In parenting (and in life) we tend to have expectations of what we believe our kids are capable of. For most parents, this is rooted in our own stories of inadequacy, rejection, and judgment.
We react from fear and rescue, fix and take the pressure off. Oh, Johnny can’t possibly clean up the living room, he is stressed and needs to relax. Or Jane is too little to be expected to keep her hands to herself so you are left policing every interaction Jane has with every human on the planet, including her siblings. Or, Bobby has an issue with food textures, he won’t eat that, when a separate meal is not prepared by you.
But if you raise the bar, and recognize that they are capable of more than you anticipate, you give your kids space to not only surprise you but surprise themselves too, this is the space of growth. When we stretch ourselves outside of what we thought we could do.
In this Episode Pam shares areas of life and ways to raise the bar and expect more, all of which is backed by brain-based research. Check it out!
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Hey there and welcome back to the peaceful home podcast. My name is Pam and I am your host. And today. We're talking about this funny little thing called setting expectations for your kids. Now we talk a lot about boundaries and communicating what you want from them. But at the end of the day, what I hear from moms over and over is I want my kid to be okay. I want them to be successful. Well, what the hell does that even mean? We are diving into this idea of raising the bar. And how to do so with love and compassion and expect some amazing behaviors out of your kids. Let's dive in. Okay. So spoiler alert. When you raise the bar, when you set higher expectations for your kids. They are more likely to reach those expectations. And this is kind of that same idea of what you create on the inside. You create on the outside? What your thoughts tell you? Becomes your reality. When you tell your kid that they're capable of anything. They will believe you. And this is a psychological phenomenon called the Pygmalion effect. And this basically. Demonstrates that when you have high expectations, That leads to improved performance. And there's this other effect on the other end called the Gollum effect. Which is the exact opposite. So when you lower your expectations, when you have low expectations or think negatively or poorly of your child's capabilities, Their performance declines. So can we raise expectations around behaviors? Right. I know that academic performance, we can say, Hey, you're capable of these things. And sometimes. As parents of maybe middle-schoolers or early high schoolers, we push our kids academically and to honors classes or to take on a bunch of things. And yes, raising the bar will help them be more successful in those things. It can also backfire. When it backfires. Is when the directive comes from you because yes, when we're talking adolescents, they want agency, they want to have some control over things. As a matter of fact, research tells us that kids thrive with routine and structure, but they do so because it helps them to feel safe, secure, and in control of their own lives. That they have some agency. But here's a really important aspect of this raised bar raised expectations is that there are no consequences for not rising to where you want them to be. The idea of raising the bar is just like with ourselves and we're setting goals to raise the bar. So it's a little bit uncomfortable. So it's a little bit of a stretch. You're not saying, I think you can do this right now with no other practice or no other skills. As a matter of fact, if you raise the bar and your child meets your expectation immediately, you haven't raised it high enough. And what's really important here is that when we're talking about raising this bar in allowing your child to thrive and be successful, I'm not talking about academically. I'm not talking about financially, I'm talking about relationally. This is where kids start to set the foundation for the rest of their life. The relationship with you, with their siblings, with their classmates. The impact they make is by being a contributing member to a community I E. Your family. And this is where raising expectations can be super helpful. So here's some areas in particular where you can raise expectations and then we'll talk about what does that look like and how do you go about doing it? So one area that you could raise expectations is around sibling interactions. And you get to decide what that looks like, but maybe you say things like. Being compassionate and caring and supportive of each other. Maybe the expectation around sibling interactions is that they spend regular and consistent time together. Having fun. Maybe it's that they challenge each other. Right. If you've got two kids that like to do physical things or like to do mental problem solving or. Are both really into art, then they can challenge each other, not through you, but they can challenge each other to basically be better. And then you get to celebrate all of the wins. You can also raise the bar in the child, parent interactions. And this includes from your end. So the really interesting thing about the Pygmalion effect is within romantic relationships or within any relationships. So any relationship where both parties are buying into this raised expectation? Is that the expectation raises on both sides. So if your parents saying, I want my child to be more respectful and I'm raising the expectation. To how they interact with me. That means you need to raise the bar. Of how you interact with them as well. ANd the third is effort around schoolwork or chores. This is not about grades and it needs to be explored. Which means you're going to look at what kind of effort they're putting in, around cleaning up their rooms. You guys are going to decide together. Honestly, when I'm doing this work with the smallest of children. I really like their input because kids have no limits around what they think they're capable of. It's us as adults that think, I don't know if they can do that. I'm not so sure about it. So when you ask a kid what they think they can get done in a period of time, they're going to tell you some crazy things. Like if you're, for instance, cleaning the house, they might say I could clean the whole house, mop all the floors and clean all the walls and I'll be done in 20 minutes. And you're like, okay, I know that realistically, that's not. Going to happen. But when you say. Oh, that's not going to happen. What you've done is