The Little Emperor Syndrome, Or Child Tyrant

It is increasingly common to see young children challenging, torturing and making fun of their parents or other people with authority. What is worrying is that these attitudes seem to be escalating to the extreme: parents are being abused by their children. We’re talking about the little emperor syndrome, the child tyrant.

Both in my professional practice and everyday life, it is becoming more and more common to see children beating their parents, insulting them, making fun of them and much more to get what they want.

The most striking thing is that the more tyrannical attitudes the child expresses, the greater the effort made by the adult who is responsible for satisfying the child. An adult who is overwhelmed by the demands of his son or daughter ends up feeling guilty because they do not satisfy the children’s desires.

To get acquainted with the characteristics of the little emperor syndrome, we will tell a true story that I experienced a while ago during the summer holidays. Let’s take a look.

Situation: The little emperor does not want to eat

A family – father, mother and a child of approx. 5 years – eats at a restaurant with quite a few people around. The mother, who is almost sweating, tries to feed her son, something he knows how to do himself, but refuses to do right now.

The heart of the matter is not that the child does not want to eat, but rather that right now he only wants to drink from the Coke that his mother ordered at the bar. The child will not drop the glass, even after she has spoken to three.

So then the mother thinks that the best idea is to negotiate with the child and she tells him, “you can only drink Coke if you eat your steak.”

The child’s bad behavior and derogatory words towards the mother increase. Among them are, ” I do not want to eat the disgusting steak just because you say I should ” and ” I have already told you not to eat it, do not you understand me when I talk to you? “

Meanwhile, the father is just a spectator of the conflict which he observes with an apathetic look on his face.

After toiling over the glass of Coke, the mother can not find a way to satisfy her son, so she gives up. The child ends up drinking everything he wants, at the same time as he teases and kicks his mother under the table.

Finally, there is a reprimand from the mother which the child of course does not take seriously: “You will see, you will not be allowed to go to the pool today” .

At this point, the little emperor already has enough resources to win in this type of situation. In the future, he knows he just has to fight a little harder with the glass of Coke.

Characteristics of the little emperor syndrome

Due to the situation we have just described, we can point out some of the characteristics of the little emperor syndrome or the “child tyrant”:

• Excessive perception of what belongs to him. He does not ask, he demands; he is not happy with anything. When he gets what he wants, he wants even more.
• Low tolerance for frustration, boredom or denial of what he has asked for. In such cases, he reacts with tantrums, anger, insults or violence in front of family and friends, whether they are in public or not.
• He shows a very low problem-solving ability. He is used to others solving problems for him.
• His self-obsession makes him firmly believe that the world revolves around him.
• He always finds justification for his behavior and blames others for what he has done.

• He does not feel empathy with anyone. Therefore, he does not feel remorse when he shouts, threatens or physically attacks.
• He argues against rules and punishments from his parents, which he would say are bad or unfair. This aspect has advantages for him, since it makes them feel bad and give in to him, which gives him more privileges.
• He does not respond well to people with authority or social norms.
• He has low self-esteem, but this is masked by his tyrannical behavior.
• Most of the time he is sad, anxious, angry, etc.

How does a child get the little emperor syndrome?

As we mentioned at the beginning, we come across more and more children like this. But why is this phenomenon increasing?

In addition to a genetic predisposition, it seems that the responsibility lies mainly in two things: a resilient form of parenting and the influence of society.

Lack of clear boundaries makes children mistakenly believe that they have the right to do what they want when they want. Within that belief, they are not aware that rewards require past effort, and that they must respect others.

On the other hand, we cannot overlook the influence of the consumer and individualistic society we live in; or the relentless working day that most parents have, which affects the quality time with their children.

A healthy child needs clear boundaries

If we look at all these factors combined, we can create a theory that children become accustomed to not appreciating things, and thus they put their immediate desires above everything else. In the same way, parents end up frustrated. No matter what you do, your child will not be happy.

To raise strong, healthy, and emotionally intelligent children, we must set clear boundaries from the beginning. It is important that children experience a certain degree of frustration, so that they can understand that the world requires effort and respect for others.

Letting the world revolve around them destroys them, because a child who has not experienced frustration is a child with a certain weakness.

In the future, they will have trouble dealing with new situations and solving problems because they will find that life does not bend to their will. Not everything is exactly as they want it to be.