[SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey folks, this is Mark Gregston.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let me ask you, do you know someone in their 20s who just has a gift for connecting with teens and maybe they're that kind of person that naturally opens up to kids and kids to them and maybe they've worked at a camp, they've led a youth group, or just have a heart for helping people.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're looking for folks just like that to join us at Heartlight, our residential [SPEAKER_02]: It's an incredible opportunity for young adults ages 21 to 30 who want to do something that really matters.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, and we're going to pay them for and take good care of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our residential staff live on site with the kids in the houses.

[SPEAKER_02]: They mentor teens who are walking through some pretty tough stuff and they become a part of a close knit team that's focused on hope, healing, and change lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: The major thing that happens here, the involvement that every one of our staff have with the kids that live with us are helping change the destiny of families across the U.S., hey, you know what?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not always easy, but it is always worth it.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, if someone comes to mind, maybe it's a son or a daughter of friend or someone at your church, tell them to check out heartlight.jobs.

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, that's heartlight.jobs.

[SPEAKER_02]: It could be an opportunity that changes their life, while they help change someone else's.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's normal for your team to feel entitled.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're growing up in a world that teaches them that they're owed everything.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's now time to help them break this incident of entitlement before they enter into deeper relationships with other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Parenting Today's Teams, a daily podcast that provides stories, insights, and wisdom to help you as a parent, gain a deeper relationship with your team.

[SPEAKER_00]: On today's episode, Mark Greggston and Wayne Shepherd dive into a topic that will challenge, encourage, and inspire you as you pair at your team.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's listen in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Does your team feel entitled and what do you do about it?

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to parenting today's teens with Mark Greggston, the founder and executive director of Heart Light Ministries, a residential counseling program for teens, entitlement can be a real issue.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can it work?

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, entitlement is the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges, our special treatment.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's having the right to something and, you know, an entitle of teen is in golf with himself.

[SPEAKER_02]: They think only of themselves.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have low or no empathy for others.

[SPEAKER_02]: They wake up every morning with the thought of, what's everyone going to do for me today?

[SPEAKER_02]: There's sometimes belligerent and many times rage when something's taken away from them.

[SPEAKER_02]: They make you walk on egg shells, they ignore you at times, and there's even times that they roll their eyes at anything that you might suggest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like someone fun to live with.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that crazy?

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's a character trait that you and I, as parents, have fueled by rotating our lives around our kids.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's now time to help them break this incident item when, before they enter into deeper relationships with other people.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, follow closely with Mark because we're in talk about six steps to take within title teams.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, first thing you have to do, and I laugh a little bit, and the reason I laugh before we start, the reason I laugh is because I think this country has become entitled.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think [SPEAKER_01]: We all feel that way.

[SPEAKER_02]: Most people have become entitled in one way.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they feel like everybody's owed something.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, there's just a part of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: I go, it's feeding our kids.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's telling them you deserve this.

[SPEAKER_02]: This belongs to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is something you're supposed to get.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I go, [SPEAKER_02]: Wait a minute.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wait a minute.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're fueling the character trait that isn't good for relationships.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so the first thing you've got to do is communicate with your teens and you don't communicate with them by going, you are so selfish.

[SPEAKER_02]: You just think of yourself.

[SPEAKER_02]: You are so entitled.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why when I was a kid, those are not the ways to start the conversation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, don't do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's talking with your child and saying, hey, [SPEAKER_02]: I want to help you become more and more independent.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to be in control of your life.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to teach you how to make more money than you've ever had before.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to help you be successful.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to be more responsible for your life.

[SPEAKER_02]: So you had this open conversation about the entitlement attitude [SPEAKER_02]: And you just say, it seems like you want everybody to give you everything and that's not how life works.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I want to help you learn how to make the most out of life and get to a better place.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so we're going to start some new things within our home.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk through these new expectations, but you've got to communicate that that you're doing it for their benefit and that you're not doing it just because it makes you mad.

[SPEAKER_02]: You follow me.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I do.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like this student pay off loan.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am not for that at all.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason I'm not is because I worked my tail off when I was in college and I couldn't get anybody to give me a dime to help me.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I carry three and four jobs.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I know people that go away to medical school didn't cost as much.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's all relative.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's an epidemic.

[SPEAKER_02]: it is and so it's this idea that well we can just give all these kids if they don't if they expect it then they're going to expect it later and later and later that's where I think it becomes so difficult.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well one thing we can do is we can stop doing things for our kids.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think you will get this idea that the older they get, the more allowance they get, where do we ought to be giving them less allowance, the older they get?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a thought.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it might be that we spend less time making breakfast for them every morning or paying for their gas all the time or cleaning their bathrooms or doing their chores.

