High expectations

ambrvan · February 2013

What is your opinion of what high expectations do to a child? I really want to hear what some of you with teenage XP have to say.

My thinking is that high expectations early in life will create children who reach higher achievements. But how to draw the line between high and too high? I certainly believe in encouragement to go along with that. When they reach your high expectations or put forth a good effort to reach them, even if they fall short, I believe they should be encouraged and congratulated.

Here is where I am having the biggest problem and the most friction is being created between me and DH. When, even at a young age when they may not fully be able to control themselves, they break a rule orngo against something they know/should know is expected as in it is consistently always expected and enforced everyday they should receive a predictable consequence every time. Be they 3, 6, or 13, I think this is how it should be handled. My H feels that it is ok to ignore things sometimes albeit things that are not really a big deal and many people may not expect their children to abide by and just let them be kids, as he puts it.

Things have gotten better over the past couple weeks after we have both put forth an effort to be on the same page and come to some middle ground, the house has been a bit more peaceful.

But there are still issues. And I think most of them are mine. DH does.not let them deliberately break a rule.and get away with it or let them run wild. He expects them to be well mannered and respectful, and enforces it. He has much more patience than I do, however, to deal with kids. I hate typing this because it makes me sound horrible. But I am trying to be honest with myself here. I am a control freak, and you simply cannot control every noise and move your kids make. So I find myself morenoftenin withdrawing and letting him handle it when I think I am going to blow my top.

I am going back to counseling on Tuesday for the first time in four years. I stopped going and have held off going back because I was afraid of how me seeing a therapist would affect our custody case, since we are calling BM's mental health into question.

Sorry this got so long. You all know by now that I am long winded, though.

And also, please be frank. I need some perpective.

lookame3639 · February 2013

I have a 6 year old and no teen expirience. I have high expectations for my 6 year old though. He is to be respectful and kind and when he has a good day at school no notes sent home I tell him how proud I am and how good hes doing. This goes a long way with him. He knows hes appreciated and that makes him strive for better. However his father on the other hand has very low expectations and doesnt tell him he is proud of him. Then theres the issue of disapline at his place they seem to pick out only his bad behavior and punish him inappropriatly I may add, as in a slap in the face since hes rewarded with attention for his bad behavior he comes back uncontrollable and angry.

My x and I dont coparent very well. I try to talk to him and he lies to me then disreguards everything I telk him. His girlfriend is even worse. However within my home my fiance and I are on the same page. We understand his struggle getting familiar with the new schedual and new rules so maybe we are a little easy on him for the first day or two home but we realky try to nip the bad behavior in the bud befire it goes to far and DS does cone around.

unhdncr21 · February 2013

Having high expectations is good however they need to be realistic and reachable. You need to set up your expectations on a variety of levels and with each level you should have some sort of award. This could be something as simple as movietime with mom. Or making something together. Positive responses work better than negative. Of course you can use negative 'reenforcement but it can backfire pretty fast on you.
Good luck!

karatechrissy · February 2013

My personal mantra is you give someone (anyone, 5 yrs old, or 30) an inch, they will take a mile. I really think that has contributed to the sh*t head kids we have in HS these days. Why the current early 20s generation is a big load of loser entitled brats who expect things on a silver platter. Parents let things slip and slip and slip... and well, now we have a dysfunctional generation of losers.

I think you have to assess what is a big deal to you and go from there. Let a few things go, kids will be kids, but just remember they take advantage of situations. They will use the things you let slide as a precedent and get upset when that slide isn't extended to them again. Just last night, I told my SS it was time for bed. He gets to stay up 1/2 hour extra on non-school days. He looked at me and said 'I don't have a bed time because there's no school tomorrow'. I laughed at him and said 'uhhh since when?'. He said 'well I get to stay up longer when there is no school'. I ended the conversation with 'yes, you DO get to stay up later, and you have stayed up to the weekend bedtime, which is what it is now. And now it's time for bed. I'm not going to repeat myself that it's bed time. I love you. Give me a hug and go ninight'. And that was that. Because he knows he gets to stay up a little later, he tried to stay up even LONGER. And that was just a stupid bed time issue... I'd rather nip this now and not deal with bigger issues later.

Littlejen22 · February 2013

I remember someone on here saying that if you make too much of a big deal about little things how are kids supposed to know what the big things are.

I think that statement made a big impact on me and I unsuccessfully try to live by it. I think that you need to have reasonable expectations and enforce them but you cannot have a million rules or the kids will just hear white noise. But for the things that are really important to you whether for morality or for safety you need to be consistent. I do think it is ok to bend rules sometimes as long as your kids learn what is really important. But I am fairly laid back in my parenting. But my Mom and Dad were the same way, they were very oldfashion but not strict and I turned out pretty well if I so say so myself.

