Do you know someone who suffers from the epidemic of entitlement?
According to Dr. John Townsend, author of The Entitlement Cure, the epidemic of entitlement is widespread across generations. Where did this sense of entitlement come from?
“It all started in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve decided that life should be on their terms and not God’s.”
Entitlement is nothing new. How do we stop entitlement in it’s tracks?
One of the ways entitlement gets passed down is by parents making their kid’s lives too easy.
“What we found out is the neuroscience really backs up what the Bible says about parenting. When you make things easy for the child, then the child can’t do hard things.”
For instance, in nature a baby eagle must peck its way out of its shell in order to continue growing. It’s hard for the baby eagle, but doing the hard thing of getting out of its shell prepares it to grow into adulthood.
“You can’t make things too hard for your kid. The Bible says that we shouldn’t discourage our children, but it’s got to be at that sweet spot where they feel challenged, pushed, resourced, and loved by you. Then everything clicks, they begin doing well in homework, sports, they do well in church with friends, they stay away from drugs, because you push them to do difficult things.”
Unfortunately for parents, today’s culture only reinforces this attitude of entitlement.
“Culture is not helping; we see it all over the billboards and tabloids. We see that everything can be easy and everything is about you.”
Dr. Townsend describes our culture as a microwave culture; we want everything immediately, with little to no hard work required.
“There’s a fast track to everything, and the problem is, personal growth, business growth, spiritual growth, is not microwave, it’s an oven, and our culture takes the oven out of it.”
Even the church falls prey to this culture of immediacy.
“Our pastors feel pressured to create an entertainment church instead of a participative church, you’ve got to have lots of great talks, and great music, to keep the people entertained as opposed to, well there was something that really challenged me today.”
