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CNN Talkback Live

Is America Raising a Generation of Spoiled Brats?

Aired July 31, 2001 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
VINCE CELLINI, GUEST HOST: Are you raising a brat? According to a CNN/"TIME" poll, more than two-thirds of parents admit their kids are spoiled.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The baby boomers are always accused of being the most indulged generation ever, and so it isn't surprising that they be charged with raising the most overindulged children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CELLINI: Sixteen-year-olds demand BMWs and their own credit cards. Five-year-olds brag about their Calvin Kleins. Chores are for geeks. And as for showing respect...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any parent can give you some examples of the little monster down the street who has never been told no and seems to have no limits set.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CELLINI: Maybe you've sat next to that kid in a restaurant, theater or on a plane. Maybe that kid is yours. Are we spoiling our kids? and why can't we just say no?

Hey, everybody, how are you? Welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Vince Cellini, in for Bobbie Battista. It's the cover story of "TIME" magazine this week, and I think as parents we can all relate. According to a CNN/"TIME" magazine poll, 80 percent of parents believe children are more spoiled today than they were 10 or 15 years ago. Two-thirds agree they spoil their own children. And all that rottenness is laid at the feet of baby boomers, the original overindulged generation, now pampering their own brats in training.

Well, here to talk about it is Wendy Cole, Chicago correspondent for "TIME" magazine. She is a reporter on the story and did the photo essay. Wow, Wendy, is it that bad? A cover story on "TIME" magazine? I mean, where are we with this spoiled aspect.

WENDY COLE, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, the good news in this is that parents are recognizing that things may have hit -- gone a too bit far, and there's a lot of hand-wringing about what we've wrought with our kids. And so, you know, there are now more resources and grassroots efforts for parents trying to roll back a little bit and cut down on the spending, and you know, feeling like it's OK to start saying no.

CELLINI: Before we get to your experiences in the article, you followed a family for four days. I think it starts with the fact that today's kids have more dialogue than ever before.

When I was a kid, if my father told me, "No, you can't do that anymore," I didn't say, "Well, gee, Dad, let's talk about this. Now, perhaps you're projecting some other anger to me. Let's sit down and discuss. I want to talk to you about my feelings."

That was it. There was no dialogue. Kids today, Wendy, have a chance to talk back to parents and say how they feel, and maybe abuse that privilege, to a certain extent.

COLE: Well, it's a tricky balance and there is no one right way and one best solution for every situation that comes up, because obviously parenting is an activity that happens not only daily, but hourly, and sometimes decisions need to be made by the minute.

So on the one hand, yes, kids are not being told "no" as often. But they're -- the fact that the they're listened to better and that there's a kind of emotional intelligence that this next generation may be developing may mean this is not an entirely bad thing that we have going on.

CELLINI: No, I think there should be interaction. But what is the definition of spoiled? Aren't we a little bit flexible in terms of what spoiled actually is?

COLE: Yes, and you'll notice on our cover we don't even use the word "spoiled." We're talking about do kids have too much power? And this notion of spoiling applies both to the material spending, and consumption and those decisions within families, as well as to the everyday negotiating and bargaining that goes on in any family. And it's being told no about, "can I have an extra dessert," or "can I stay up an hour later than the bedtime?" And of course, some kids don't even have a bedtime, which is really a kind of one of the heart of the indulgence issues.

CELLINI: Well, can you share with us your experience in following the family for the photo essay involved? And maybe what was the most common mistake you saw that family make? And I know you said sometimes you saw your own parenting involved in what this, what this couple was trying to do.

COLE: Well, sure. I found a family that deserves kudos just for saying yes to our request to have myself and a photographer follow them around for four days and nights. And these were families -- this was a family that didn't necessarily automatically say yes or no, but listened and answered every "why, why, why," very patiently, and you know, showed me and reminded me of the value of patience. And while expending that patience is very exhausting on the part of the parents, it does seem to lead to kids who have good verbal skills and feel confident in being able to raise whatever is on their minds. And parents who would patiently listen and have a real exchange of ideas seem to actually not be an all bad idea.