ETA: I also think expectations need to be realistic, you cannot put an average kid in honors math and expect As.

But I also realize that I met SD when she was 11 and many things were already set. And my others are so little and very well behaved in school so I still have time to change my mind. I will say that I expect my kids to behave in school and when we are out and they usually are very good or at least appropriately good meaning behavior at pizza or McDs is good but different than at a fancy restaurant.

guilletskichuk · February 2013

I think it is important to have somewhat high expectations for children. If we don't have high expectations for them, then that means we're allowing them to slack off and not attain their highest potential.

Like the OP, I am quite the control freak. :S When SS and SD started living with us full-time last summer, there were A LOT of adjustments that had to be done in the way we all operated as a family. I'm a teacher and run a pretty tight ship in my classroom. I like order and organization. I have high expectations but I do believe I am reasonable. This is how I treated our household when my SKs came to live with us. They moved in over the summertime so, as a teacher who was off for the summer, I was with them all.day.long. Add in the fact that we got out BFP 4 days after they moved in with us and I'm sure you can imagine that it was a somewhat emotional and stressful time as we were making all of these adjustments.

Prior to living with us, my SKs lived with their BM (well, SD's BM...it's a loooong story) who had 5 other daughters from 4 other dads. While BM is a loving parent, her parenting skills are lacking, for various reasons. She is unstable, offers no consistency with the way her household is run, and allowed the kids to run a muck. When SKs moved here, SS demonstrated a lot of behaviour issues (he has been diagnosed with ADD and ODD in the past). He often told me that I was always expecting him to be perfect and that's he's not.

Now, I never once said that I expected either SK to be perfect. But I was trying to re-teach them behaviours that they learned living with their mom. The issues varied among both kids...but most were related to SS. Both kids had terrible tendencies to lie. We realized that they kind of had to in the situation they were living in before. It was their way of keeping themselves out of trouble and also their way of getting what they wanted (when resources were lean). This is something we have been working on over the last 7 months. It has been a very trying time but it has gotten SO MUCH BETTER!

However, at 11 years old, SS also had major troubles toileting (he would soil himself, leave balls of poop around his bedroom, hide dirty underwear etc) and eating (he made a worse mess than a toddler would). He also had major temper tantrums, would hit his sister, etc. All of this has improved drastically since the kids have come to live with us. They've only seen BM twice in the last 7 months. They are supposed to have another week-long visit with her in a couple of weeks. Their behaviours have regressed after spending time in her household but we have been able to get them back on track.

I honestly think that my SKs have made these vast improvements because of our high expectations and consistency in rules, consequences etc. I have learned a ton about parenting from DH over the years as he has learned a lot from me as well (as a teacher I've been able to share my experiences dealing with a variety of behaviours). We agree to how we parent the children. Sometimes DH is a bit of a hard-ass with SS and it frustrates me. It's actually almost the opposite of how we were when the kids first arrived. DH sometimes thought I was making a big deal out of little things...and maybe I was. Perhaps I've learned to let go a little bit. But, in the end, DH and I support one another with our parenting decisions. We recently reflected on how things are going in our household and we are very pleased. We let the kids know how proud we are of their achievements on a regular basis. It's important for them to have that regular, positive reinforcement. However, I don't think they even understand quite how proud of them we are. They have really come a long way in the last 7 months. I hate to toot our own horns, but I know that what we're doing in our home has made a huge difference.

Littlejen22 · February 2013

I will add there is a huge difference to me in parenting a SK that comes to live with you and has baggage or raising tour own child when the other parent parents differently compared to raising your own child with your DH who is the Dad. My kids are still younger than SD was when I met her but my LOs are being raised with our morals and with our love every day and from try beginning. Not that there are not things we should or could do different but day in and day out we teach them so there is less of a need to lay down the law. When SD came to us there were issues and bad habits that I was not ok with so I felt I needed to at least try to change them.

fellesferie · February 2013

I think high standards are great. But just like with everything else, you need balance. You can't set your expectations so high that your kids never measure up.

My parents had very high standards. From a really early age, I knew that I was expected to do well in school and that I was supposed to go to college. No alternatives. My mom was the type that when I'd bring home a 100% on a test, she'd ask "There wasn't any extra credit?"

I distinctly remember one time I cleaned up the whole kitchen for her. I waited for her to get home and I was excited because I thought it would make her happy. And she was, but she only waited maybe 2 minutes before taking me around the kitchen to show me the spots I'd missed.

I did go to college and graduate with great grades. And even though I'm a SAHM I know my parents are proud of me on some level. They adore my kids. But I've felt my whole life that they were impossible to truly please.

