Spoiling has two roots. It is brought about by a failure ever to reprove a child, and by yielding to the child’s every demand. The child may ask for what it knows it should not ask for. It is testing the boundaries, testing the resolve of the parent. Will my parent continue to uphold the same standards, or can I shift the boundaries, renegotiate what is right and what is wrong? Can I wear down the parent with my whining so that they no long insist on the standards they have given in the past? Is it more trouble to the parent to put up with my constant requests than to uphold the right standard? That may well be the case if the parent has formed standard for his or her own convenience. The standard is not really based on God’s standards but it arbitrary and may not even be based on a righteous standard at all. Badly formed rules and inconsistent rules are weak rules and vulnerable to attack. Yes, the child should learn to do what they are told, simply because they are told, and the parent is entitled to make some rules for their own convenience, but they should have the long-term training in view, and ultimately, the training process is for the good of the child, not for the good of the parent. The attempt by a child to request something which is beyond the border of what is allowed, should be met with some firmness. It is not just a mistake. The child should know the rules well enough. It is a deliberate attempt to bring about change. Worse still is the situation when the child breaks the rules knowingly. That demands punishment of some sort. Punishment is not unkind. Punishment of lesser transgressions with lesser punishments will hopefully save the child from more serious errors in the future.
But yielding to the child is harmful for another reason. It trains up the child to be weak. You maim the child and make it unable to resist temptation. Some parents do this out of inordinate love, others through parental laziness. A child who is never denied what it wants, soon learns that its desires can always be satisfied, and all self-restraint will be impossible. The child will become unable to bear every whim not being satisfied immediately.