CELLINI: Well the upshot of all of this, though, is that sometimes overindulged children or spoiled children tend to be spoiled adults. It carries over into the adulthood.

COLE: That could be. I mean, none of us really know the answer of what's going to happen when this generation of kids grows up. But some of the early evidence, if we can call it that, is not all bad. This generation of teenagers, for instance, is doing more community service and volunteer work than previous generations. SAT scores seem to be up, and so, you know, it's not -- it's a mixed bag, in terms of the kids that we're creating. And we're not necessarily proscribing a gloom and doom for the next generation of adults, either.

CELLINI: We have a comment now from the audience. Go ahead, Dawn.

DAWN: OK. I just wanted to say that my children definitely were spoiled, are spoiled. However, I had extremely high expectations of them, which they fulfilled, and also, they had tremendous amounts of responsibility. And we certainly did negotiate the "whys" when they wanted something. They did get what they needed and usually what they wanted.

CELLINI: So you found a common ground, a happy medium.

DAWN: A very common ground.

CELLINI: OK, now joining us in Washington are Betsy Taylor, executive director of the Center for a New American Dream and Shepherd Smith, the president of the Institute for Youth Development.

And I'll throw this out to both of you. Maybe you first, Betsy. What is your definition of spoiled?

BETSY TAYLOR, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN DREAM: Well, I think that a lot of parents are getting caught up in sort of this "more is better" definition of a good childhood, and maybe you call that spoiling. But the real issue, I think, is not so much that we're spoiling our kids or the parents are the problem, it's that kids are being bombarded with advertising and marketing today that is giving them sort of this explosion of hyperconsumerism.

So I think we have to look at why are kids nagging parents for more and more? Is it that the parents aren't setting limits, or is it that the children are getting bombarded with constant messages that they can buy their way to happiness?

CELLINI: Shepherd?

SHEPHERD SMITH, INSTITUTE FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT: Now, that's a very good point.

I think we also need to put this in perspective. Every generation thinks that the newer generation has more than they do or is spoiled. If you go back to the '30s and look at what was written about young adolescents then, they didn't have a high work ethic, they were concerned about material things, and yet a few years later they came and saved the world from oppression and World War II.

So we need to look, I think, at how we view this situation. Kids have high ideals today, they're overall doing quite well. They're avoiding a lot of harmful behaviors and participating in a lot of good things. So, while we do see a fair amount of interest in materialism, I think we need to look beyond that and look at the good in kids in what they're doing today.

CELLINI: All right, we have some comments now. Three members of the audience. Go ahead, Chris.

CHRIS: Well, I think we also maybe have to look at the demands on children today. They've got so many gadgets, there's so much competition. They want to be the same as their friends. They want, want, want. So they're nagging parents all the time. And you know, it's giving a parent a tough time. How do you handle, if you can't always keep giving? And then there's that common ground factor. The child wants, the parent is trying to always give, but can't always, and say, well, maybe next month. It's quite hard, I think, for parents, and that's an angle we should perhaps look at.

CELLINI: Why is it so difficult to say no? Is it because we feel they won't love us as much if we say no? Even if we can provide these things sometimes, isn't it good thing to maybe withhold?

SMITH: Part of what we are about as parents is wanting to have a better life for both ourselves and our families. That's a lot of why we work hard. And so we end up sharing those resources as we should with the next generation, and those are our children. So what we're doing for them is very understandable, but what we have to remember is what's important, and those are core values and morals, and conveying those to our kids so that they know having things isn't all what life i' about. It's sharing, it's doing things for others that are as important as well.

CELLINI: OK. Let's run to the audience again. Hi, Brenda.

BRENDA: Don't you think, one of the things I see today, is children, I see a lack of respect for one another. Some of the children that are spoiled, you don't show the respect. And I think if you show the respect for other people, you'll have more of the sharing, the giving, or whatever, whether we teach that or not.

