn’t give up.” This approach reinforces perseverance and hard work. In contrast, empty praise creates what some call a “praise junkie”—someone who needs constant approval from others to feel worthy and falls apart at the first sign of criticism. They see helpful feedback not as a chance to grow, but as a personal attack on their “perfect” identity.

3. Doing Too Much for Them

From packing a teenager’s lunch to calling their professor about a grade, the instinct to “help” can easily become a habit of doing too much. This behavior, often driven by love, sends a devastating, unspoken message: “You’re not capable of handling this on your own.” It’s a pattern where parents take on responsibilities that their children are developmentally ready to handle themselves.

Every time a parent swoops in to solve a problem, they prevent their child from developing basic life skills and, more importantly, from building self-efficacy—the belief in their own ability to succeed. Competence isn’t given; it’s built through experience. These children grow into adults who expect others to manage their lives, reacting with confusion or anger when asked to pull their own weight, because they’ve always had someone else to clear the path and do the heavy lifting for them.

4. Dismissing Their Feelings

Helping a child understand their emotions is one of a parent’s most vital roles. But that education gets derailed when a child’s feelings are treated like an emergency to be extinguished. This can happen in two ways: dismissal (“Stop being so sensitive”) or absorption (the parent becomes just as upset as the child). Dismissal teaches a child their feelings are wrong or shameful. Absorption teaches them that their feelings are dangerously powerful—so much so that they can destabilize the adults around them.

Either way, the child misses the chance to learn how to sit with a difficult emotion, understand it, and move through it on their own. Instead of developing self-regulation, they learn to either suppress their feelings or use them to control others. This is why many entitled adults react with such anger when things don’t go their way; they simply lack the internal tools to handle the resulting frustration and disappointment.

5. Modeling Entitlement

Kids learn more from what they see than from what they’re told. They are expert mimics of the adults in their lives, absorbing behaviors through a process of social learning. When a parent demands special treatment at a restaurant, argues with a coach over playing time, or treats service staff poorly, they are giving a live, practical demonstration of entitlement.

This modeling provides a child with a powerful script for how to navigate the world. They see their primary role models operating with an attitude of superiority and internalize this as a normal, and even desirable, way to behave. They learn that manipulating situations and disregarding the needs of others is a valid strategy for achieving a goal. It’s one of the clearest and most direct ways entitlement gets passed down from one generation to the next.

6. Being Their Friend, Not Their Parent

In an effort to be closer to their kids, many parents try to be their friend. But when friendship replaces authority, it can make a child feel deeply insecure. Children need to know that a confident, capable adult is in charge. When those roles get blurred, and a child gets an equal vote in big decisions they aren’t ready for, they feel an underlying anxiety because the person meant to be their anchor is acting like a peer.

This dynamic leads them to constantly test boundaries, unconsciously searching for the limits that provide a sense of safety. A child who has never had a parent who is clearly and lovingly in charge grows up with a fundamental lack of respect for authority in general. This attitude then extends beyond the home to teachers, coaches, and employers, fueling the belief that they are not beholden to the expectations or directives of others.

7. Bribing for Basic Behavior

There’s a huge difference between rewarding a child for going above and beyond and bribing them for basic cooperation. When treats or money become the standard payment for doing chores or behaving in public, it wears away at their intrinsic motivation—the natural desire to help and contribute.

This approach teaches a child to see life through a transactional, “What’s in it for me?” lens. Cooperation, responsibility, and kindness are no longer framed as inherent values or community expectations, but as tasks performed in exchange for a prize. This fosters a self-centered perspective where they expect to be compensated for meeting the most basic social and familial obligations, robbing them of the satisfaction that comes from contributing to the family good.

8. Shielding Them from Reality

Perhaps the most damaging pattern is the constant effort to create a frictionless world for a child. This is the idea behind “lawnmower parenting”—mowing down any potential challenge or failure in a child’s path. From calling the school to fix a bad grade to making sure they never feel the sting of losing, this approach is a masterclass in mispreparing a child for life by shielding them from natural consequences.

Reality is full of setbacks, and overcoming them is how resilience is built. By creating a sanitized bubble, parents prevent their kids from developing the coping skills they need to handle adversity. These children grow into adults who perceive any hardship not as a part of life, but as a personal injustice. They feel entitled to an easy, problem-free existence, leaving them exceptionally vulnerable and unprepared when the real world inevitably shows up.

9. Disrespecting Their Autonomy

While many paths to entitlement come from giving too much, this one comes from the opposite: a consistent lack of respect for the child’s burgeoning autonomy. This includes habitually dismissing their opinions, making all their decisions for them, belittling their ideas, or treating them like a project to be managed rather than a person to be understood.

In this environment, an entitled attitude can emerge as a defense mechanism. When a child’s sense of self and autonomy is consistently undermined, they may develop feelings of inadequacy. Entitlement becomes a form of overcompensation—a way of demanding, “You may not respect me, but I am important and I deserve things.” This also models a damaging lesson: that respect is a one-way street. By not showing respect for the child, a parent inadvertently teaches them that they are not required to extend that same respect to others.

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