Emperor Syndrome: Child Tyrants

It is increasingly common to see children challenging their parents or other authority figures. They challenge them, they make fun of them. The worrying thing is that these attitudes seem to be on the rise , to the point where parents come to be mistreated by their children. We are talking about the emperor syndrome, the tyrant child, the king child.

In both my professional and everyday life I see that it has become normal to find children who beat their parents, who insult them, who mock them and so on. For the sole purpose of getting what they want at any given time to satisfy a whim.

What is striking is that the stronger the tyrannical attitudes manifested by the child, the greater the effort that the adult in question makes to please him. An adult overwhelmed by the demands of his child and who ends up feeling guilty if he fails to satisfy his wishes.

To know exactly the characteristics of the emperor syndrome, we will take a real situation that I personally witnessed during the summer holidays. Let’s see it in detail.

Description of the situation: the king child does not want to eat

A family consisting of a father, mother and a child of about 5 years is eating in a restaurant, around them there are several people. The mother, almost sweating from fatigue, tries to feed her baby, something that he is totally capable of doing on his own, but which at this moment he refuses to do.

The problem in summary is that the child does not want to eat at that moment, he just wants to drink from the 1 liter glass of Coke that his mother ordered at the bar. The child doesn’t want to leave the glass. At this point the mother thinks that the best thing to do is to negotiate with the baby and tells him: ” You can only drink Coca Cola if you eat steak “.

The child’s contemptuous gestures and words towards his mother only increase. Phrases like “I’m not going to eat this crap just because you tell me” or “ I already told you I don’t eat, but do you understand when I speak? “. Meanwhile, the father is a mere spectator of the conflict, he remains to observe with an impassive expression.

After struggling with the glass of Coke , the mother finds no way to please her son and gives up. The boy ends up drinking whatever he wants, while making fun of his mother by giving her a nice kick under the table.

The final touch is a reproach from the mother who, of course, the child will not take seriously: “You will see, today no swimming pool”. At this point, the little emperor already has ample resources to get out of this situation. For the future, he knows he has nothing to do but fight a little harder for the glass of Coca Cola .

Characteristics of the emperor syndrome

On the basis of the situation described above, we can highlight some characteristics of the emperor or “baby king” syndrome:

• Exaggerated perception of what belongs to him. It does not ask, it demands; to the point of never being satisfied. When he gets what he wants, he wants something else.

• Poor tolerance for frustration, boredom, or denial in the face of what it required. In these cases, he reacts with tantrums, tantrums, insults or violence with family and friends, regardless of whether he is in a public place.

• He has few strategies for solving problems on his own. He is used to having others solve them for him.

• His self-centeredness makes him firmly believe that the world revolves around him.

• He always finds justification for his behavior, indeed he blames others for it.

• No is capable of empathy. Therefore, he has no remorse when he yells, threatens or physically assaults.

• He discusses the rules and punishments with his parents, the same ones he calls “bad” or “unjust”. This gives him an advantage because he manages to make them feel bad and lead them to give in by offering them more privileges again.

• It doesn’t respond well to authority figures or social norms.

• He has low self-esteem, but masks it with his tyrannical behavior.

• Most of the time it is sad, anxious, angry, etc.

How do you get to the emperor syndrome?

As mentioned at the beginning, it is increasingly common to find children of this type. But what is the increase of this phenomenon due to?

In addition to the existence of a genetic predisposition, it seems that the responsibility falls in the first place on two aspects: a permissive educational style and the influence of modern society.

The lack of clear boundaries makes children believe, wrongly, that they have the right to do what they want when they want. From this perspective, they are unaware that rewards require effort first and that others must be respected.

On the other hand, we cannot ignore the influence of the consumerist and individualistic society in which we are living. Nor are the rigid workdays that are a part of most parents’ lives, which affects the quality time they can offer their children.

A healthy baby needs to have clear boundaries

If we combine all these factors, we can consider the hypothesis that children get used to not giving value to things and to give absolute priority to their desires before anything else. And parents also end up feeling frustrated. They can do whatever they want, but the child will never be satiated with attention.

To educate strong, healthy and emotionally intelligent children, clear boundaries need to be defined from the very beginning. It is essential that children experience some degree of frustration, so that they can understand that the world requires effort and respect for others.

Letting the world spin around them doesn’t do them any good, because a child who hasn’t experienced frustration is a weak child. In the future he will have many difficulties in facing new situations and solving problems, because he will discover that life does not always go exactly as he wants, not everything is as he would like.