[SPEAKER_02]: Where they expect us to do it.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're not helping our kids learn to operate on their own by doing everything for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so when they turn 12 and 13 every year, I'm going to take away something I'm doing for them in hopes that they pick it up instead of them just thinking, wait a minute, you owe this to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: You're supposed to do this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I've got to start drawing these boundaries saying, you get to buy your tennis shoes this time.

[SPEAKER_02]: You get to buy some of your clothes this year.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll help you do some things, but I'm not going to help you do everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're transferring responsibility.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's right, because I'm getting out of the mindset that they have, that you owe this to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I tell kids all the time, I don't owe you anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to give you everything, but I don't owe you anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to break the pattern of thinking that everything that I do is deserved, because it gives no room for me to be graceful.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's like a kid opening up presents on Christmas morning going, [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going, be thankful that you got anything at all, but it's because we haven't broken that sense of entitlement, that they feel like they deserve everything they want.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I go, we're not helping train up a child because that's not the way the world operates.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's what I want to do is draw these boundaries and just start making some changes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as they grow up in age a year, you give them new responsibility.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_02]: I give them new responsibilities, knowing that the byproduct of the assumption of responsibilities is maturity.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, some kid may think that would you're taking care of me less and less.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's true.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I want you to take care of yourself more and more.

[SPEAKER_02]: The goal is to make sure that you don't have some 25-year-old clown on a couch playing video games, you know, that's just sitting around doing nothing, but he's learning that he's got to take care of himself.

[SPEAKER_02]: We are helping our kids when they get married.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that they don't have conflict within that marriage, you go into a marriage with a sense of entitlement.

[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to learn some pretty tough lessons that first year.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm helping them in relationship.

[SPEAKER_02]: You go to a new job and you feel like you're entitled to different things.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm helping that child make a transition into a new job where you'll be happy and because it's not all about just them living with us, it's training them for the upcoming time in their life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at number four in your list.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, number four says that I'm going to show love in ways that doesn't mean that I always have to give them something.

[SPEAKER_02]: It may be experiences, it may be time that I give them.

[SPEAKER_02]: It may be words of affirmation, it may be the opportunities that we have to do something together.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's not always buying them something.

[SPEAKER_02]: We get this idea when I buy them something that I'd love a more.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if a kid feels that, you're in trouble mom and dad because it means you're going to demand more and more in the days ahead.

[SPEAKER_02]: You ought to be doing less as it's required.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would tell kids this, when they're four and five years old, I'm not paying for your college.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not buying you a car at 16.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, you may very well do that, but you're communicating a message that not everything is going to be given to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that when you do give it, your child looks at you and says, thank you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for what you've done because they're not expecting it and they don't feel entitled.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's that's really good advice.

[SPEAKER_01]: So expect your team to pay for some of his or her privileges.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally make it uncomfortable for your team to stay lazy.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it may be time to say it's time for you to move.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's time for you to leave.

[SPEAKER_02]: make the requirements at home so strong that they don't want to live by you know and you just say because you want your child to learn to work there is something about that the first thing that God did when he created Adam was he gave him a job said go take care of the guard there's some purpose in that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Have you noticed parents who try to hang under their kids being at home too long?

[SPEAKER_02]: Way too long.

[SPEAKER_02]: Way too long.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they're not preparing their child for the next stage of life.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to hold on to something that maybe they need to let go of and let flourish.

[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I know this.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've enjoyed my kids a lot more since I left home.

[SPEAKER_02]: There isn't a period of time that I'd want to go back to and relive.

[SPEAKER_02]: I enjoy each day the further along that we get, and sometimes parents are fearful of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you're going to lose something, rather than looking at what they're going to gain in the days ahead.

[SPEAKER_02]: For almost 35 years, Heartlight has been a place of help and hope for 65 struggling teens, and a place many teens would tell you that saved their lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our beautiful campuses located just outside of Longview, Texas, and is designed to provide a respite for family seeking help for their struggling teens.

[SPEAKER_02]: This year, Long program for teens is therapy, rich, and professionally staffed.

[SPEAKER_02]: and offers an environment that encourages emotional spiritual and behavioral transformation.

[SPEAKER_02]: To find out more about Heartlight, please visit heartlightministries.org.

[SPEAKER_02]: Daniel, thanks for coming in and I'm anxious to hear.

[SPEAKER_02]: How did you end up coming to Heartlight in the first place?

[SPEAKER_02]: What was going on at home and what was spinning around in your life that [SPEAKER_03]: Um, there's a lot happening.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't like it range from like drugs and like self harm to like depression and suicidal ideations.

[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think all that started?

[SPEAKER_03]: I'd say that the drugs started my brother's ninth grade freshman year.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah, I was talking about one of my friends at a park and one of his friends came in his car and I hopped into the car and he had like a dad pin, like a car sitting in the middle console and I spanked it and that was the first time I ever got high and I realized that like I liked it more than like my regular life.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, more than the depression.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like my home life was getting to a point where being high was a better point.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, better feeling than being out.

