When we picture spoiled kids, many of us think of tantrums over not getting what they want, being told to follow rules or simply facing any sort of inconvenience.

But spoiled behavior isn’t just about entitlement or parents giving in — it’s about unmet emotional needs, inconsistent boundaries and a lack of connection. 

As a conscious parenting researcher and coach, I’ve studied over 200 kids, and I’ve found that spoiled behavior can sometimes indicate unmet needs. Here are the five signs of highly spoiled children — and how parents can try to undo this behavior:

A child may push back against rules not because they’re difficult, but because unclear boundaries feel confusing and frustrating. If rules feel unpredictable — or if a child feels powerless in decisions that affect them — they may act out to regain a sense of control.

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Tip for parents: Instead of just saying “no” and moving on, acknowledge their feelings: “I see that you’re upset because you want to keep playing, but it’s time for bed now.” Boundaries set with kindness teach that rules aren’t about control — they’re about trust and safety.

When kids demand constant attention, it often signals emotional disconnection or uncertainty about their place in the family. A child who doesn’t feel secure in their bond may ask for more: more time, more validation, more reassurance.

For example, a child who always interrupts or clings to a parent in social settings isn’t necessarily being needy, but is rather unsure of their significance when the focus isn’t on them.

Tip for parents: Set aside 10 to 20 minutes of undistracted connection each day. The more time, the better. Play, talk or just be present with your child. Use these moments tell them, “You are enough.” 

When kids feel emotionally secure, their need for constant validation fades.

Tantrums aren’t manipulation — they’re a cry for help. Children in meltdown mode are typically overwhelmed and lack the skills to process big emotions.

Often, it happens because a child feels unheard when their emotions are dismissed, powerless when they have no say, or overstimulated by too much noise, activity or change. 

Tip for parents: Stay calm, validate their feelings (“I see you’re really frustrated”) and offer comfort (“I’m here with you until you feel better”). Kids learn emotional regulation through connection, not control.

A child who refuses to clean up, avoids homework or gives up easily isn’t being difficult or lazy. Instead, they may have been shielded from challenges too often or, on the other hand, pushed into independence before they felt ready.

Tip for parents: Offer age-appropriate, collaborative responsibilities. Cook together or solve small problems as a team. Remember to celebrate their efforts, not just the results. When kids feel capable and supported, responsibility comes naturally.

When a child acts ungrateful for frustrated for not getting what they want, it’s often not entitlement. It can mean that they feel unheard, disconnected or powerless.

And when kids receive constant toys, treats or rewards in place of emotional connection, it dulls their ability to appreciate what truly matters.

Tip for parents: Gratitude grows from connection. Engage your child in meaningful moments, such as helping to cook a meal, making a card or sharing small joys as a family. When kids feel that they belong, contribute and are valued, appreciation follows.

I always remind parents to avoid over-rewarding their kids. For example, if they help to clean up the house, instead of giving them money or a sweet treat, you could say: “Thank you for helping out. It means a lot to me, and I had fun doing it together.”

The goal is to make those moments meaningful, rather than something they do for a prize.

What we call spoiled behavior isn’t about material excess — it’s about emotional needs. True connection isn’t just about spending time together; it’s about making your child feel seen, valued and deeply loved.

When parents shift from controlling behavior to nurturing connection, frustrating moments become powerful opportunities to build trust, security and lifelong emotional resilience.

Reem Raouda is a leading voice in conscious parenting, a certified coach and the creator of BOUND — the groundbreaking parent-child connection journal designed to nurture emotional intelligence, self-worth and lifelong trust. She is widely recognized for her work in children’s emotional safety and strengthening the parent-child bond. Follow her on Instagram.

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What’s in short supply for just about everyone these days? A sense of control and influence. 

Things might seem like they’re increasingly out of our hands, impossible to understand let alone alter. But the truth is that you can have more influence — at least in your immediate circles — with just a few words.

I’ve been studying how influence works for 30 years, and even wrote a popular book about it: “Leading from the Middle: A Playbook for Managers to Influence Up, Down, and Across the Organization.” 

Here are six phrases that will give you more influence over people — both at work and in life. 

Everyone likes praise. But it becomes influential when you give a special brand of praise I call “informed encouragement.” That is, encouragement that’s backed up with specific reasons and rationale.