CELLINI: All right, I want to get back to that comment in just a minute, but I understand we have breaking news now. Kyra Phillips is going to fill us in -- Kyra?

(INTERRUPTED BY BREAKING NEWS)

CELLINI: Thank you, Kyra. And I'll tell you, that's the only fellow who can interrupt my show.

(LAUGHTER)

CELLINI: Let me tell you that. We're talking about indulged children. Are we spoiling our children? It's in response to a "TIME" magazine cover. Before we left, we talked about the respect factor for kids and, Chris, let's pick up that aspect of it. Disrespectful children.

CHRIS: I think that kids are spoiled today because they lack accountability.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think they've lost respect for adults in general. They think of themselves as equals instead of young adults that need to grow up.

CELLINI: Doesn't that tie in with the dialogue aspect? If you sit there and try to reason with a child and try to explain to them why they're being disciplined, doesn't that undo a lot of the actual action of disciplining them? How about you, Betsy?

TAYLOR: Well, clearly, parents need to set limits and I think they have a hard time doing that. But the real issue again, I'd like to go back to the question about what can parents do here? Because it's not just parents in isolation. They're in a culture which is saying more is better, more is better.

And so kids are nagging. They have peer pressure. And there are so many things parents can do. Yes, they can set limits that are clear and consistent, so that they're not negotiating. But also they need to sort of protect their children from excess marketing and commercialism. And I did want to mention that our organization, the Center for a New American Dream, has this guide, it's free. They can go to our Web site, newdream.org, and there are lots of tips for how to protect your kid from marketing and commercialism.

CELLINI: I know that they are seeing more commercials than ever, but I have to say, as a kid, I remember watching commercials, too, on television, and saying you know, I want a frisbee, I want a super ball, I want whatever they were advertising at that point. That's how old I am. Those were big toys back then.

But, you know what? Why can't the parents say no? Just say no. Say, you can't have that right now.

COLE: I think part of it is that parents are -- parents are having trouble saying no to themselves. The recent prosperity has meant that a lot of parents, no matter where they've been, socio- economically, have had a chance to buy more things than they ever did. That may have changed recently with the softening in the economy. But parents are having a tough time make the sacrifices themselves, let alone trying to send that message to their kids to cut back.

TAYLOR: Well, it's not really about making sacrifices, though. I do think it's important that we tell our kids, hey, you can have more fun, you can have more happiness with less stuff. I mean, is hyperconsuming really the path to contentment? I think that's the question we have to ask.

CELLINI: All right, let's go to the phone now, and Phyllis is with us from Ohio. Phyllis, you're on TALKBACK LIVE.

CALLER: Yes, as a parent, I'd like to share that for your children's generation, that you want to make their life easier than what you had. But sometimes that comes back to haunt as they become young adults in their teens in high school and into college, when the peer group pressures are so demanding that the materialistic things take over. And what you thought you were doing to make it a little easier is really wasn't the right way in teaching some of the basic lessons in life. Thank you.

CELLINI: You're welcome. So isn't there a happy medium there? Sure, we can provide these possessions, but at the same time, instill values as well? Or maybe make them responsible. If you lose your baseball glove, I don't run out and get you another baseball glove. Anyone?

TAYLOR: Yes, absolutely. It's all about balance. I mean, clearly, we have to set limits.

CELLINI: All right. I want to go to Beth here. Hi, Beth.

BETH: Hi. I think parents are feeling guilty that they are unable to spend quality time with their children, therefore providing material objects to make up for the lack of time, because they are working, you know, two jobs, and both parents are working.

CELLINI: That's a great point.

(CROSSTALK)

CELLINI: That brings me -- just a minute. That brings me back to my friend Pete here. And guess where Pete works, everybody?

Pan down a little bit here, you can see it.

CELLINI: Well, there you go. A little plug for you. And tell me about when you go on the road and you come home, and how do things work out?

PETE: Well, I go on the road, and before I go on the road, I usually get a wish list of what I'd like, you know, what my kids would like when I come back, and I know on a trip like this, I'm supposed to bring back a T-shirt and a fire truck and, you know, it makes it a little difficult, because you want to appease your kids and you don't want to be a bad guy.

