Parents’ expectations from their children
This piece major focuses on signs that could help identify if parents’ expectations from their children are high! In past decade lot of cases have come to light where a child feels pressurized by his/her parents or relatives. He/she is expected to perform in a way that could bring pride to family, relatives, school etc. In many cases, this often leads to mental stress and sometimes even suicidal behavior. Parents’ expectations from their children could not only hamper growth in formative years but also make children land up doing something they hate! This further leads to feelings of failure and disappointment, which means unhappy and unhealthy lifestyle as a by product.
When I was young, my parents wanted me to pass through all exams and may be get a job that could pay my bills. I was able to achieve this simple goal which now is more complicated than it sounds. With increase in young population around the world, our children face cut throat competition in almost every walk of life and are expected to have more exposure, more training, more practice always more which is also not enough. Thankfully there are multiple options to learn as well since everything is available with the click of a button. There are so many popular social media platforms like YouTube, Google etc and not to forget Alexa and Google home who will literally answer every question by a simple voice command. Number of hours however are the same so cramming it all in is not the best way to go about doing things.
To be honest , I feel it is quite unfair….
With increase in competition in every field, schools push children to learn more and more. Children do get to enrol in tons of extra-curricular activities but along with that managing studies and achieving their goals might get impossible in many cases and there is a lot of overload as an end result.
All of these put the weight of expectations on children resulting in non-performance, cranky behaviour, and irresponsible attitude and in some cases various stages of depression.
6 Signs that parents’ expectations from their children are high
It is important for parents to understand their child’s capability and based on that nurture them to achieve best possible results. A perfect way to raise children is to let them enjoy their childhood and allow learning through their own experience. It is like learning on the job.
Below are signs that your child might display which could tell you that you are expecting too much.
Limited Sharing
Most children fear failure and sharing these fears helps them grow. If you notice that your child has stop sharing fears and failures with you, then it is a sign that your child is either too scared or too angry to communicate. This would lead to frustration and sometime depression. A safe and trustworthy environment for your kids is must. Kids need to feel like their parents are a “safe place” where they can retreat and regroup after a failure, or when dealing with a potentially paralyzing fear.
Losing interest in what they loved
We prefer our kids to diligently learn things with focus. Unintentionally, we start pushing and creating pressure on our children to make sure that they are learning everything properly. If your little girl loves to draw and suddenly stop drawing, it could be as a result of pressure from you to draw better. This pressure puts your child away from what they loved and they end up leaving what loved. This is almost the very first sign that shows parents’ expectations from their children are high
Looking at only end result instead of the method
A simple example of this is expecting more grades and not concerned with what they learned or how they are studying. With extra pressure to perform, children have become a part of a never ending rat race. There is always something new to achieve. It is important to get to results but more important is to get to it in proper way. Imagine a doctor who is able to cure the symptom of a patient through through whichever dubious means and not focus on proper treatment.
parents’ expectations from their children
You don’t enjoy their activities and fun
We do tend to irritated with constant naughtiness and a desire to put them first at all times that we often neglect catching them in repeating same mistakes again and again. You lose interest in fun. Learn to just watch and enjoy without constantly assessing what your kid could do better.
Your child shows signs of fatigue or moodiness.
Over-occupied children who are pushed hard by their parents in multiple arenas often have their psychological stress surface as physical symptoms or emotional behavior. If your child is often worn-out or down in mood, it may be because his/her plate is full, or the pressure is too great to cope with.
Your child is definition of perfect
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Your kid feels that your acceptance of them is tied to their performance.
If the only time you praise your child or show her affection is when she wins a trophy, he’ll grow up seeing a direct relationship between the two. Make sure you remind your kid that you’d love them just as much if they never won a thing—just because they’re yours and it is ultimately about being a well adjusted human begin, not winning all the time.
As parents we all experience our own episodes and learn from our children. Feel free to share in the comment section below about your experience that help you understand your kid was in pressure and measures you took.
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I believe that parents may sometimes expect too much from their children. Especially in families or even cultures where ‘success’ is dictated by society. I rather believe that each & every person should define their own goals & what success mean to them.
This is really a very helpful post for the parents for their kids. Parents sometime expect too much from their kids which becomes difficult for kids to understand
Parents are really expecting too much from their children; and it’s not children cannot do it. Our interests change as we grown and sometimes, parents just want you to do a profession that can pay your bills and give you a name. That’ why children complete their graduate studies just to make their parents proud then the go and start working on their interests. That is a waste of time so I hope parents get this.
As parents, we tend sometimes to have high expectations from our kids and we tend to push them hard. I have learned not to do that particularly when I realize that my kids are different and they have different paths. Thanks for such an inspiring post.
Really good points. It’s so important to pay attention to your child’s mood changes – especially if they seem particularly tired or run down.
Having a three year old, we are very keen to encourage her to do her best and to give her all the skills she needs to get what she wants out of life but without holding her up to expectations that we as parents want her to achieve. After all, if she is happy, healthy and able to make her own way through life then we have been successful parents 🙂
I can relate to this because I experienced having to push myself to win academic awards at school. Growing up for me was a competition with my cousins and I was expected to be the “best.” I liked winning awards because I saw how proud my parents were of me, but it was tough for a child. I know my parents only wanted the best for me, so I thought everything then was “normal.” I broke the cycle when it was my turn to raise my own children. I was there to guide and support, but I learned to accept their limitations. All turned out well in the end. All my children are now Bachelor’s degree holders and making their mark in the corporate world.
These are all true, my boys are still young but it’s so important for them to know it’s okay compared to my upbringing which everything had to be done right and exams were a must to be passed.