[SPEAKER_02]: What was going on at home that was causing it to be so hard?

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, my relationship with my father.

[SPEAKER_02]: Really?

[SPEAKER_03]: It hasn't been good in years.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so how old were you in ninth grade when everything kind of started?

[SPEAKER_03]: It drugs certain ninth grade.

[SPEAKER_03]: Everything started going real downhill and about eighth grade.

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember something that kind of set it off?

[SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't like a real thing that kind of set it off.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was more like a gradual drifting away.

[SPEAKER_03]: And my parents not wanting to let me away.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it just caused a lot of conflict and they escalated vastly from there.

[SPEAKER_02]: So then the drug thing starts happening.

[SPEAKER_02]: Did you see other things start to go downhill as well?

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh yeah, things went farther down after the drug started.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, tell me about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so after I started doing drugs, I'd say like three months after I first started, I got caught with like a vape, I think, you know, and my relationship with my parents went down my school and down, it just turned around.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it was awful.

[SPEAKER_02]: When you look back at that now, what words would you use to describe that time in your life from the time that you took that first hit, uh, [SPEAKER_02]: When you said it just got awful, so that I kind of like wasted a lot of time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so I mean, if you're suicidal, [SPEAKER_02]: And you start doing the drugs.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it takes away everything for a little while.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then when you kind of, you know, get off your high, did it take you a little bit deeper into those thoughts of suicide?

[SPEAKER_03]: That's the thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got to the point where I was smoking every day, like all day.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was smoked like five times a day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, just I just wanted to live high.

[SPEAKER_03]: They got really bad and like I would wake up early so that I would have to have to smoke for a one school and then I would at school I would smoke in the middle of the day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then rise, I got home, I would smoke.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then rise for dinner, I would smoke.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not for, I went to bed, I would smoke.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like, it was just constant.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was all the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: You parents know that?

[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know.

[SPEAKER_02]: Did they know that then?

[SPEAKER_03]: That that was going for that idea, but I would never say it to them though.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so when you came to hard life, I mean, what was that decision like when they said, hey, you're going someplace?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they actually didn't tell me I was transporting.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, whenever.

[SPEAKER_03]: I came here, so that was a surprise.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so they transport you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Was that hard going from getting high five times a day to now not doing that?

[SPEAKER_03]: It was definitely a transition.

[SPEAKER_03]: Definitely took some adjusting to living a normal life.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but then did that expose the depression and all that again?

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, so that rose back to the top?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it definitely did.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I was my first guy here.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would, I would cut all of my legs.

[SPEAKER_03]: I would, I would not eat for like a week at a time.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then when I brought what he'd, I would just purge.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, immediately.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I did not have very good times.

[SPEAKER_03]: And around, I almost say March, I tried to kill myself actually in new lodge.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I went to psych for like a week and a half.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, did that help?

[SPEAKER_03]: It helped a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: There wasn't like real change till a couple months ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and what happened a couple of months ago that kind of said, okay, I got to do something different.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I just, I was, I was a new one for about five months.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just kind of realized that like, I've been, [SPEAKER_03]: I was building my third new lodge.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I had seen three new lodges go by and I was still sitting there.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I realized that if I ever wanted to get out of here, either had to get kicked out and go to another program or I had to start working to get out.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so I decided that I wanted to move up and I did that, but then as soon as I moved up, I got on another restriction.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and then after I worked that off, [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's never like a real change start happening and people will start noticing it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like people have seen drastic mood changes like, even my parents see the difference and how I was acting.

[SPEAKER_02]: And what do you attribute that to?

[SPEAKER_03]: I got a break for the first time.

[SPEAKER_02]: a few weeks ago and I think that definitely helped me get more motivated to come back home yeah and also getting put on meds for like depression probably helped that a lot too well I mean because it's evident you've been self-medicating I mean it's because you wanted something different yeah I mean most people who are smoke and five times a day I go they're they're dealing with something yeah okay so what's [SPEAKER_03]: The major change I've seen in me is probably my willingness to have a relationship with my family.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, because whenever I first got here, I didn't want a relationship with my dad.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'd especially didn't want my dad, but I was iffy with my mom.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And now I'm willing to start rebuilding my relationship with my dad.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Oscar, I've started having a pretty good relationship with my mom.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the past couple of months.

[SPEAKER_02]: Good, good.

[SPEAKER_02]: You love your parents?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I do.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they love you?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now I do.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did that get lost?

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh.

[SPEAKER_03]: Would you just thought, okay, nobody loves anybody here?

[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I didn't think that my parents love me at all.

[SPEAKER_02]: That just seemed so hopeless to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry you've had to go through the, you know, do you know what started it?