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For example, you could just say “Great job!” to your child. Or you can say, “Great job! You worked hard studying for that test, tackling material that didn’t come easily. You persevered and learned a lesson about overcoming obstacles.” 

The specificity gives the praise credibility and power. When the recipient understands what they did well, sees why it matters, and knows that you notice and appreciate it, they’ll be more motivated to do it again.

One of the easiest ways to have more influence is to truly listen. Think of how drawn you are to someone who’s really attentive, and how frustrated you feel when you know they’re not. 

As a listener, you have two goals:

1. Understand what’s being said.
2. Show the other person you’re interested, engaged, and invested in them and what they’re telling you.

You accomplish all of this by asking questions and prompting them at the right moments to “tell you more” (or asking, “What happened next?” or, “How did you feel about that?”).

As you listen, use acknowledging rather than discounting language. For example, instead of saying, “Oh, it’ll be okay,” try something like, “I hear you, sounds like you’re frustrated with your husband’s behavior right now.” 

By using validating, empathetic language, you’ll make people feel heard rather than dismissed. You’ll build the trust it takes to earn respect and influence.

The key here is the “er,” a subtle but powerful word change. I’ll explain. Influence is sometimes about appealing to people’s desired identity. For example:

• Don’t ask people to help, ask them to be a helper.
• Don’t ask them to lead, ask them to be a leader.
• Don’t ask them to listen, ask them to be a listener.

You’ll get a “yes” far more often. After all, who wouldn’t want to be thought of as a helper, leader, or listener? These are all identities we’d love to be associated with. 

This language swap also works to discourage undesirable actions. In one psychology study, participants were given the opportunity to claim money they weren’t entitled to. Some were instructed, “Please don’t cheat,” and others, “Please don’t be a cheater.”

Those who heard the latter — who were instructed with an appeal to their identity — showed no evidence of cheating because the experimenters had invoked “people’s desire to maintain a self-image as good and honest.”

The key here is “you have.” This is about helping people feel ownership of ideas, and motivating them to move forward. It’s a subtle form of influence, but it works. Think about it: Would you be more excited to work on someone else’s idea, or one you came up with? No contest. 

Let’s say a coworker shares an idea you were thinking about too, something you’d really like to implement. You know you’d need your peer’s help to make it happen. You could try to wrestle credit away from them and make them less inspired to help, or you can say, “That’s a good idea you have. Let’s run with it.”

Just like that, you’ve linked your agenda to their agenda. 

Notice I didn’t say, “Can I get your help?” Seeking advice is far more influential.

People often feel flattered that you value their opinion and expertise and because you’re asking for their advice, they’ll try to see things through your eyes. They’ll often become your supporters as a result, because now they’ve invested in you by sharing their wisdom. 

This is about supporting the people around you as you’d like to be supported, and understanding human nature to trigger good will and reciprocity. 

Offering to help someone with something that’s important to them — and, crucially, following through to make good on your offer — makes them more likely to want to help you with something that’s important to you down the line. 

Scott Mautz is a popular speaker, trainer, and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He’s a former senior executive of Procter & Gamble, where he ran several of the company’s largest multi-billion-dollar businesses. He is the author of ”The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors.” Follow him on LinkedIn.

Want to earn some extra money on the side? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Start a Side Hustle to learn tips to get started and strategies for success from top side hustle experts. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through April 1, 2025.

If Mark Cuban were a kid again, he’d do two simple things to set himself up for success as an adult, he says.

“When I talk to kids today and they ask me what I would do if I were 12 today, my answer is always the same, read books and learn how to use [artificial intelligence] in every way, shape and form you can,” the 66-year-old billionaire entrepreneur wrote on social media platform BlueSky last week. “It is a living library that gives you responses and can help no matter who you are or where you live.”

″[It] just takes a smartphone, curiosity to experiment and a mindset to learn,” Cuban wrote in a follow-up post.

The first part of Cuban’s advice isn’t new: He’s preached the value of voracious reading for years. “I read everything I can. I don’t care what the source is,” he told CNBC Make It in 2018, adding that he dedicates “four to five hours a day” to it. That habit is a commonality among many highly successful entrepreneurs, including fellow billionaires Bill Gates and Richard Branson.