With my kids I try to have the same high standards. But I try to do it without making them feel like nothing is good enough. I have to bite my tongue sometimes--I'm more like my mom every day. But as parents we just have to do what we think is best.

ambrvan · February 2013

Thank you all very much. I think the main issue, then, is my controlling nature. And the fact that I am trying to do things the way they were done when I was raised. But look at the over anxious control freak they created? DH keeps telling me that neither of can do things the way we were raised or they will become us, and if we want them to be and achieve better, that won't work.

I think he is right. And I think counseling is what I need right now. Because honestly, the kids are really wonderful. I think I am the problem. There really is not any behavior in either of them that I would change. They really are very normal 3 and 6yo's.

Another problem I am having is that they are not like I was at their age. I could have been considered a very weird child, and I did not run around and play loud or wild. I played quiet, by myself, and never acted like a "normal" kid. I also had no siblings or cousins close in age to reference from. And I had very few "friends" my entire childhood and rarely saw them outside of school. I am having a very hard time relating to SD and even DS. My love for them both is as strong as ever, but do not understand them at all.

I hope these are some things that counseling can help me deal with and change.

guilletskichuk · February 2013

Hmm...perhaps that's where my controlling nature comes from too. I'm also an only child and my parents were quite overprotective of me as a child and teen. While I was socialized well, I have always had a difficult time with chaos. I haven't had a difficult time relating to SS and SD, but I have had difficulties with being able to handle environments where kids are allowed to let loose and just run completely wild. A good friend of mine has three daughters, 7 and under. Our parenting styles differ greatly. I sometimes wish I could be as lax as she is. But then I also see how whiny and outspoken her kids are at times and think it's because of how they are being raised. I honestly don't know which way is better but we do what we think is right in our home.

Good for you for seeking counseling to deal with this, ambrvan. Good for you for being proactive about your situation!

Littlejen22 · February 2013

Ambrvan, I do not mean to be insensitive but didn't you have a pretty rough childhood and shacks relationships with your parents? I remember a lot of what i am 99 sure is your story, unless I have totally confused you with someone else I really think that you need to do things differently with th kids. I am sure that there are good things from there too but honestly I do not think that you want to look back with ros colored glasses and try to copy things. And that is not saying you are doing a bad job with the kids but that you need to do things different and better.

FutureMrsWittig · February 2013

I'm a control freak too. And my DH is very laid back. We had many a disagreement, with me saying "if we don't expect anything out of them they'll never do anything" and him saying "they're only <insert age here> years old, kids will be kids."

My rebuttal for his argument is this: where do you draw the line? If your child knows they are not to do something and they do it anyway and you chalk it up to them "just being nine", then the next year will you do the same because "S/He's only ten" and so on....

ambrvan · February 2013

Littlejen You are right. I do not want to do thi gs the way they were done by me, but I am finding it really hard not to repeat. I guess when I said I was trying to do things thay way, I didn't mean actively trying. It just keeps turning out that way. Don't get me wrong. I was taught a lot of responsibility and respect, but as DH pointed out, I did not get to be a kid. I HAD to be an adult due to very out of the ordinary circumstances. And my mom and I have had a terrible relationship thay we are still very carefully mending. I do NOT want that with my kids. I want the relationship with them that I saw other kids having with their moms. I cry nearly every night when I think back over the day at how even my voice and words sounded almost like a recording of my mother.

The one thing I can say that I have tried so hard and succeeded in doing differently, though, is that I make a point to tell both of them how proud of them of how much I love them every day. My mom never told me she was proud except once after DS was born. But i know one good cannot overcome a lot of wrong. And I am not saying I am doing things badly, I just would like to do them differently. I want something different for my kids from me.

Auntie Wonderful points. Thank you. I have a lot of trouble "picking my battles." Another thing I need to work on.

J&A2008 · February 2013

If you set your expectations too high for a child, the child will constantly feel like a total failure for not living up to your expectations, and will NOT perform higher as they get older.

Children need to grow their self-esteem, and to be able to take pride in their abilities. If you constantly say they are falling short of the mark, their self-esteem plummets, as well as their interest in trying to achieve.

Keep your expectations reasonable. Kids are kids, and even good kids are not good 100% of the time. I'm sure you don't always clean up what you're supposed to, or you forget things from time to time, or want to blow off some responsibility to have fun instead. We can't hold children to a higher standard than we ourselves can set.

Many children today have much less down time than adults in their lives. We keep children on a constant, set schedule with little room to make their own choices and have some freedom. That lifestyle is very confining, and one no adult would handle well. I have to keep this in mind when even on the weekends I'm shuttling my kids back and forth from one activity to the next.

I'd ease up a bit more on your standards, praise her a little more, and make sure you're giving her some self-structured time every day. See how her behavior is in a few weeks, then go from there.

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