The seed of entitlement

Originally published in the Moultrie News.

I saw where a child got a 40-minute detention for taking more than one bottle of water on a 93-degree day, and when asked to put them back, he ran off. Most people are saying this is too harsh. Is it?

If I were the kid who didn’t get a bottle of water on a 93-degree day because this child stole one, I would say a 40-minute detention isn’t harsh enough.

For those who say the detention is too tough, that’s fine — but when it comes time to express concerns about kids being spoiled and entitled, we’ll expect you to keep it zipped up tight.

That’s because spoiled, entitled behavior doesn’t emerge fully formed in adolescence or adulthood without any precedent. It begins with small childhood entitlements exactly like this.

If you’re waiting for the child to steal a cellphone, $50, or a car before you think it’s substantial enough to warrant punishment, you have arrived entirely too late to the party to do much about it. Stealing things like that is where entitlement ends up. Not where it starts.

So if you really want to avoid it, you address and penalize it at its origin, not its destination. And swiping an extra bottle because you think rules and restrictions don’t apply to you is precisely the kind of fertile soil in which the seed of entitlement is planted. If the child gets away with it, you’ve nourished the seed.

But that’s actually only one part of this particular scenario.

Though the child clearly stole, he did not commit grand larceny. So if he had merely swiped the extra bottle, was later discovered with it, and then repented, I could be persuaded that repossession and a talking-to might be sufficient. But that’s not what happened at all.

In this case, the boy ran away, even after he was told to stop by a teacher. That’s significant because respect for people and rules is foundational to a healthy school culture. Yet school cultures are currently disintegrating due in large part to a systemic lack of respect from students.

When the Golden Rule of “Do unto others” prevails, it promotes a safe, peaceful, and respectful learning community. But when children ignore or insult teachers, it eats into schools’ positive climates like a cancer, inciting chaos and incivility. That disrupts learning and drives out good teachers who grow weary of students treating them like trash.

Thus, by disregarding and running away from his teacher, the boy committed perhaps an even more corrosive offense than stealing: flagrant and shameless disrespect. He showed contempt for an adult who doubtless only wanted him to come back and return the second bottle.

How are we to improve damaging social problems if we don’t address them when children are young, and their offenses (and the penalties) are relatively minor? If you’re having car problems, you would do well to fix them as soon as the “check engine” light comes on. The longer you wait, the more severe the problem will become — and the higher the bill to fix it will run.

In my experience, taking something small that doesn’t belong to you is a warning light. Thumbing your nose at your teachers is smoke pouring out of the hood. If these remain unaddressed, what comes next is a breakdown of potentially catastrophic cost.

Parents often get upset when kids are punished for stealing small things like pencils or water bottles. But their distress is misguided, shortsighted, and perhaps even the origin of the problem. Disrespect for important things like people and ethics begins with its impunity and spreads when it is condoned.

To build a school community where respect thrives, a 40-minute detention is an excellent investment.

Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992 and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. To submit a question, order his books, or follow him on social media, please visit JodyStallings.com.

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