CELLINI: Right, that's the key, being the bad guy. Because that time is very limited, we don't want to make that discipline time, sometimes you want to make that fun time.

SMITH: And there is a need for balance, as you are saying and as Wendy's article in "TIME" says. The interesting thing about kids -- the National Institutes of Health did a large study, 90,000 adolescents, and what they found is that kids really want to listen to their parents. And the responsibility becomes of the parents giving the best direction to kids, and that's where we fail as adults today.

CELLINI: Well, here's the big secret, that it really shouldn't be a secret. Kids love structure. They love parameters and structure. As much as they protest, they want structure and discipline in their lives.

OK, Wendy Cole, Betsy Taylor, Shepherd Smith, thank you for joining us.

Do you think kids today are more spoiled than they were a decade ago? Take the TALKBACK LIVE online viewer vote at CNN.com/talkback. AOL keyword: CNN.

Up next: are you afraid you might be raising a brat? Columnist and psychologist John Rosemond has some advice. So please stay with us here on TALKBACK LIVE.

CELLINI: Man, what happened to cake and ice cream? Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE. Joining us now is family psychologist John Rosemond. He writes a nationally syndicating parenting column and is the author of several books, including "Parent Power" -- and I love this one, "Because I Said So." And Michael Thompson, a child psychologist, co-author of "Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys."

Gentleman, thank you so much for being with us. I want to pick up on something we talked about briefly in the last segment, and that is structure. John, I will start with you. Are we missing that kind of structure for our kids today?

JOHN ROSEMOND, FAMILY PSYCHOLOGIST: Oh, yeah. I think that parents are failing to set boundaries in the parent/child relationship. They are emphasizing friendship instead of leadership, and they are also failing to set boundaries behaviorally for the children. The discipline of the child today is extremely weak and has been dumbed down over the last 30 years.

CELLINI: Why are parents so afraid to do that? Why are they so afraid to set that type of structure? Is it because our lives are more complicated now? Is it because our time is precious, why?

ROSEMOND: No, parents have always been busy. My parents were extremely busy. They disciplined me well. My mother worked outside the home. These are all very flimsy excuses for not doing what we ought to be doing as parents, which is preparing our children morally and in terms of their manners, social behavior for the future.

Parents today parent in the now, they parent in terms of today. A child throws a tantrum because he can't get what he wants, the parent capitulates, because today that's easier, not realizing that this is going to have repercussions 10 to 20 years down the road.

CELLINI: What I happen to believe as a father of three young boys that it's different today and it is more difficult to be a parent than it was in my parents' generation, simply because when I was a kid -- and I think a lot of people here can relate -- I would leave my house in the neighborhood, go out and play for some six years, and be unsupervised, and then come back home for dinner.

We can't do that anymore. As parents now, we have to structure our children's behavior. We have to -- they have a schedule, they have to be transported to activities, so it's much more hands-on. It think it's a little more complicated than it was in the previous generation.

ROSEMOND: I think it's complicated in different ways. I don't think it's more complicated. I think if you talked to a parent who raised children during the depression and World War II, for example, as I have on many occasions, you will find that they describe very complex issues that they were dealing with -- poverty, fathers who were fighting in the European theater, where they didn't know if their father was dead or alive from one day to the next, et cetera, et cetera.

I don't think that -- I think we are overemphasizing the peculiar, particular hardships that today's parents labor under to provide parents with an excuse for not doing what they should be doing.

CELLINI: Michael?

MICHAEL THOMPSON, CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, I differ a little bit from John. I mean, what he says makes sense to me, but I think it's hard for parents today. There is so much wealth and parents are indulging themselves. Adult are spoiled and are spending more money. It's hard to say to your child, if you have got two brand new cars in the driveway, it's hard to say to your child, you know, you can't have that $300 mountain bike, because your child knows that you can afford it.

