Kids can grow up with developmental wounds that put them on one end of the unhealthy entitlement spectrum or the other. On one end, kids grow up too entitled. They feel entitled to things they’re not actually entitled to, and this can put them at risk of narcissistic behaviors that stem from too much entitlement.
How can you tell if someone has too much entitlement?
Signs of Too Much Unhealthy Entitlement
At the milder end…
- Expect parents to shower them with luxuries and have a tantrum if they don’t get what they want (think Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka- “I want a goose that lays the golden egg and I want it NOW Daddy!”)
- Lack of gratitude
- Disregard of other people’s needs
- Poor reciprocity (expect to get more than they give)
- Expect special treatment
- Low tolerance for frustration
- Difficulty accepting someone’s “No”
- Blames other people for their problems
- ”Rules don’t apply to me” attitude
- Perceives minor inconveniences as major personal issues
- Think they’re better and more deserving than people they deem inferior
- Minimal empathy
- Feel insulted by other people’s healthy boundaries
- Rude to wait staff
- Behave like the “ugly American” when traveling overseas
- Act like the entitled characters in the White Lotus TV show
- Take more than their fair share of the good stuff at the potluck
- Demand expensive things but aren’t willing to work for them (think trophy spouse who expects indulgences but doesn’t want to get a job to pay for their expensive taste)
At the extreme end, too much entitlement leads to criminal behavior:
- Rape
- Exploitation
- Labor trafficking
- Theft
- Con jobs
- Domestic violence or even murder
Too much entitlement is usually the result of developmental trauma. It can be caused by overindulgent parenting, when parents are too generous, without adequate boundaries, or helicopter parenting, when parents overprotect and micromanage, essentially infantilizing and distrusting their kids.
But what about kids who grow up with too little entitlement?
Signs of Not Enough Entitlement Due to Developmental Trauma
As Craig Malkin writes about in Rethinking Narcissism, entitlement lies on a spectrum. At one end is too much entitlement. At the other lies not enough. How can you tell if you lack healthy entitlement? What are the symptoms of this kind of developmental trauma?
- Feeling like a burden, like your needs, wants, or presence are an inconvenience to others, leading to excessive people-pleasing.
- Over-Apologizing – Constantly saying sorry, even for things that don’t require an apology, as if you don’t have the right to take up space.
- Difficulty asking for help – Hesitating to ask for support, fearing rejection or feeling like you should be able to handle everything alone.
- Undercharging or undervaluing yourself, struggling to ask for fair compensation and feeling like you have to prove your worth first.
- Feeling unworthy of good things struggling to accept kindness, love, or success without guilt or imposter syndrome feelings.
- olerating mistreatment or staying in relationships (romantic, professional, or friendships) where you’re undervalued because you don’t believe you deserve better.
- Not speaking up for yourself, avoiding confrontation, suppressing your opinions, or letting others make decisions for you to maintain harmony.
- Extreme “lone wolf” independence, with a reluctance to rely on others, sometimes to the point of self-sabotage, because deep down, you feel you shouldn’t need anything.
- Over-giving without receiving, pouring energy into others but struggling to accept generosity in return, leading to burnout and resentment.
- Shame around boundaries, feeling guilty or selfish for setting limits, even when they are necessary for your well-being.
At its core, not having enough healthy entitlement means you don’t fully believe you have the right to take up space, have needs, or expect fairness in relationships. Not having enough healthy entitlement also results from developmental trauma in childhood. It’s usually caused by emotionally neglectful parents, parentification (when kids have to take care of the parents or siblings instead of getting to be a kid), inconsistent or unpredictable caregiving by parents, perfectionistic expectations or excessive criticism, boundary violations and intrusiveness, being punished for expressing needs, wants, or emotions, being scapegoated while another sibling is pedestalized, glorification of self-sacrifice or martyrdom, and religious abuse.
How Special Needs Can Help Those Without Enough Healthy Entitlement Learn To Take Up Space
In last week’s Love School, we talked about how special needs in kids can be an incredible protector part, forcing kids who struggle to take up much space an extra push to ask for what they need, inconvenience others, put out their parents, friends, or romantic partners, and have a good reason for being needy. Even as adults, kids who grew up not feeling safe to take up space or express needs may need to get sick, have allergies, develop highly sensitive person traits, be very sensitive to sounds (misophonia), or otherwise develop special needs, as a way to feel okay about making requests, asking for needs to be prioritized, inconveniencing others, or otherwise making their own needs important.
We’re going to be discussing exactly these kinds of issues in more depth than we did in Love School in Mothering As Medicine, which I’m co-teaching with pediatrician and trauma expert Rachel Gilgoff, MD. It’s for mom-identifying people who might have been inadequately parented themselves and are learning how to break the chain of generational trauma with their own young or adult children. Especially if your kids have any mental or physical health issues, this might be a game-changer for you, as a parent, to be an ally to your young or adult child, as a compassionate caregiver and fellow journeyer on life’s learning path. We’ll be addressing these issues with great sensitivity, non-judgment, and empathy, as mothers ourselves who have made our own mistakes in parenting and learned a lot from the process.
The good news is that even if we weren’t perfect mothers, we can still learn to be the mothering medicine our kids need, as part of their healing process and as part of our own.
Save $100 if you join us now for Mothering As Medicine. (Early bird ends March 22, and we start March 26, but the price goes up $100 on March 23.)
