The Reality that Parents with High Expectations Must Face
Low expectations are like kryptonite for all the parents who read this blog. You wouldn’t be here on my site if you didn’t already know that low expectations are a recipe for low performance. So, before you read any further, please know I’m not suggesting that any parent lower expectations.
However, parents with high expectations must not forget that having high expectations can backfire. When expectations are too high you put yourself in the driver seat instead of letting your children drive themselves. This may mean over scheduling your children in tutoring sessions, private coaching sessions, camps, practices, and other programs. Or it may mean you are always swooping in to save your children in moments when you should be letting them learn from their mistakes or failures. It could also mean that you overemphasize outcomes without regard for the process, even when the process sucks.
At some point (normally by the adolescent years) if you keep driving your child like this you will either zap their self-motivation completely or they will stop listening to you completely. Both outcomes are counterproductive to what you want. So, the best thing you can do before that happens is to stop making choices for your children. Instead, teach them how to make choices for themselves and then let them make those choices without you interfering.
Choices lead to self-motivation. What’s more, when a child’s self-motivation leads to meeting your high expectations, they will be far better off in the long run than if their only motivation comes from being afraid to let you down.