As a parent, I know there are certain things I have to get used to.

I know that children will always want what you know isn’t good for them. They will relentlessly beg for things until your head nearly explodes.

However, what I can’t get used to is dealing with the overindulgent decisions made by many of the parents of my children’s friends and classmates.

I constantly have to listen to my children complain that so and so has the latest, greatest, name-brand whatever. My 10-year-old daughter can’t understand why I won’t buy her an iPod.

My 8-year-old son points out that all his friends have video game systems or the hand-held versions – most of the time, both.

Oh, and now we have the cell phone controversy in our house.

Can you believe my 10-year-old is incredulous that I won’t get her a cell phone?

When she argues that “everybody has one” she’s exaggerating, but maybe not for long.

The “tween” market, defined as 8- to 12-year-olds, is the next new growth opportunity for wireless carriers, according to the Yankee Group, a market research company.

Among tweens, 27 percent now have cell phones. The Yankee Group predicts that this market has the potential to double by 2010.

I recently persuaded a couple to get rid of the cell phone for their 12-year-old daughter. I bumped into them at the movies and I couldn’t help but notice the girl had a cell phone plastered to her ear rather than conversing with her family. I asked her dad who she was talking to.

“You know, I don’t know,” he said.

It was like a light bulb came on over his head.

That child’s cell phone bill was about $40 a month. Are you kidding me? If parents just saved that money, the cash they spend on monthly cell phone charges would add up to thousands of dollars by the time their children go to college. That would certainly help them buy books and supplies for four years of college.

Most recently, my 10-year-old was protesting that I hadn’t planned to take her anywhere for spring break.

“It’s just not fair,” she whined. “All my friends are going on trips or doing exciting things on their spring break.”

To which I said, “You want excitement? Read a book and you can live vicariously through the characters and their exciting lives.” She sulked. I saved.

Parents are spending so much money to keep their children entertained that these young folks don’t know how to entertain themselves with anything that doesn’t cost money.

Right now there are debt-plagued parents parading through Disney World or Disneyland or some other vacation spot adding more charges to their credit cards to please their children.

Ultimately, this isn’t just about saving for their college education or teaching your children to be money smart. It’s deeper than that.

Excessively spending on your child has the great potential to turn them into spendthrift adults or adults who can’t be satisfied if they don’t have what their friends or neighbors have at any cost.

So, if you are so and so’s mom or dad, I’m begging you to exercise some financial restraint. Stop overindulging your children so I can have some peace in my house.