Empathic Parenting Blog

We hear a lot about having expectations for our children - not long term aspirations or dreams, but expectations that they will be kind and responsible; that they will pick up their toys and sit quietly at the dinner table. I’ve heard Alfie Kohn mention the importance of having expectations several times, and I strongly agree with the sentiment as he has described it.

Yet, somehow I always get stuck on the word “expectations”. Someone asked me what my problem with the word “expectations” is, and I wasn’t quite sure myself. I just had a niggling disconnect that I couldn’t identify whenever I heard it used, kind of like when you are searching for a word and everyone gives you one that is close, but just not quite what you are looking for; almost as if the energy around the word felt wrong to me. So, I looked it up.

(http://thesaurus.reference.com/)

Several of these definitions have connotations which don’t feel right to me in the context of parenting, and they are the ones that make the word bother me - apprehension, assumption, presumption, and fear. Yet these are exactly where I often see myself and other parents go when we hold expectations of children.

When the child doesn’t meet our expectations - doesn’t cooperate with toy cleanup efforts or doesn’t sit quietly at dinner (or worse, plays with food or runs around yelling like a banshee), we sometimes assume there is something wrong with them or with us as parents. Then the fear sets in, and often our expectations turn into doubts and resentments rather than something that empowers our children to reach for their best. To be effective, expectations have to be in the present, not in the past or future.

Furthermore, expectations tend to be interpreted as static, whereas I see them as fluid and situational. Which expectations a child will be able to meet depend on the child’s age, state of mind and health, etc.

Lastly, often expectations have a societal meaning that carries an assumption of “right and wrong” rather than what is effective for a given family. There are even expectations placed on the parent’s expectations.

However, the positives are in this definition too - belief, confidence, hope, intention, and trust. How can we combine these with a strong view of what we want from children? Aspirations comes close for me, but seem too far in the future.

I also found quite a few quotes about expectation:

“Anger always comes from frustrated expectations” - Elliott Larson

“Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations, and small needs”- William Howard Stein

“We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.” - Samuel Johnson

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” - Charles F. Kettering

“It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any effect other than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation” - Samuel Johnson

“The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.” - Seneca (Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)

“Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation” - Charlotte Bronte

“Hope is a desire with an expectation of accomplishment.” - Unknown

And then of course, my long-time and oft-quoted favorite:

“Expectations are resentments under construction.”

In short, expectations can generate fear, doubt, and guilt if they are incorrectly used (like any other parenting concept, I suppose). Personally, I would rather choose something that empowers both myself and my child.

What I am looking for is a word that conveys a concept that Wayne Dyer talks about a lot (perhaps he uses a word that I’ve not ‘caught’ yet?), where one can simultaneously hold a view and expectation of what is wanted while also trusting and believing that it is on it’s way and that the current moment is exactly as it is supposed to be. If anyone comes up with such a word, please let me know!

Until then, I’ll continue to have expectations, but I’m going to make sure they are helpful ones. There are enough “should’s” in life without having to heap on some more.

I’ve realized there is a subtle but ubiquitous set of best practices that tends to circulate around most positive discipline communities that many of us take for granted and become judgmental about despite our best intentions. Recently I’ve been breaking something I’ve always taken as one of these truisms of positive parenting.

In my work, two primary goals are non judgment and respect, for both parents and children. This means that my basic assumption is that I don’t know the “right” answer for anyone else. (I often am not sure I know it even for myself, but that’s another post!) I find this to be very effective in coaching, because so frequently the presenting issue (potty training, sleep issues, tantrums) is not the core concern (pressure to grow up too fast, lack of quality time between mom & dad, sensory issues). When I jump directly to brainstorming the answer to the problem that is presented, I will miss the core concern.

However, some practices I take for granted as more…well, effective (that’s a good thing), respectful (no problems with that) and sometimes, I must admit, more enlightened (a judgment - breaking primary principle #1). We all have these opinions, to some extent or another, and most do have very sound reasoning behind them.

Here are a few you might recognize:

• Give young children limited choices; with no choice they will not be able to feel influential nor practice good judgment; but with too many or too large of choices, they will be overwhelmed.
• Praise and rewards, particularly the ever present, “Good job!” don’t lead to intrinsic motivation, and should be be replaced with acknowledgment and appreciation.
• Don’t threaten, especially things you can never follow up on, such as “we are never going out to eat again.”

Recently I’ve noticed that as much as I try to be open-minded towards other people’s differing solutions to parenting dilemmas, I often hold myself in judgment against this unquestioned moral standard. So what is the golden rule that I’m now breaking, you might ask? It’s this - “Children should have basic responsibilities around the house, but should not be paid for basic chores (allowance should be either separate and unconditional or paid for “extra” chores), because otherwise they will not learn that they are expected to contribute to the household regardless. ” Even worse, I’ve crossed the line on the “don’t bribe your child for ordinary good behavior” rule a fair number of times recently as well.

Ok, I admit, until recently, whenever this topic has come up on emails lists, I’ve respectfully and non judgmentally thrown out these ‘PD truisms’, and yet at the same time held a small reserve of judgment toward parents that threaten their kids with loss of allowance for not doing the mundane and boring tasks that have been unilaterally assigned, much in the same way many of us look down on someone screaming at a child in the grocery store (as if to subtly imply that that has never, ever been us in that situation. Yeah, right.)

So imagine my inner conflict when I find myself pragmatically paying my child, albeit 20 cents here, 40 cents there, to cooperate with expected outings, or to do small tasks.

The reason and the details of my breaking of this rule would get us sidetracked, and would sound like an excuse and thereby dilute my point. Which is this. We simply cannot know the right answer for another family. (Although, I will admit we can know some very wrong answers - but I’m not talking about those - I’m talking about the more subtle stuff).

This isn’t a change in philosophy. I still believe that in many cases it doesn’t make sense to pay children for things we want them to do habitually and routinely. Rather, this is a yet another spiral on the attitude that I’m trying to reach, and can only come closer and closer to - non judgment.

So the next time you are faced with listening to a parent describe a solution that you don’t agree with, stay open minded. Truly accept that they are the best equipped to make their own best decisions, and then get curious about why this works for them. They will appreciate the nonjudgmental listening, and you may even surprise yourself by agreeing with them in the end. And if not, you will most likely have more conviction about the rightness of your own solution for your family, and the reasons why you chose it.