Every loving parent wants their kid to succeed and be happy. The difficulty is that success and happiness are ephemeral concepts. Sure, there are lots of books and articles about children who’ve achieved great things, and the parents that supported them in getting there. Taylor Swift was naturally very driven, but would she really have reached the dizzying heights she has if her parents hadn’t been able to move to Nashville and had a lot of money with which to back her in the first place? The truth is, we’ll never know. And we’ll also never know how much of a role their parenting actually played in her success. Indeed, you could argue that her career success is irrelevant. Is she happy? Is she functioning well as an adult in our society? Perhaps that’s a far better question.
Obviously, the vast majority of our kids will live ordinary lives where they have to work and worry about paying the bills; they’ll have happiness and sadness, and life will unfold regardless, so why even worry about having high expectations?
It’s been niggling me for some time, because I feel like there's a misfit between my attitude and the society in which I’m raising my kids. I’m not a Tiger mother, but I’m also uncomfortable about being too relaxed. What really set me off down the rabbit hole of this topic to create an episode is a) I started reading a book called Do Hard Things by brothers Alex and Brett Harris B) I had feedback from my youngest that she was surrounded by people who expected too little of her.
How has that happened, I wonder? How is it that in a family of competitive people, where I’ve been conscious about making sure that I only target effort rather than outcomes, one of them says she doesn’t feel like people expect enough of her?
I think it’s a combination of factors; some of which are societal, some to do with her sex, some to do with her birth order, some to do with her neuro-diversity. Whatever it is, I’m wondering how I should be – as a parent – in a way that makes her feel I have the right level of expectations.
The first place I decided to mine for information is the easiest; my own past. I was raised by a father who expected extremely high standards but completely inconsistently; table manners, the way I spoke and the way I dressed all received laser-focused criticism whenever he was in the mood, but he took absolutely no interest in my education. I found his nit-picking intolerable, mostly because of the way in which it was delivered; it felt cruel and belittling. Yet, if I’m honest, it’s the thing I’m most grateful for. For example, if he hadn’t hassled me relentlessly about the way I spoke I would have a broad Lincolnshire accent, be dropping consonants, and would not have ‘made’ it in broadcasting. My podcast would not exist.
Thinking again about my own child who has complained because not enough is expected of her she is also the one who fights back over any attempts to help her learn, get her to tidy her room, or any other nudge; she’s her mother’s daughter. She’s much more challenging to parent, but she’s also a magnificent human being with spirit and kindness. I love her fiercely, so I want to get this right.
A little aside: on the subject of daughters, researchers have found that one thing hampering progress in girls is that we are less direct in our feedback. We’re scared of hurting their feelings, so we skirt around what they’re doing wrong. This is far less common with boys with whom people tend to be more direct. This is damaging because only by giving consistent, accurate feedback on what our kids are doing wrong can we hope to help them improve. Yes, the tone matters, but being clear about what can be changed to get a different result is vital. I mentioned a recent scenario in the episode on this topic. Susie winced when I told her how I would deal with it, but I honestly believe that when we shy away from giving clear feedback we don’t help our kids, our friends, or our partners. They stumble on blindly learning nothing, and we train them to shy away from communicating their thoughts too. I’m convinced that this is one of the reasons that girls can end up in gossip circles where they’re bitching about a ‘friend’ who has no idea what she’s done wrong because nobody is prepared to tell her until it all spills out in venom.
Coming back to the subject of expectations, and the book Do Hard Things. Here’s a thought from Chuck Norris in the foreword:
‘Today our culture expects very little from teens – not much more than staying in school and doing a few chores.’
That resonated with me like a gong. I have picked up on this attitude from so many parents. I’ve always felt uncomfortable and couldn’t put my finger on why. Completely by coincidence I have been reading the early diaries of Anais Nin, the French writer who moved to New York aged 11 with her mother and siblings, to be safe from World War One. Anais caught pleurisy and, when she’d recovered, she was told to stay home for another week to recuperate, but then her mother fell sick. Instead of resting she had to take over all the roles in the house; cooking, washing up, darning socks, you name it.
Here’s the extract:
‘March 19th, I don’t belong to myself but to others. I have never been so happy because the work prevents me from having the painful thoughts that I used to have. I feel happy because I have been good for something. I have found the secret and the source of happiness in working, not always for myself but for Maman and for my brothers. If I am a little tired when I go to bed, it doesn’t matter.’
Anais was 12 when she wrote this.
Looking back on my teen years, I had a paper round, I babysat, I worked as a waitress in a local restaurant and during the local flower festival, I volunteered in the local café that raised money for the Abbey, I volunteered at the Wildfowl Centre, I worked the counter at the local fish and ship shop. All of this by the time I was 16, and all my own choice, because I wanted independence and money. I loved working, I’ve always loved it. I loved the freedom money gave me, but even more than that I loved the sense of achievement and need to deal with people other than my school friends and parents. I’d forgotten all of this and then….
One day, years ago when my babies were very small, I was walking the dogs with my bonus daughter and talking about how much I missed work. She was visibly stunned. ‘You enjoyed work?’ This was my first alarm call that something is amiss and that we’ve have lost something in translation.
The laws that we’ve put in place to protect teens from abuse, that stop them from working until they’re 16, are also turning them into little more than consumers. They're expected to take part in the act of studying subjects that seem tedious compared with glossy social media, but without being tethered to a world that makes it all seem worthwhile.
