【一起闲话英语】孩子是否被宠坏了？-Are Children Spoiled Today?

Tony / Mozambique

speaker I would say, maybe children are spoiled, because I remember when I was younger, like we had to work hard if we wanted to get something from our parents. Or even the stories you hear from your parents, they're basically used to say the same thing, "If you want to get something, you need to work hard for it." But nowadays, maybe some children don't work hard but they still get certain things although they didn't work hard.

 

Katia / Mexico 

speaker I think children right now are more deprived than spoiled. Unfortunately, I believe that many parents are trying to protect their children a little bit too much, so they're deprived of many things, like creativity or spontaneity or curiosity. So, definitely, I think children are deprived.

 

Paul / England

speaker I think children are deprived due to the reduction of clean and safe play environments. When I speak to my parents or grandparents, they tell me about, you know, times when they used to play in the river or play in the forest; whereas now, it's very- children are quite restricted. There's a lot of concern about people who are going to do bad things to their children, and I think it's very restrictive. So, in a sense, I feel that children are deprived these days.

 

Kat / Germany 

speaker I know a popular opinion is that children nowadays are spoiled, but I don't really think so. I think that there are a lot of things that children had maybe fifty or a hundred years ago that they don't have anymore. Nowadays, so many people are divorced, and their children are just living with one parent. That is a good example for how children nowadays can be very deprived.

 

Gareth / England

speaker I think kids these days are deprived of nature. I think most children grow up in big cities, and I think there's this urban sprawl¹ that's happening, where cities are becoming bigger and encroaching on the natural countryside. So, I believe that children are deprived from nature, from climbing trees and playing in ponds and rivers, and stuff like that.

 

Tim / United States

speaker In America, I think children are very spoiled. A lot of them have things handed to them; they don't have to work very hard. So, for sixteenth birthday, parents will give their kids a car, or their kids won't have to work very hard to pay for school or college or anything like that. So, they don't have anything to challenge themselves, because their parents give them everything.

1 sprawl   

vi.躺卧，扩张，蔓延；vt.使蔓延；n.躺卧，蔓延

参考例句：

• In our garden,bushes are allowed to sprawl as they will.在我们园子里，灌木丛爱怎么蔓延就怎么蔓延。
• He is lying in a sprawl on the bed.他伸开四肢躺在床上。