As for the AI element, 70% of the skills used in most jobs could change due to the technology by 2030, according to LinkedIn’s 2025 Work Change report. But few young Americans use AI regularly right now — 11% of Americans ages 14 to 22 say they use generative AI once or twice per week, found a 2024 report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Common Sense Media and Hopelab.

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Cuban has previously likened the technology to the early days of personal computers, particularly for future entrepreneurs. “You don’t necessarily have to be great at AI to start a company, but at some point, you’re going to have to understand it,” he told “The Colin Cowherd Podcast” in 2022. “It’s just like the early days of PCs. You didn’t have to be good at PCs, but it helped. Then networks, then the internet, then mobile.”

Notably, Cuban has a financial interest in popularizing the technology: He’s an investor in multiple AI companies, including search engines DIRT and Samaya AI. But he’s not blind to at least some of its flaws, telling Wired last year that a puppy would be a better problem-solver than current AI systems.

“A dog can sense issues,” said Cuban. “Nothing about a self-driving car understands what’s adversarial or not. If it hasn’t seen it, it has no idea. Whereas a dog is going to understand. I think smart puppies are smarter than AI is today or in the near future.”

Longer term, the future of AI in business is unclear. It could range from the creation of more AI-infused services to a simpler rise in the number of employees who use chatbots to write first drafts of their emails or presentations.

Kids can benefit from getting ahead of those developments, Cuban told CNBC Make It last year. If he were a teenager in need of extra cash, he’d start a side hustle around learning how to write AI prompts, he said.

“Then, I would go to businesses, particularly small- to medium-sized businesses that don’t understand AI yet,” said Cuban. “Doesn’t matter if I’m 16, I’d be teaching them as well.”

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.

Want to up your AI skills and be more productive? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work. Expert instructors will teach you how to get started, practical uses, tips for effective prompt-writing, and mistakes to avoid.

Buying the same equipment as a Michelin-star chef probably won’t help you cook like one.

That’s according to chef Gabriel Kreuther, whose eponymous two-star restaurant is one of the best dining experiences New York City has to offer.

Speaking with CNBC Make It while promoting his new partnership with stainless steel cookware brand Cristel, Kreuther says one of the biggest mistakes he sees home cooks making is outfitting their kitchen as if they were running a restaurant.

While it may be tempting to purchase similar pieces of equipment found in professional kitchens, Kreuther says that these specialized machines often don’t fit a home cook’s needs. Indeed, if you aren’t making restaurant-sized portions, the machines might be more hassle than help.

“If the production is not big enough, you’ll find yourself cleaning for hours because you didn’t have enough product and everything is just hanging on the sides of that food processor or machine,” he says. “Because the recipe isn’t big enough unless you cook for six or eight people.”

Time and time again, Kreuther sees home cooks shelling out hundreds of dollars for high-end kitchen tools that far exceed their needs.

“What I see a lot when I cook things for people in private kitchens is you can find all kinds of food processors and machines, and a lot of them are barely used or not used at all,” he says. “They become pieces of furniture.”

“Those machine are really sometimes just a vanity in the kitchen,” he adds.

If you’re looking to upgrade your kitchen, he recommends starting with a good, wooden cutting board and some quality knives. Instead of looking for a pricey knife block that comes with a half dozen blades, he suggests investing in “one or two very good knives.”

“I will tell you from experience, after so many years in the kitchen, people tend to work 80% of the time with the same knife,” he says.

Go for a medium-sized knife and a smaller knife. If you really want to splurge, he says, buy yourself a steel to keep your blades sharp.

“At the beginning of your career when you’re a cook, your tendency is to have many knives because you think that more knives is better,” he says. “And as you go into your career you see, like many times in life, that less is more.”

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Six-Figure Side Hustle series, where people with lucrative side hustles break down the routines and habits they’ve used to make money on top of their full-time jobs. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at AskMakeIt@cnbc.com.

Before Krista LeRay launched her side hustle, she spent six hours painting a single 4-inch by 4-inch cotton canvas with a fine-tipped paintbrush at her kitchen table.

“I would wake up and paint the entire day until 2 a.m.,” says LeRay, 33. “My pinky went numb from holding a fist [around the brush] all day long.”