A lot of what parents have to do is set limits on a theoretical basis or with their eyes, John says, to the future character of the child. So you say to your child, you can have that mountain bike if you will earn $150 of it, and the child says: "Well that's not that expensive. Come on, I need it now. I want to have it this summer," and these are kind -- these are arguments that tug at a parent who may in fact have the money in their pocket, but if they give in, they are depriving the child of the chance to prove that they're competent to work at something and to have the experience of succeeding at a difficult task.

CELLINI: That's a great point. That's a great point. We can see how enterprising the child is and how badly the child wants the item if he or she is willing to go out and earn a little bit. I want to go to an e-mail from Emily in Raleigh, North Carolina, who says, "Not all kids are spoiled. I am 19. I don't have or want a car. I have a single credit card that I pay off every month with money I earn myself. And my best friend spends far more money on others than she does on herself."

Is Emily the exception and not the rule today? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well I think that...

ROSEMOND: It's the exception and not the rule, yeah. Absolutely.

CELLINI: I think that was kind of a trick question.

THOMPSON: Well you know a majority of American high school students work and earn their own money. It's not that they don't have any work ethic. It's that their parents, in an effort to try and be good parents, are willing to give them rather high-ticket items. But let me say this, when we talk as "TIME" magazine does about Ariana whose parents are going to buy her a BMW. We have to remember that's a tiny fragment of children in this country: 18 percent of children in this country still live in poverty and there are natural limits on what they can have.

CELLINI: All right, we want...

THOMPSON: We are talking about the middle and the upper middle class.

CELLINI: All right, thank you. We want to go to an audience member -- Scott, from Georgia.

SCOTT: I think part of the problem that we are not touching on here is that some kids come from divorce families and that kids figure out fairly early on in the divorce situation that gee, if I can't dad to do it maybe I can get mom into doing it, and so mom does it. And then dad says, gee, mom did that so how can I compensate and go overboard. And then it goes back to mom and it just sort of flips back and forth from one parent to the next and before you know it, kids know how to play the game as well or better than some of the adults know how to play the game.

CELLINI: That's a great point. Kids can be pretty crafty in that regard. Would you agree, John?

ROSEMOND: I was one of the rare kids in my generation who grew up in a divorced family situation. And I mean, what we're describing here is choices here, choices that adults can make. When I would tell my mother that, if she didn't buy something for me, my father would buy it for me. She would hand me the phone and say, call him. And she would walk away. These are choices that adults can make. These are not things that people are forced into, you know.

CELLINI: One more e-mail and I am just going to give it out to everyone. It's from John in Minneapolis who says, "My 12-year-old has his own job and pays for everything he gets. I treat him as an adult instead of a child." Come on!

THOMPSON: Well, his 12-year-old is very unusual. His 12-year- old is very enterprising and his 12-year-old has earned a measure of respect but he's not an adult yet. Does that mean that he lets him drink? My guess is that a 12-year-old doesn't cross the line. It sounds like this is a kid with a good sense of who he is but perhaps he doesn't need the same kind of limits that another child would, who is always pushing and always wants more. Here's a kid who's got initiative.

CELLINI: On that note, we are going to hit another break here. But coming up next: discipline. Do you talk? Are you a spanker? Or are you afraid to do anything? We'll be right back on TALKBACK LIVE.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CELLINI: That seems about right, 40 grand for the white Lamborghini. That is not out of the question at all. Welcome back to TALK BACK LIVE. We are talking about spoiled kids, raising our kids, giving them some structures, some parameters. With us, John Rosemond and Michael Thompson.

I want to talk a little bit about the parent-friend relationship that so many parents get involved in. You are not a buddy, you are a parent. How do we make that distinction between the two for some parents who can't do that on their own, Michael?

THOMPSON: Parents need to feel their natural authority. Parents have to experience themselves as adult at all times. You are just of no use to your children if you are their friend. They have friends, and there can be moments of great warmth and comfort and openness between you, but it's not friendship.

And parents shouldn't try and, you know, kiss up to their kids in order to get their approval. Then the parent becomes the needy one and children see through that, that my mother needs my love from me, and so she's willing to kind of court me. No, no, that's not the way to go.

