Parents of today come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more insufferable than others. You get the gentle parents, the strict parents, the helicopter parents, and our personal worst: the entitled parents. These are the moms and dads that truly believe the earth revolves around them and their golden offspring.
While some of us are lucky enough to only encounter entitled parents/children through the stories we read, others have the misfortune of having to deal with them in real life. Like two brothers, who are having their lives turned upside-down by a mom and her son who just won't quit it. The mother isn't happy with the size of her child's school dorm room, and is demanding that the siblings share theirs with him. The kid has resorted to sleeping outside the door in protest.
"Entitled, spoilt brat" is sometimes the best way to describe certain kids
This 12YO threw his toys out of the cot because his school's student body president had a better dorm room than him
Many couldn't understand why the school didn't intervene, and the cousin tried to explain
In a wild twist, the entitled mom drove across the state to demand that her son be taken on vacation with the brothers
People had questions and the answers were forthcoming...
Here's how to spot an entitled parent, or Karent, according to experts...
We've heard of Karens but ‘Karent’ might be a new one for many of us. It's a name coined by Susan Groner, an author and founder of The Parenting Mentor. Groner says that Karents are basically entitled parents. The type who believe they and their families deserve special treatment, favors, and anything they deem the “best” because they consider themselves superior to others.
Becky Stuempfig, a licensed marriage and family therapist says that ‘entitled’ people feel they should have things (or get to do things) without having to work for it. In other words, "they deserve special privileges or recognition for things they did not earn.”
In an interview with Huffington Post, Groner noted that an entitled parent will never accept that their child is at fault for anything. “They expect their child to be treated as the smartest, most talented child and will fight with teachers, principals, coaches, directors,” she said.
If you're dealing with an entitled parent, you might hear things like: “Why is my child only in the chorus? They deserve the lead role!”; “Don’t even think about benching my child. You better make them a starter”; “My child deserves to be in the gifted class, and I will go all the way to the superintendent if you don’t put them in that class”; “Take that off my child’s record or I will sue.” or even “Change my child’s grade.”
Or, in the case of today's story, "Change my child's dorm room."
Also speaking to Huffington Post, Craig Knippenberg, a therapist and author, warned that being demanding is a tell-tale sign of an entitled person or parent. “They want to go right to the top instead of dealing with the person at hand," he explained. "They still feel entitled despite a logical explanation by another party, almost as if they feel wronged.”
The site notes that a lack of compassion or sensitivity toward others is another hallmark of entitled people, as is the inability to apologize or make amends for their behavior when others call them out. And that's because they truly believe they’re always right.
"They may choose to surround themselves with people they deem worthy or who share their worldview ― furthering limiting their capacity to understand of others’ feelings or realities," it adds.
Some entitled parents might even see themselves as more entitled than their own children.
“The entitlement is projected onto the child as a set of expectations and belief in perfectionist views of the child,” explains psychotherapist Noel McDermott. “Any criticism of the child will be a criticism of the parent."
McDermott adds that the parent will not only insist on special treatment for their child, but might also remove their child from opportunities to socialize outside of their tightly controlled social circle.
Some felt the story was too insane to be real, others were shocked