The result: a canvas ready-made for needlepoint, a craft that’s essentially paint-by-numbers for embroidery. Needlepoint was LeRay’s college hobby, and after picking it back up during the Covid-19 pandemic, she decided to try selling her designs on the side.

LeRay spent $7,000 on supplies, using money she’d earned as a full-time lifestyle blogger, and launched a Shopify website for Penny Linn Designs in September 2020, she says. She was unintentionally early to a trend: As the pandemic raged, needlepoint aficionados searched for online canvas sellers, and LeRay was among the first. She announced Penny Linn’s existence on her blog and Instagram account, and her first 500 canvases sold in two hours, she says.

The business has steadily built momentum since then. Penny Linn brought in more than $4.4 million in canvas, thread and accessory sales last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The company was profitable in 2024, with a 36% margin, says LeRay. She has 10 full-time and 24 part-time employees, and a soon-to-open 5,000-square-foot retail location in Rowayton, Connecticut.

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The company’s canvases, now made by a variety of designers, range from roughly $30 to over $100 for each “coastal preppy”-inspired pattern — blue and white chinoiserie vases, bowed sun hats and cursive prints of phrases like, “Your email did not find me well.”

Initially, LeRay worried that the side hustle wouldn’t be worth her time. Despite selling a lot of canvases, it was time- and labor-intensive, whereas she could “post a minute-long Instagram story and make a couple hundred dollars,” she says.

“I was making really good money from blogging. It was my retirement plan,” she adds.

But fashion and beauty posts felt insensitive to her at the pandemic’s peak, and after she had her son in 2022, she felt less comfortable posting her personal life on the internet. She took her side hustle full-time later that year, after it surpassed $416,000 in annual sales.

Here, LeRay discusses whether her business is replicable, how to monetize a hobby and the thick skin you need to run an online business.

CNBC Make It: Do you think your needlepoint side hustle — or any sort of successful crafting business — is replicable?

LeRay: I would say yes to both. I’m definitely a more-is-more type of person. I think there’s room for everyone and everything, especially in needlepoint, because there are way fewer physical stores than there used to be.

There are a lot of critiques online recently about monetizing your hobby. You don’t have to, of course, but if you’re really passionate about it and you have a unique perspective, why not?

Before Penny Linn, you were a successful blogger. What kinds of skills help you monetize your hobbies?

I’m very personable. I know how to connect with our customers online, partially because I am our customer. I know what products to create and how to promote them on social media.

I also have the kind of thick skin you need to run a business. I was picked apart as a blogger, so now I’m able to differentiate between constructive criticism and hurtful criticism.

I give myself 24 hours to be upset. In those 24 hours, I can cry and sulk and eat cookie dough. I can be upset and sad and angry and disgusted and hurt as I want. I talk to my husband, to my mom, to my therapist, to my best friend.

Then, the next morning, after I get a good night’s sleep, I say to myself: That’s behind us. We gave it the attention it needed. Time to move on.

Crafting trends can ebb and flow. Do you think it’s risky to commit yourself to a product that could lose popularity?

Needlepoint’s popularity always goes in waves. I think millennials caught on during the pandemic — we were all looking to get off our phones, away from the news cycle and do something peaceful for our minds. The result of that was a ton of new needlepoint designers.

The great thing about needlepoint is once you get somebody involved — someone who is doing it as a hobby, not because it looks cool on TikTok — they find it hard to put down. That’s why people stitch into their 90s. You can create gifts for your friends, your spouse, your children and grandchildren.

It’s something you can put down and always come back to. Right now, we have a 60% returning customer rate.

Given that embroidery has existed for so long, how do you stand out from your competition?

I remember going to a needlepoint shop before Penny Linn was even a twinkle in my eye. It was heavily marketed to a specific, older generation. When I created my shop, I focused on canvases I would want.

I made some with pop culture themes. I made them younger, fresh and more affordable than when you go into these shops, and they have massive tapestries that cost $1,000 and take forever to make.

I just wanted more accessible projects, like an “Ew, David” sweater, and something to represent my love for New York coffee.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Want to earn some extra money on the side? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Start a Side Hustle to learn tips to get started and strategies for success from top side hustle experts. Sign up today and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $97 (+taxes and fees) through April 1, 2025.

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.