Your child loves you naturally and you have to stand for something in the child's eyes.

CELLINI: You have to make that distinction, though. You don't dislike the child, you dislike the behavior. You can always discipline a child, but then maybe hug that child later or talk to them about it later?

THOMPSON: Absolutely. Actually, the child who has been disciplined is likely to come downstairs and give you a hug and say I'm sorry. If you never discipline them, you don't get that hug and the child never has to turn that corner.

CELLINI: Now we are going to get into an area, and -- by applause to our audience -- how many have been spanked as children?

(APPLAUSE)

CELLINI: I tell you, John and Michael, that is just about our entire studio audience here. John, we didn't hear from you, what are your thoughts on spanking?

ROSEMOND: I don't have a problem with spanking per se. I don't think it's essential to proper discipline, but I do think that there are times when, for certain children, in certain situations, a spanking is the most appropriate and effective disciplinary response to whatever the child has done.

THOMPSON: I disagree entirely. I think the research on hitting children is very bad. The point -- what bothers me is that there are parents that will spank a child but won't bring themselves to turn off the TV.

You can find non punitive -- in the sense of physically punitive ways -- to have discipline in the house. Turning off the TV is incredibly effective.

CELLINI: Wait a minute, Michael. Those are two different things now -- the television thing and the spanking thing. I think the spanking, I agree with John, when it's at an extreme, to an extreme.

I don't think it should be a regular act, but I think that there is a limit.

THOMPSON: Physical punishment is usually the act of an exhausted parent. If you've anticipated what's...

(AUDIO GAP)

CELLINI: Is there another type of...

THOMPSON: Another type of parent?

CELLINI: Than an exhausted parent?

THOMPSON: Yes, but there are exhausted parents who have managed to find other ways. What I am saying is that there are things you can take away from kids which will get their attention. If you don't and you let them go on too long, then you are pushed to the limit where you have to hit them.

I disagree, I think it's the product of an exhausted mind. You are out of ideas when you are hitting.

CELLINI: We want to go back to our audience now. Yes -- go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think spanking is a necessary thing to do. I'm a firm disciplinarian in my household, as is my husband. But I don't think that a physical action is necessary. I think that I -- we know our children well enough to know what they want and what they don't want. And removing privileges and removing other opportunities in their lives has worked sufficiently for us so that we don't have to spank.

CELLINI: Well, we have a young lady who begs to differ -- go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I definitely feel that children these days aren't afraid of being smacked. In England, the worst thing that can happen to a child that's been naughty is that they get grounded and they don't learn by this. I think they should be -- I think they should be more disciplined and be able to be smacked.

CELLINI: And she sounds just like Mary Poppins -- which may ease that spanking just a little bit. Anyone else on the spanking issue, because this is -- this is really a bone of contention -- go ahead?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think there is a big difference between spanking boys and spanking girls, as well. The girls may not need the physical punishment because that is not what scares them. Whereas the boys, they are brought up to be rough and tough, and what's going to make them do their best to do good things as little boys is their dad saying, I'm going get you if you don't do it right.

CELLINI: That's a great point. I grew up in a house with three boys and I had a single sister, my sister was never spanked. We sure were.

THOMPSON: And boys consider it unjust and boys grow up to be hitters, you never get male batterers that weren't themselves hit by their fathers. Dan Kindlon researched this in "Raising Cain," and the research on spanking and hitting of boys is not great.

Boys turn out to be our moral and criminal failures, even though they are hit much more. Hitting does not produce good character. Clear expectations, high demand and responsiveness, being there and being emotionally available is much more effective than hitting.

CELLINI: All right, we want to go to the phone now. Is Frank still there in Connecticut? Mona, I'm sorry. Mona is there?

Hi, Mona.

CALLER: Hi, how are you. I watch the show every day.

CELLINI: Thank you.

CALLER: My comment is, is that we seem to forget that when we do want to discipline our children, that we also have the abuse issue, and then there are so many laws that prevent parents from wanting to discipline their children, and the children, they see this, understand this and this is how they become disrespectful.

