Teach Your Toddler This Now to Avoid Entitlement Later, Says Dr. Becky

For better or worse, the habits kids develop in their early years tend to stick. Whether it’s a bedtime routine or how they treat others, these early lessons shape how they navigate the world—and sometimes, those habits create more challenges than parents anticipate. One behavior that can sneak up on well-meaning parents? Entitlement.

Psychologist, author and social media favorite, Dr. Becky Kennedy recently shared insights on how entitlement takes root. In a now-viral video, Kennedy explains at the root of entitlement is a fear of frustration. “Entitlement is the accumulated experience of feeling frustrated and then having someone else give you immediate success,” she explains.

“I will never forget in my private practice seeing parents of a 16-year-old and this 16-year-old had a full-blown temper tantrum when he found out he wasn’t flying first class,” she said. “I know this is every parent’s nightmare, and everyone wonders, how do you get such an entitled kid?” she said. “But here’s the thing, these were really well-meaning parents, and this was actually a really nice kid. But when I looked back on the pattern I saw it.”

“Every time this kid felt frustrated when he was younger, there was a quick exit ramp,” she said. “And as a result, what happened is this kid learned to be fearful of his frustration because he saw that everyone else was working so hard to always make him happy. And so at age 16, he didn’t really have any better skills to manage frustration than he did when he was 2. This isn’t really about first class, it’s about the patterns our kids learn to expect”

So what’s a parent to do? Kennedy says the key to preventing entitlement is teaching kids how to tolerate frustration—and that starts with parents learning to tolerate their own frustration first. After this, parents are more equipped to sit with their kid in their frustration and guide them through difficult situations. “We want to intervene to help our kids sit with tough emotions, not exit our kids out of them,” Kennedy explains.

As a mom of three, Kennedy gets that not everything can be a learning moment though. “Of course there are moments to prioritize our convenience, but it’s helpful to keep in mind that we’re not optimizing for our kids, short-term happiness or we should be optimizing for our kids’ long-term resilience—which means focusing on building skills in hard moments, not avoiding them.”