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I mean, you get into a car and smoke one time, but the relationship with your parents [SPEAKER_03]: um well my parents were very strict and very controlling so they wouldn't really like let me out that much and so like I had my friends at school but if I wanted to see them outside of school a lot of the time I would have to sneak out because I was usually grounded and stupid stuff that was my fault and but I didn't want to accept that at the time so my life was I completely [SPEAKER_03]: Well, they just didn't know many more.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it just seems like things have been somewhat of a blur for a number of years.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just wasted time, really.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, my prayer for you is that you make the most of your time.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and restore those relationships.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know that you've been placed in that family for a reason.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I know you're capable of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: everybody's been making comments about the big change that that they see in you and so I'm glad to hear you talk about it and of course I always take pictures and I see you goofing off with stuff just hilarious to me all the pictures you're in but I go there's a there's a good kid underneath all of this and you are a good guy and I know you can do it and get on top of all this stuff so that's cool well thanks for coming in and sharing your story okay hey wonderful thanks [SPEAKER_01]: Mark earlier, we discussed six steps to take with your entitled team.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like we should issue a warning here, though, to parents, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: If you take these steps, certain things are going to happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, if you stop doing everything for your team, there might be some arguments.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's going to be some pushback.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, because we're spoiled.

[SPEAKER_01]: Rough waters ahead.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[SPEAKER_02]: If somebody's giving me something, [SPEAKER_02]: And now they don't want to give it anymore, then that means, well, wait, wait, wait, that means I've got to do this and of course there's push back, but what you're doing is weaning them from a deep sentence on you and creating an independence in their mindset and it is tough, you know, it's like this.

[SPEAKER_02]: We win horses, little baby horses away from mom, and I mean, for us to do that, we've got to lock mom up.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we've got to put that baby a long ways away from everybody.

[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't hear the screaming and the yelling and everything else.

[SPEAKER_02]: You do that to cattle.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody does that.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a time.

[SPEAKER_02]: You kick them out of the nest.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a time where you go, you've got to fly on your own.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to make this on your own.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's not the funnest thing, but it's a great thing, and the great thing is you have a child that can function in a world that doesn't expect everybody else to give it to them.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's something about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I've mentioned several times about the lack of relationship that I had with my dad.

[SPEAKER_02]: At age 13, he told me, you're on your own.

[SPEAKER_02]: You get to pay for all your own stuff, and I really didn't like him for 13.

[SPEAKER_02]: 13.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you got to buy your own clothes, you got to do everything.

[SPEAKER_02]: I looked back at that and I'm pretty grateful that he did that because it created an independence in me that said, I've got to make things happen.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I took those things on and he was really kind of that piece that created that entrepreneurial spirit that I've had about doing things.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know whether that was his intention.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just think he didn't like me quite honestly, but there was something about that, that proved to be very good in my life.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm just telling parents, if you never kick them out of the nest and never go through that painful time and separation, then they'll never learn to stand on their own two feet.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they need to because you're not gonna be around forever.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you may be the one that's keeping them [SPEAKER_01]: But taking that step doesn't mean that you give up on the relationship.

[SPEAKER_01]: You just don't develop the relationship, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: In a way, it's got to get closer.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's right, I do both.

[SPEAKER_02]: I transfer responsibilities, but I affirm the relationship.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so if I need to affirm the relationship by giving more responsibilities, and then doing something with them to show them I still love them, then I want to do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would have, I'm still involved.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I can always say no.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's interesting to me that my granddaughter always comes to me and asks for money.

[SPEAKER_02]: She always does.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, my other granddaughter comes and goes, I want to buy a doc and you loan me money and I said, well, I don't believe in loaning money to family members, but I'll give it to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so she goes, well, pay you back.

[SPEAKER_02]: I go, no, you won't.

[SPEAKER_02]: Just forget about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But they always come.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?

[SPEAKER_02]: I always have the opportunity to say no.

[SPEAKER_02]: But those times that I have, they haven't liked it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I go, that's OK, because I want them to know that you don't always get everything that you want.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I know you want us to encourage teens as they make progress as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're great conversations today, Mark.

[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for addressing this topic today.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have one final word for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, mom's and dads, it's normal for your team to feel entitled.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're selfish creatures by birth and spend most of their first decade of life thinking about how to get what they want and what others should be doing for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's our job as parents.

[SPEAKER_02]: to begin to help them move from selfish to selfless as they enter their teen years.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're growing up in a world that teaches them that they're entitled and are owed everything.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why, they really do expect you to buy a car, pay for college, and keep them on your payroll for a long time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they have a fun time learning.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's called a dull thing and you can begin that process in the ten years so that the transition into adulthood isn't so painful.

[SPEAKER_02]: So quit doing everything for them and gently remind them that you don't owe them anything but you want to give them everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to Parenting Today's Teams.

[SPEAKER_00]: For more information, you can visit parentingtodaysteens.org, Heartlight Ministry's.org, or markgregsden.com.

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