Have Reasonable Expectations of Your Children’s Behavior
April 23, 2008
Every parent has expectations from their children, but some have unreasonable expectations. These expectations are formed unconsciously from our own wants and desires. Often parents want to see their children achieve what they themselves couldn’t. This is an unreasonable expectation. It is not necessary that your child will have the same talent and aptitude that you may want him to have.
The key is to have positive and reasonable expectations for your children. How do you establish a set of positive child discipline expectations? How do you know if your child discipline expectation is even reasonable? These aren’t easy questions to answer.
To come to any reasonable conclusion about the reasonableness of your expectations you will have to do some research - inside and outside. Outside, compare your expectations with others; don’t compare your children with other’s children. Look into what the established child behavior guidelines are for your child’s age. If a child at one is not expected to construct a full sentence, don’t expect it from your child.
These books will also help you look at your child more objectively. It means that you will look at the child and his capacity without bringing your own desires and aspirations into it. For instance, if the established guideline is that children don’t develop full sentence speech till they are at least a year old, expecting a full sentence out of your six-month old isn’t a reasonable expectation.
Children cannot be compared, and it is one of the most common mistakes parents make when they compare their child with the neighbor’s. If your child happens to be average in studies, try your best to help him improve but learn to accept it. All children are not born to be geniuses. Your child might have some other talent; look for it and develop that instead of harping on grades.
Having unreasonable expectations of your children leads you to disappointment and your children to feeling like they can’t measure up. Neither of these situations is positive and should be avoided since they tend to lead to child behavioral problems.
Once you’ve established what is reasonable as an expectation in child behavior or child discipline in different areas, formulate a set of goals and hold to them. Make sure to reward your children for meeting those expectations and encourage them to reach more, once they’ve reached one.
Often times, having had the success of reaching and meeting the first expectation, your children will be able to meet that higher expectation. The biggest thing to remember is to not push your desires onto your children. If you were never good in sports but you wanted to be the star athlete of your school, to make that dream come true, don’t push your child to be a superstar against his or her will. Also, don’t force your child into athletics just because he or she is good at it. That’s placing your expectations from your past onto your children. That only creates a negative environment, child behavior problems and child discipline issues. Reasonable expectations promote growth and positive self image and are an essential parenting skill.
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