It is only normal that you should love your child more than any one else and thus, feel the need to dot on them endlessly. But do you know that this might be detrimental to your child’s future.

Many parents feel that they can only demonstrate their love to their children by giving then all the material things that the children could ever want.

One parent told The Sunday Times that she only wanted her child to have what she herself never had. This is understandable but in doing so you are spoiling your child and making them believe that life is easy.

There are other ways of demonstrating love to your children yet at the same time instilling in them values that will help them in their adult lives.

Some of the reasons why parents spoil their children by indulging them, are because they don’t know any other way of showing their love emotionally and thus do it materialistically.

Another reason is that they don’t want their children to be angry, unhappy or bored. But what you need to understand is that you don’t need your child to love you every minute of everyday, he will get over the disappointment of having been told "no”, but he won’t get over the effects of being spoiled.

Loving a child does mean spoiling them and giving in to their every whim, your role as a parent is to raise them up to be competent and self sustaining human beings.

By giving them everything they want, you are instilling in them very unhealthy behaviour for the future. You need to prepare them for the real world and in the real world people don’t get everything they want.

A parent needs to always teach their children the value of hard work. They need to know that you only get things you work hard for.

This should be demonstrated in your home, let your children be rewarded for their hard work, for example when they do well at school or do chores at home.

Let gifts be given on special occasions so that they learn how to value them and look forward to them. Find other ways of showing love your children other than indulging them materialistically.

Try and spend time with your child for the parent/child relationship to grow and to create a bond with them. In this way you will be providing for them spiritually and emotionally, something more important than any materialistic gift you could ever give them.

If your parent/ child relationship is based on material goods it becomes very hard for them to experience unconditional love believing that love needs to be bought.

Show your children love by guiding them in the right direction and correcting them when they do wrong let them know the consequences for their actions.

For example when she’s at fault at school, let her own up to her mistakes and accept the consequences. Teach you children that love is more important than money or anything money could ever buy them, teach them responsibility, to care for others, to share, to forgive when wronged to love unconditionally and you’ll have given them timeless values.

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