WHEN do you start teaching that you are the parent and they are the child?? RIGHT AFTER BIRTH!
Other than immediate needs; a wet diaper, a gas bubbly tummy that needs rubbed, hunger... A child can learn from day one that the world does not revolve around them.
The level of patience and waiting required increases as their ages increase. Parents provide the choice of clothes to wear for the day. My daughter started this at a VERY young age with our grandchildren. They have two samples to choose from. I rarely recall an "I want.." and if it did occur, it was immediately corrected with a "May I please.."
We never had screaming 2-year olds in a store, and now 30 years later we don't have screaming grandchildren in a store...
I have said that the average American treats their child like a puppy, until it can walk and talk "it" just does as it pleases with no consequences and then at age 2 we wonder why they have bad ingrained habits and perspectives of entitlement?
Your newborn baby is the biggest sponge you have ever seen, absorbing all you say and do via his/her eyes and ears, treat them like the human being they are, teach and guide them from the beginning and there will be no question who the parent or child is!
A proud parent and granddad,
O.