Yes, conscientious parents get their kids involved in clubs and activities, but it’s not the same as having to go out in the world and find work, turn up on time, talk to people you don’t know, make mistakes, apologise. We can’t hope to turn out adults who are useful members of society if they don’t get the chance to take part in it, and practice whilst they’re young.
The book, Do Hard Things, posits:
‘The most our society expects from teens is really much closer to the least we should expect.’
I’m inclined to agree.
Back to expectations and the Pygmalion Effect, which was discovered in the 1960s when Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson found that the higher the expectations you have of somebody, the better they perform. When teachers were told that students were excellent – in spite of the fact that the students were chosen at random - those students performed better to a statistically significant degree. We humans are highly responsive to suggestion; as proven by the placebo and nocebo effects.
Setting expectations at the right level is tricky. So many of us reduce it to setting grade expectations, which is definitely not what I am arguing for in any way. I focused on their effort grades, but I still think that’s wrong. The problem is that not everything can be reduced to a grade or a number, so what do we point at when we’re trying to explain our expectations? Also, I’m conscious that if we set them too high, we run the risk of stressing our kids, destroying their sense of self-esteem and the feeling that we love them unconditionally. If we set them too low, we can cause them to be unmotivated to try new things and take risks; apathy sets in.
For those of us struggling with the sense that it might be cruel to demand too much, my bonus daughter has told me that, of her friends in their mid-twenties, the ones who’re unhappiest and struggling are the ones for whom nothing really went wrong and there was little expected of them by their parents. They now don’t understand how to cope in a world where things aren’t easy and where things don’t go to plan.
So what’s the real answer? It’s the one I’ve talked about it in much earlier episodes; we need to teach our kids to have a growth mindset. We need to teach them to enjoy the journey more than the arrival, because the process of working towards the goal changes us so that by the time we get there we have recalibrated; we see a new challenge ahead of us or fall into a slump.
Here’s a great description of the stages that takes:
- Unconscious incompetence. Where have no idea of how bad we are at something so we are happy to try it.
- Conscious incompetence. Where we become aware that we suck at the thing we’re trying to do. It’s very uncomfortable, but a necessary stage towards becoming good at something. Doing daily practice tells the brain that it has to adapt, and then the skills begin to set in.
- Conscious competence. We can tell that we’ve become capable at something, but we still do it in a conscious way.
- Unconscious competence. Like driving a car, where we really don’t need to pay attention to the skill.
So what can we do to encourage our kids?
- Expect them to contribute. Whether this is running the house or asking them their opinion. When they offer their thoughts listen to them with sincerity. Discuss ideas with them as you would an equal; with respect. Sure you can disagree, but show them that you consider their contributions to be worthwhile.
- Set them up for success. Don’t expect them to be successful straight away. Help them to grow by giving them incremental challenges that build their confidence. When they look like they’re ‘getting it’ let them know and dial up the challenge. Eg They are going to stack the dishwasher very badly if you ask them to do the entire thing. Start by asking them to put the plates in, and show them how it’s done. Work up from there.
- Believe they can do better, and let them know that you believe in them. Talk to them about the stages of developing skills and that hard work changes us in all sorts of positive ways; just like my husband when he set out to climb Mont Blanc, but ended up losing weight, meeting other people who run, reducing alcohol to a minimum, taking care of his diet, sleeping better, getting more interested in his working life… hard work bleeds into everything; so does apathy.
- Ask them whether they believe it’s the best they can do. Let them know that it’s a difficult task, but that you believe they can finish it.
- Teach them to look for, and welcome, feedback from the people around them by starting at home; giving them kind, specific, useful feedback.
- Making mistakes is part of life and growth. Help them to embrace the benefits because we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes.
- Don’t step in immediately. It tells them you don’t believe in their ability. Ask them what they’ve already tried and try to encourage them to push forward before stepping in. You can let them know you’re in the background ready to support them.
- Get them to take collective responsibility for the work in your family and have a vested interest in everyone’s success. This is why I have switched my language to ‘What are you doing for the team,’ rather than, ‘can you help with the washing?’
- Be mindful of how you talk about your teen with others. Speak positively about them. Venting about bad behaviour needs to be done mindfully about who’s listening.
As I’ve already mentioned, the wrong expectations can be corrosive.
- We can feel bounced into complying with something that feels wrong, just because we don’t want to let someone down.
- Extra pressure can make doing things like playing tennis or riding a bike no fun. Not everything needs to be about high expectations.
- When expectations aren’t met repeatedly our brain shifts into protection mode to preserve our self-worth. So they can be massively demotivational.
- When we focus too much on motivations and goals we can end up losing our flow state because our chimp wakes up. We bounce back into conscious incompetence which can stall our progress.
Here are some questions to help empower your teen:
- Are the expectations placed upon me realistic?
- Do they align with my values?
- Is meeting those expectations within my control?
- What and how do I communicate if the expectations are unreasonable or make me resentful?
There’s no right answer to setting expectations. I've come to the conclusion that the most important thing to do is to keep checking on what expectations our kids have for themselves. Let them choose. Handing the responsibility to them, and offering to support them in achieving those expectations, is the ultimate in high expectations; expecting them to take responsibility for their own life.