I personally don't like disrespectful children. I come from the old -- old age of when children should be seen and not heard. And we have too many kids that are now more adults now than they ever were, and they've forgotten what it is to be a kid.

CELLINI: Thank you, Mona, for that comment. John, you wanted to say something, join in.

ROSEMOND: There is absolutely no good research that connects an occasional spanking that is justified with later aggressive behavior, this is -- this is media hyperbola, plain and simple.

CELLINI: I think most of us turned out OK, I really do. ROSEMOND: You ask people in my generation, were you spanked? Yeah. Have you ever committed a violent crime? What? It doesn't connect at all.

CELLINI: All right, gentlemen, sit tight. Which parents are doing the best job? John thinks it's the home-schoolers.

We'll talk about that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CELLINI: Welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Vince Cellini.

And we are talking about kids today? Are these kids spoiled? How can we set parameters? How can we help our kids? Are they overindulged?

Our last segment, we discussed spanking -- and with us, I want to remind you, family psychologist John Rosemond and Michael Thompson, a child psychologist. Before we get to the home-schooling aspect, I want to go back to the spanking issue.

And Megan, your thoughts?

MEGAN: OK, I'm against spanking, I was never spanked as a child. I think spanking kind of sends a subliminal issue to your children, that if you don't like the way someone is acting, you can hit them. And I think that that's wrong. I'm not saying that everyone that has ever been spanked does that. But I think that is a message that can be spent. I do believe there are lots of other ways to discipline your children, other than spanking.

CELLINI: You know, but I thought not anyone could hit me, my dad could hit me.

MEGAN: Really? What did you think you could do to other people?

CELLINI: No, I don't think that was going to affected me in that regard. I wasn't going to get the community spanking, but I understand your point -- Chris?

CHRIS: I'm for spanking because I'm not a spoiled child. This is my mom and my dad from Miami. And I can truly say that spanking didn't do -- didn't do me any harm, I grew up to be a successful citizen, and I'm for spanking, and I feel like you should set boundaries as far as the discipline is concerned. Every child -- you can just raise your voice and scream to, sometimes it requires a spanking.

CELLINI: And Tina?

TINA: Yes, I was required to go out and cut my own switch from a bush outside our house. And if I came back with one that was too stout I was sent back to get one that was a little easier to cut the back of my legs, but I only had to do that twice.

CELLINI: After two times, then, did you try to avoid any behavior that might call for the, going to get a switch?

TINA: It worked. It was very effective.

CELLINI: Gentlemen, you seem to disagree on the spanking issue, and again, Michael, you seem to think that it's, just too many after effects or it will cause some ripple effect?

THOMPSON: Look, you can -- you can pick up a child, you can hold a child, you can restrain a child. I've worked in children's psychiatric hospitals with out of control children, we never hit them. There are many, many ways that you can get children's attention.

The problem is, the research is that children who are hit at home people hit at home tend to be more aggressive at school. People -- kids do take it on the road. They want to be like their parents: if their parents hit them, then -- the woman -- member of the audience said earlier, has some research basis -- that they then think that hitting kids is a way of solving problems.

I think negotiation is appropriate. In the "TIME" magazine article, there is a family that negotiates endlessly, negotiates about bathtime, there are places where parents can set limits, but it doesn't mean you hit the child in order to get them to take a bath. It's just that nothing else happens until they take the bath.

CELLINI: John, I want to get to you, I saw you shaking your head. I'm going to throw this out here, and I may get e-mails, but you know what I think is missing, especially for little boys? Once in a while, a schoolyard fight with another kid. If you're in second or third grade, and these kids tumble around the playground and no-one is seriously hurt. They play again later.

That is completely taboo in society anymore. They are taken to school psychologists, and they're told that they're bad, and they should put their hands -- and I'm not saying you should fight people, but these are children in schoolyard scraps. That is my two cents. John, am I crazy?

