re:spoiling or doting

Dear Julia Charlotte, Just pondering the delicate balance between doting and spoiling in regards to children. When I was little, I longed to be spoiled in a good way,I think. I wanted to have my sandwiches cut up in tringles and served up on a plate, with some little celery and carrot sticks on the side.
I wanted to have someone around that noticed the things I was good at and drew me out.
I wanted to have a dad that brought me home little trinkets from buisness trips and swung me off my feet in a hug.
It wasn't that I ever went hungry. And I had some little trinkets. But I think what I wanted were those little touches. Those details that I wouldn't ask for but would happen because somebody loved me,oh so much. The situation I grew up in was challenging. It didn't allow for pampering. Then I started my own family and those little things are a regular part of my offsprings lives.
They get their bowls of sliced apples and oranges, their trinkets from trips, their hot cups of tea in the morning,all nicely prepped. Their dad takes them to play soccer and I take them to art class and the list could go on and on.
They do their chores and say thank-you Mama and so on.
So is there any problem?
Well, I think there's one thing I didn't know as a child, who wished for love-touches.
It's that those parents who can give so much, walk a fine line between loving ,and doing our children a disfavor, by having them come to expect too much, by too much serving instead of training them to serve, of spoiling instead of teaching independence.
I think it's a path that can be navigated by prayerful interceding and God given wisdom but it can be tricky!

In Him, Pilgrimama