[sshah]

French parents learned to ignore, say no to their kids from their parents who learned from their parents and so on. In other words - it might be in their culture. I grew up in India and do find a lot of similarities in my upbringing - our egos were not always served, maybe 30% of times. We had family in US and I noticed - kid's egos in their families were served 90% of the times. As mentioned in the article, kids were ruling their life...whereas in my family it was the other way around. Did it make any difference in the lives of those kids or mine - that's a different topic. My point here is maybe American parents were told to over parent. By whom - not sure, but could be babies r us, or mattelle sponsored studies, or ads on TV to promote products, etc.

[jf271]

I think that saying no to kids is one of the most important things you can do to help them. Too many of the kids my kids grew up with never heard the word no during their childhood because their parents wanted to give them everything they did have while growing up. They ended up being spoiled brats and got even worse once the school system in the USA got a hold of them and told them what unique individuals they were. Disappointment is a part of life and how to handle it is something that should be learned early in life.