ROSEMOND: I don't know, I don't think the schoolyard scrap was necessarily a bad thing when I was a kid.

CELLINI: Right.

ROSEMOND: I was reading in the paper the other day that a school in Annapolis, Maryland has banned games of tag, because this results in inappropriate touching. I'm going, oh, my gosh. We are just destroying all the fun of childhood.

But Michael knows that the best research on spanking done by Diana Baumrind has found that the most well-adjusted children are raised by parents who give themselves occasional -- the operative term -- permission to spank, that children raised by parents who don't spank and parents who spank a lot are not as well-adjusted as children who are spanked occasionally.

THOMPSON: But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) research also shows that it's parents who are most responsive, who have high -- it's the combination of high expectations and responsiveness, listening to children, shaping the schedule so that you meet a child's individual needs and wants and passions to a certain extent.

So, the idea that -- I mean, it's a potent combination, both of high expectation and high responsiveness. And what bothers me about the spanking -- and I've often been in it like this, it's a simple solution. In caring, loving, responsive parents, it is not -- where it's very occasional -- it is not going to be a damaging thing, but that's not the way people talk about it. It's hit and that's the solution, and it's not.

ROSEMOND: It is reflected in the fact that every media interview I get involved in, they want to know, what do you think about spanking? And it's not that simple. You are exactly right.

CELLINI: No, I think it should be -- to the extreme, it should be a last resort, absolutely, and certainly not on a regular basis. Go ahead, Dawn.

DAWN: I think if people are going to discipline by spanking, the should be spank -- the discipline should be for the child's behavior and not to release the parent's anger and hostility, because there's a big difference.

CELLINI: Good points all. And you can see I really can work the camera. Did you see that, Dawn? My apologies. When we'll come right back, we'll check the viewer vote on TALKBACK LIVE. We are going to wrap things up. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CELLINI: Welcome you back to TALKBACK LIVE. We're talking about kids and trying to work on behavior with our children. We want to go to the phones now. Right off the bat, we have Kyle in Michigan. Kyle, you are 15 years old, what do you have to say?

KYLE: Going back to your first topic, I'd like to say I was never spoiled. Both my parents are divorced. They did not buy me things, they gave me gifts for Christmas, of course, and birthdays. But I got a job, I had the paper out for three years, I have my current job now, I've had it almost two years. I bought a TV, a Playstation 2, a VCR, a stereo, everything that I wanted.

I mean, my parents have encouraged me to buy things, you know, they've taught me to save, but they never went out and bought things for me and gave them to me. They encouraged me to buy things and helped me along.

CELLINI: Well, good for you. That's a great way to go. I mean, I imagine you've learned a lot.

Also, another 15-year-old on the line, Troy is calling us from Illinois. Hey, Troy.

TROY: Hi. I just wanted to say that parents are to blame for the spoiling of their children, mainly because of their habits on spending. I mean, a lot of parents say they can't afford to give their kids certain things, but it's obvious that they can, because they use their credit card for everything. And parents nowadays are more in debt than ever since the 1930s.

CELLINI: All right, thank you very much. We want to check the viewer vote right now. "Are children today more or less spoiled than children a decade ago?" It's not even close, 84 percent say more spoiled. So, I guess the upshot of that is, kids have more things today, and John Rosemond and Michael Thompson, you guys are in business for a while, because we're going to keep bringing our kids to you.

ROSEMOND: Keep spoiling your children!

CELLINI: That's right. We want to wrap everything up. John and Michael, thank you so much. We are completely out of time.

THOMPSON: Thanks for having us.

CELLINI: But we had a good time, and hopefully, you know, we solved some of these things. We're trying, we're trying as parents, that's basically all we can do.

I'm Vince Cellini, filling in for Bobbie Battista, and we thank you for being here on TALKBACK LIVE. I want to thank the audience, our callers, those on the Internet, and all of our guests. Hug the kids, maybe that's the real solution.

Join us again tomorrow at 3:00 Eastern for more of TALKBACK LIVE. I had a great time. Bye, everybody.

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