Home | Family | Parental Care
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. As a parent, it is your duty to discover and develop his hidden talents and not impose your own desires on him to fulfill your dreams. The key is to have positive and reasonable expectations for your children. But, it is not easy to draw a line between reasonable and unreasonable expectations. 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. Similarly, if your child is an average student, expecting average grade work is reasonable because he is doing his best. As a parent, you need to review your expectations from your child every now and then, because you never know when you suddenly start demanding more from them than they can deliver. 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. It is equally important to convey your reasonable expectation in child behavior to your child. You can formulate a set of goals in different areas of child discipline, 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. Children thrive on love and praise. Encouraged by rewards they strive to reach higher goals. Never try to impose your desires onto your children. If you couldn’t achieve your goals, don’t re-live your dreams through your children. That only creates negative environment, child behavior problems and child discipline issues. Reasonable expectations promote growth and positive self image and are an essential parenting skill. Visit visit http://www.good-child-guide for some effective and valuable advice on child behaviour problems.
Article Source: http://www.philvault.com
Need some ideas for handling your children's behaviors? Why not take a look at Dr. Noel Swanson's children's behavior newsletter. His book, The GOOD CHILD Guide, is also one of the best available. Visit here for more parenting articles. Don't reprint this article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5
Not yet Rated
