Right or Privilege: Knowing Which is Which

It appears that each generation, children have more at their fingertips than previous generations. While my generation had CD players, bicycles and video games, this generation has smart phones, laptops, and unlimited streaming… which are all privileges (according to most adults). It’s helpful to keep this in mind when using consequences (negative or positive) at home. It is also helpful to establish the delineation between a right and a privilege as early as possible and with consistency. Children’s rights should always include food, shelter, education, medical needs being met and a sense of safety and belonging within the home.

There is, or at least should be, understanding when providing children with privileges. They follow whatever rules you’ve set for the home, including behavior, grades and other expectations, and then can continue to have those privileges. Get your homework done, you can play video games. Do your chores, you get allowance. Turn off the phone when asked without sneaking it out later, you get to use it the next day. What often happens when children are threatened with the loss of a privilege is resistance. Within that moment they’ll often forget that whatever privilege they are about to lose and that it is not a right.

The shift for adults should include very specific language with words such as “choice/choosing” and “if/then.” For example, when the child isn’t turning off their video game when prompted, you can say something like, “So because you’re choosing to stay on your game…you will not get to play tomorrow or the rest of the day” or "If you choose to continue using bad words, then I'm going to take some space before I lose my temper."

It's easy to forget that most of what children have are privileges, especially in an industrialized nation where the majority of children have some kind of device and/or gaming console. It's much easier if you realign everyone's thinking, including the children, that those privileges are earned and without their parents grace, kindness and support (and sometimes indulgence) they would never know what losing that privilege would feel like in the first place.