Yesterday I wrote about the different ideas that people have of life and I mentioned that you cannot live according to the expectations of your parents. I have heard of many people that these expectations can be really high and that they suffer from the effect from these expectations. It is not rare that I hear people blame their parents for creating those expectations.
People tell me that they would have liked to be creative but because it was their parents’ wish, they became engineers or office workers for example. Today they regret that step because they don’t enjoy their work. Others say that they fully broke the relation with their parents because they did not want to go the way that their parents suggested. They had a big argument and after that never talked again.
In some way it is psychologically very normal that one puts certain expectations on one’s child and his or her future. There is a tendency of parents to expect of their children what they could not do in their own lives. They did not succeed to become a doctor for example but now they have this wish for their children to become doctors. Or they want their children to continue their dream. They have founded a company or business and would like their children to take over when they retire. The children however have no intention whatsoever to do that!
You would like to have the best for your child and you make the base for that, so you think that the fruit will also look the way you thought. With this however you create pressure on your child and that is what you need to realize. You have put the base and you can give an idea what the child could do with what you have prepared but you have to stay flexible. Otherwise you can prevent the normal development of your child in a natural way. Maybe your son would have wanted to be something very different from his heart or maybe your daughter has very different talents from what you thought. So why do you want to force your idea on them? It is always good to have a solid foundation and good soil for planting a tree but you should not try to force the tree to grow the way you want it to.
Maybe what your child will do with this foundation turns out to be much better than what you would ever dream of. Your expectations come from your time but now you are shaping a future generation, a generation of another time. There are so many new opportunities in this time which you could not even have thought of when you were young.
Let your child be free. You have done your work and gave a direction but every child, every creation on this world is unique. Don’t force, don’t put pressure on your child, just let it develop freely!
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I have a niece who unfortunately has exactly this problem – her parents had very high expectations on her. They themselves were a dentist and a doctor and wanted her to be a doctor or professor of some kind – anything big, intelligent, highly reputed… but she just wanted to work with small children! She changed her studies three times before she decided to finally become a primary school teacher. But she needed the help of a psychologist to find out that this was what she really wanted! It was a lot of tears and inner fights! So that advice is definitely a good one!
Trying to force children to study something very special or something just to have a status symbol will only create discontent. If it’s your childs wish or nature to do something creative, why should you destroy this natural harmony with forcing your kid to study maths? Is it more important to have a happy child or a successful child?