the Gollum effect. You've lowered your expectation. So instead, what you can do here is you go great. So you think 20 minutes, let's set a timer for 20 minutes and let's see how far we get in that 20 minutes. And then you set the timer and you go and you race against the time. And maybe if you're like a lot of us in this day and age, you have a, um, some sort of a robot, some sort of AI that you can make a request of ask, set the timer with, ask them what time is left on the timer we have, um, Alexa's throughout the house. And so in any room you can ask. How much time is left on timer, and she will tell you. So that's a way to allow them to set the expectation. And then there's no consequence for not meeting the expectation you go, wow. You were thinking the whole first floor, you're going to mop the floors and wash the walls or whatever they said. And in 20 minutes and in 20 minutes we got the living room done. Okay. Let's see if in the next 20 minutes we can get the kitchen and the bathroom done. Right. And so then you set another timer and you do it again, and you see what happens. This is what raising expectations is all about because when you raise the expectations, what often happens is your kids will surprise you. From here from this place, what you need to do is start catching them. Making the effort. Maybe it's finding success. Maybe it's like good job on finding that success, but what is more important here is catching them. Making the effort. So for instance, you might notice. That they use kind words interacting with their sibling earlier that day, or right now, maybe you kept them in the act and you are walking through. As they're using kind words and you might say, Hey, nice job. On those kind words. I really appreciate that. You're really raising the bar. You might also say if it's later in the day, I noticed you use kind words with your brother earlier. Nice work on that. Right. So you're rewarding. The positive shift. You're rewarding the growth cause the goal is growth, right? We all want to be growing. We want our kids to be growing. And this is one of the ways we do that. As we raise the bar, we raise the expectations. And then we let them surprise us. Another example of something that you might say when you're praising effort. Is, you know, you really spend a lot of time on that project for school. I'm really impressed by all the effort you put in. Or maybe you say I heard you earlier when you were mad and you took a deep breath and you walked away. I really appreciate how much effort that took. I know how hard that can be. Good job. So you're just highlighting the things that they're doing well. Now. This might sound, you might listen to this and go, well, obviously of course, all of that makes sense. Yes. It's all backed in science, but here's the real issue. As parents, we tend to not raise the bar. Because we're afraid that our children can't meet it. And then we're concerned about what that's going to do to them and how that's going to harm their ego and their whole life is going to crumble and fall apart as a result. Kids don't react that way to failure. We react that way to failure. Kids don't react. Negatively to something not working out. Especially when you're not saying. If you don't hit this bar, then you don't get love. If you don't hit this bar, then you're a bad person. You're not good enough. Right. You're just simply saying, this is what we're working towards. I talk about when I set goals, I always set goals bigger than I think I can achieve. And I often will say to myself and my 14 year old. If my goal doesn't make me a little bit uncomfortable. I'm not reaching far enough. I'm not stretching far enough. And. We have the conversation all the time about how sometimes we don't get there, but we have other lessons along the way. This is your job as a parent is to be teaching your kids, these things and. In my experience doing this work. With moms and with human beings, the last 25 years, the shit that gets in the way of our kids being successful. Is not their thoughts. It's ours. So when you raise the bar, when you let them surprise you in how they can show up what they're capable of. Right. Have you ever asked your young child, like your four year old to do something and you're like, there's no way they can do that. And then they pull it off and you're like, holy shit. How did that happen? That's what I'm talking about here. I'm also talking about, like, if you're asking them to make a positive change, if you're asking them to problem solve. With their sibling or problem solve with the other parent in the household. Right. As moms sometimes. Hear me on this one. Sometimes we run in rescue and fix right. Even when it's with the other parent and what that often does is undermines the other parent's authority, but it also. Says. To your child, to your spouse and to yourself that you have to do everything. We already have this story, right. Where did the story of running around? Like I have to do everything. And you want them to be successful. You want them to be happy? You don't want them to be hurt. These are qualities of a good mom, right? And I'm not saying, you know, let them flail, let them suffer. I'm saying. Help them to see that the goal is growth. That by raising the bar. That's how we moved towards growth. And that when you raise the bar and When you expect them to do things, even when it's hard. This is how your kid. We'll build resilience. This is how they'll navigate things. And I have moms say to me inside the alignments numbers, but all the time. Well, I could let my kids work it out, but what if these negative bad, awful horrible things happen? And the thing that I say over and over, and I will say to you is if your mind is going there, That is your story? Not theirs. It's not your child. That's worried about. What your parents are going to think at the holidays. Right. We just kind of made it through the holidays. And maybe you've got some of this going on. Maybe you were solid going into Christmas and you were like, this is what I'm gonna do. This is how I'm going to encourage my kids is I'm going to support them. I'm going to raise the bar. And somebody said to you, you're being unrealistic. You're being nuts. That's never going to happen. And so you kind of slid back into old beliefs in stories. Let this be the podcast episode that reminds you. That they can do hard things that you can do hard things and when you raise the bar. Everyone will improve their performance. Okay guys. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. And happy new year. Take care.