Conduct Disordered Children: Are They Simply Overindulged?

Last evening, I sat down at my computer to write an article on conduct disorder that I was going to submit to EzineArticles, an online article database to which I have been submitting articles. I had planned to be pretty straight-forward in my approach to writing about conduct disorder, providing basic information about symptoms, typical age at onset, incidence, etc.

Then, this morning, I received in the mail a promotional brochure from Cross Country Education announcing an August program in my area called “Overindulged Children and Conduct Disorder: Treating Overindulgent Families”. I got really excited, as only someone who is interested in this stuff can get. Unfortunately, when I looked at the date, I discovered that all four of the program’s local dates are around a time when I will be unable to attend. Damn!

Damn! And triple-Damn!

Suddenly, though, I moved beyond thinking about conduct disorder into the much more common world of overindulgence and its consequences. As I did a Google search on “overindulgence”, I found a treasure-trove of information.

One of the articles, from The Seattle Times, focused heavily on the book, “How Much is Enough?: Everything You Need to Know to Steer Clear of Overindulgence and Raise Likeable, Responsible and Respectful Children”. Connie Dawson, the book’s co-author, said that when she and her co-authors studied adults who were overindulged as children, they found three main ways that parents overindulge their children.

• They give too much.  
• They over-nurture. That doesn’t mean too much love. It refers to too much hovering or intrusion or deprivation of opportunities to grow and experience life, with all its joys and disappointments.)
• Too little structure. Children need guidance and limits and rules. They need boundaries and responsibilities.     

None of that was a surprise. But as I pondered this, I came across this quote:

“The children now love luxury; They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Well, that was attributed to Socrates, more than 2,350 years ago. And if you’ll just disregard the little mention of children no longer being “servants of their households”, it appears that many of the more annoying behaviors of our children have been going on for a long time.

But, as each new age arrives, the ways in which we can and do overindulge our children changes. These changes come as regularly as new technology, and, unfortunately, parents use overindulgence in privileges or things as a way to appease their children’s desire and need for structure and contact and love.

Maybe we should, at last, put overindulgence to good use by satisfying our children’s need for limits and commonsense. How far might that go toward preventing your child from developing a conduct disorder?