How do you know your six-year-old child is selfish?

[poppytin]

Could you pls advise?

How do you know if your six-year-old child is selfish? My husband and I are having an argument about our first son. He thinks he is okay, while I think he is selfish.

I use some measures like whether he:

Refuses to help in the home
Lack of gratitude
Excessively angry when everything doesn't go as one wants
Acts like a spoiled child

But even for these types of measures, my husband and I would have different opinions on whether it is very often or very little.

Do you ever find yourself in a similar situation? Is there a ‘test’ that you can use to know?
Thank you

All six year olds are selfish, to some extent. They haven't really developed a full sense of empathy yet.

Sounds fairly normal, are these things happening every time, most or some of the time or occasionally? (Even if you have different ideas of how often he's doing it, think about it as a ratio, how often does he help as opposed to refusing, how often is he grateful/ungrateful? How often does he react calmly vs aggressively to disappointment?) How do you handle his behaviour when he behaves like this?

He's only six. I suspect most 6 year kids act like this at least some of the time! Why do you want to stick such an unpleasant label on your child?

Anyway, surely the issue you and your husband need to discuss isn't so much who's right about whether he's selfish or not, surely what you need to be concentrating on is working out ways to help him think of others a bit more. Maybe you could make a conscious effort to talk about helping people as you go about your normal day, and how nice it is when people are kind and thoughtful. Make a massively big deal of it when he does do something helpful.

But helping him to think about other people may well end up being a job that takes a very long time - I wouldn't assume there's a magic wand! Plenty of grown ups have selfish tendencies.....

Thank you so much for your kind replies so far.

Perhaps one of the problems is my husband and I have different attitudes. I accuse him of being too soft. He seems so quick to please the child, if only to make him stop moaning. While I consider myself being tougher.

For example, yesterday we did not have time to prepare a packed lunch for him. In the morning while we drove him to the childminder (who would take him to school later), he asked where his lunch was. I told him to eat free meal at school, but he said no and refused to enter the childminder’s house.

Then my husband said we would bring the packed lunch to school. Of course it was a lie. Then when he still refused to go with the childminder, my husband took my lunch and gave it to him. Only then did he enter the childminder’s house.

In this example, could we have done better?
Thank you

How come you had time to prepare yourself a lunch and not your child? I'd see to my child first, I can pop out to the shop..

Has your child had a school lunch before? Change can be scary and unexpected.

He's six. Six year olds can only see the world from their own point of view. What their needs and desires are, whether they are safe, upset etc.

He won't, for example, think, I have mummy's lunch, what will she eat? He will think he has his packed lunch and everything is back to normal.

Well yes. Don't lie to him. It's confusing for him.

I think the problem was that his routine was changed. He thought he was having packed lunch. You should have brought it up first so you were in control of the conversation.

"I didn't have time to make your lunch today, but don't worry you can have school lunch. It's pasta today."

Thank you again. Just a note about my lunch: it was just leftover from last night; nothing fancy. That’s why I did not give it to him. And this morning I did not have time to prepare proper packed lunch for him.

Perhaps I should have told him first before we left the house.

I really don't think he was being selfish. just unsettled. Things that we think are not a big deal, are for them. Perhaps he would have to sit at a different table so something. Or maybe he doesn't like school lunches.

I batch cook stuff like spaghetti bolognese and macaroni cheese and freeze them for days I haven't got time. Then I put them in the microwave then into a flask. So much quicker than a sandwich.

@SavoyCabbage: Your idea is very useful. I will learn from that.

Since September, when they introduce free meals, my son at first enjoyed eating at school. But since last week, suddenly he said he wanted packed lunch only.

I think children, even older than 6, are 'selfish' (for want of a better word) by which I mean their world very much centres around them. They don't have the benefit of experience that we do. When I look back I know, for example, that I was 'selfish' as a teenager.

But I don't think it's helpful to use labels like 'spoilt' (my DH uses this quite often) or 'selfish' in relation to our children. Our job is to teach them to grow up into helpful, considerate adults and that takes a long time. So we praise them for anything that is kind or helpful and I tend to comment frequently on how we are a team and each of us responsible eg for clearing our plates from the table. I think it's better to focus on teaching them life skills in a positive way, and accept that there is plenty of undesirable behaviour that goes along with that. I try to model the behaviour I want, so I show gratitude to my DCs if they do something that is helpful (however small) and they seem to be very encouraged by this. My 6-year-old does all the things yours does in your OP sometimes, but generally he is a helpful and sensible boy. I do likewise express disapproval or don't accept 'tantrums' about things that he can't have etc, but mainly by staying firm that eg yes it is now time to go up to get ready for bed and no you can't have another 5 minutes playing games. Repeat, repeat ...! They will get there with guidance and practice, just like writing or maths or any other more tangible skill they learn in school. It takes a while.

You and your DH need to be on the same page. If he's assigned to school meals then he needs to have school meals, it's not fair to chop and change all the time. I would think that the school would have a policy like this anyway, otherwise how would they know how much food to cook?

Q: How do you know your six year old is selfish? A: she's six.

Seriously they don't really have the ability to think about others at this age. I agree it can be tiresome.

If you want him to have free school meals, tell him he is having them and stick to that - no varying. Much easier all round to do one thing with no chopping and changing. I think most tantrums are about things not going as children expected (and sometimes, of course, it's not possible that they do).

Dd also wants sandwiches but I have said no. It's too bad I'm afraid (mean mummy).