Noel Manuel
We all have very high expectations of our children. We do all that we can during our lifetime to ensure that our children live upto our expectations. Parents and teachers alike, strive hard to cultivate the pressure of fulfilling expectations in children. We take pride when they live upto our expectations. We turn disappointed when they fail to do so.
Expectations are what the children turn conscious about as they mature and every action is tread upon cautiously by them, with an obligation that an expectation has to be met.
An expectation has its limitations. As parents and teachers we know it. But at times, fail to acknowledge it. Our children, no matter how efficient or inefficient, how gifted or unable, do everything they can to fulfill our expectations. Be it academically, socially, morally or spiritually, they comprehend the quality of each action that goes into fulfilling their obligations towards their parents and teachers.
As much as we turn disappointed when they fail to meet our expectations, Children too feel the pressure and equally turn frustrated by their inability to do so.
I have often come across some newspaper reports of how some children take the extreme step of committing suicide when they fail to get through examinations or due to some other social problems. Perhaps they never ever wanted to take such an extreme step. Who would want to take such an extreme step as to end one’s life? Nobody I guess. Much against their will they unfortunately did so. We expect too much of them and they believed that they had to live upto this expectation. We fail to understand just where the line needs to be drawn on our expectations from our kids.
Every child will always do everything that he can and give his best shot to meet the expectations of his parents. And this, I was quick to realize when my eldest son Kevin had taken part in the All India Chess Competition at Guwahati the previous year.
He was pitted against the reigning champion of the Northeast and this was his maiden exposure to such a mega event. He was confident about his performance and that made my levels of expectations rise. He lost and his emotions were soon filled with tears. He understood just how much I expected of him and his actions seemed apologetic enough. He wept uncontrollably and deep within I cried too. But this was an experience that had exposed me on how I needed to control the limits of my expectations.
As much as we have high expectations of our kids, they too, have, even higher expectations of us. While our expectations speak, theirs are silent.
If we expect our children to live upto our expectations, we equally need to live upto our children’s expectations. We need to understand their performance levels and how much they can endure.
The face of expectations is exposed mostly in the field of academics, which is both good and bad. We expect our children to score brilliantly so that they can overcome the barriers of admission in medical and engineering colleges. They do their best to fulfill the expectations that we have of them. It becomes a challenge and an objective. They believe that anything short of this would cause their parents embarrassment. When they succeed we turn exuberant. When they fail, we become annoyed.
We need to build up expectations around our kids and equally allow kids to build up their expectations around us. We need to allow them to speak about their expectations from us. We need to help them tell us just how much we should expect from them.
The expectations of parents have a bigger dimension than the expectations of children. We want that they should fulfill our expectations. Whatever our expectations might be, we drive them through vigorous exercises to ensure that they meet the expectations we have of them. How often have your children driven you through vigorous exercises to meet their expectations? If they have ever done so, the dimension has not been as big as much as your expectations.
Each child has a fixed level of achievement. They reach for the highest levels of this achievement when they are forced to meet expectations. And in most cases they cross the danger mark of the fixed level when parents or teachers get too ambitious. It is here that they turn frustrated and the results subsequently lead to drastic actions.
We are all aware of this and often recommend the child to do his level best in every situation and not to worry if things do not go well. But what we fail to perform is make the child understand that he or she needs to compete with himself or herself more, than what he needs to compete with others.
We need to always advise our kids to reach for their inner most potential in everything that they do and not risk their potential in competence with others. Putting the potential in competence with others or to satisfy others, may risk planting the fixed levels of achievement in a precarious condition. And this inevitably could lead to drastic actions, which we later tend to regret.
Children are human beings and not tools. We can use tools at the maximum risk to get our works accomplished. We also can repair tools should they develop some technical snag. Children cannot be put at risk for our personal accomplishments or expectations. We can’t repair the damage in our kids.
My wife and myself know, just how much we need to expect from our kids. And more importantly our kids know how much they need to expect of us. It is a relationship that is built on the understanding of achievement levels, never crossing the danger level.
As parents and teachers, we need to first acknowledge what our children expect of us, rather than what we expect of them. We need to respect their expectations and allow them the space to fulfill them.
noelmanuel@rediffmail.com
The writer is the Coordinator of the Northeast Region (Poetry Society of India) and Life Member of the Poetry Society of India. Journalist and Correspondent Eastern Panorama (News Magazine of the Northeast) Phonetics Teacher.
