Why Can't Johnny Jump Tall Buildings?Parents expect way too much from their kids.
By Alan E. KazdinPosted Friday, Nov. 7, 2008, at 12:47 PM ET
Because parents love their children and want the best for them, they worry about them a lot, and one of the things that parents worry about most is whether their children are hitting age-appropriate targets for behavior. Shouldn't a child be toilet trained by the age of 4? Should a 10-year-old to be able to sit down and do an hour of homework? One reason why such questions produce so much conflict and woe in the home is that parents' expectations for their children's behavior tend to be too high. I'm not talking about permissiveness or strictness here; I'm talking about accurately estimating children's actual abilities. A reliable body of research shows that we expect our children to do things they're not yet able to do and that we judge and punish them according to that expectation.
Overly simple age-targeting is one main culprit. We all know that children develop differently, but it's natural to underestimate the astonishing variability among and within individuals. A child may be the first in her class to ride a two-wheeler but the last to learn to read; she may also grasp addition and subtraction well ahead of others but lag behind in achieving the self-control to short-circuit a tantrum. We also tend to parent subjectively, setting the behavior bar with a too-small sample group drawn from personal experience: our own first child, a neighbor's child, or our own unreliable childhood memories of how our parents raised us. (If you do want to compare a child constructively with others of the same age, the University of Michigan Medical Center's Web site offers a useful listing of developmental milestones.)
Our expectations of our children's psychological abilities, even more than of their physical abilities, are typically much too high. The research shows that we consistently overestimate their self-control, ability to persevere and stay on task, consistency of performance, and social ability. It's normal for a 2-year-old to get bent out of shape if he doesn't get something he wants; it's normal for a 3-year-old to lose it if there's an unexpected change in the bedtime routine; it's normal for a 6-year-old to fail to sustain focus on a baseball game, to pursue one fly ball with steely purpose and to let the next fall untouched in the grass because he's daydreaming. We know this, and we know that each of these developmental stages will probably pass in a few months' time, but, still, we stand over the child with index finger raised, an unpleasant edge in our voice, futilely repeating: "I said you'd get it later," or "Why are you making such a big deal about your bedtime story?" or "Get your head in the game!"
Necessity feeds this habit, and so does the human tendency to see the world according to personal priorities. If your work schedule obliges you to put your 3-year-old in preschool for 10 hours a day, you'll expect her to function peacefully there whether or not she's capable of it, and your own sense of sacrificing for the good of the family will encourage you to regard that expectation as reasonable. "I work and slave all day for your benefit, and all you have to do is play nicely with the other kids. So stop hitting them, or I'll have to spank you."
Frequently, we want something very simple from kids, like peace and quiet. Is that too much to ask for? Sometimes, it is. Come nap time, you may be thinking, "OK, I fed you, I changed you, I tucked you into your crib with your special blanket and teddy bear, I even bought this expensive mobile to hang over you. You're not teething—I checked. Everything's perfect. Children your age are supposed to take a nap. Your nap is scheduled for right now, and I have a phone call to make in nine minutes. Go to sleep right now!" If your child could articulate what's happening to him, he might respond, "I love the mobile, but my bones are growing like bamboo at the moment, and it hurts. I think I'll stay up and cry instead."
When a child doesn't perform according to expectations, the parent's stress level rises. Changes occur in the parent's behavior—extra doses of impatient body English and insistent harshness in the voice, for instance—which become setting events for deviant behavior by the child. When you bear down harder, in other words, you increase the likelihood that your child will escape and avoid your authority, which will inspire you to bear down even harder, and so on. The spiral of escalation twists up and up, sometimes to the point that a parent loses it and ends up doing something normally unthinkable—slapping small children, for instance, for failing to nap when they're supposed to.
Alan E. Kazdin, who was president of the American Psychological Association in 2008, is John M. Musser professor of psychology and child psychiatry at Yale University and director of Yale's Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic. Illustration by Rob Donnelly.
Call me old fashioned, but isn't it a parent's job to teach children how to act like a civilized human being? So yeah, you might expect that your 3 year old will have difficulty not acting like an ape in play school, but shouldn't you still punish them for bad behavior? I'm not advocating violence or medication, but I know when I was fussy as a child my parents made damn sure I knew it was unacceptable so when I could control myself, I did it.
I remember my mom telling me I was tired and crank whenever when I acted up when I was little and that meant I went to B-E-D, which I hated. And I would cry and cry, but since I was tired and cranky, that pretty much put me to sleep and I'd wake up refreshed and ready to get into more trouble. Even if it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
--stackey-ackey
(To reply, click here.)
Kids these days have it tougher. In the past, our parents could only use us to compare and compete within a smaller group. The worst shame you suffered was a wrong note at the piano recital, not at what age to meet the "PlayItWithMeNow toy piano Milestone." Now, with the ease of access to information, every kid is graded against a "milestone" even though more parents do not understand that the milestone is just the mean of child behavior. Most parents are emptying store shelves of Baby Einstein DVDs in hopes that will cultivate their genius.
All of the toys are colored so brightly that a parent is unable to identify them. Yet, my one year-old picks up the remote control, cell phone and spends his time pulling out pots and pans and all of those child-proof outlet plugs as well as any device plugged into the wall. What is up with this baby industry?
--Ian Blokesworth
(To reply, click here.)
Thank you for this sensible and compassionate article. Since my daughter's birth I've let my "baby's first year" books get dusty and "milestone" newsletters from various websites go directly to my spam folder. Once I let go of what "should" be happening and embraced what is happening, my parenting life improved so much. Yes, I wish my daughter would take naps that lasted longer than 30 minutes and didn't require my presence (or breastfeeding!!) 100% of the time when she was 6 months old. But fighting it would have made things a lot worse and added to the stress level. Here we are 3 months later and those things are now happening by itself, without a fight, and without frustration. Your point about parental frustration stemming more from expectation than from children's abilities is spot on. I don't expect her to sleep through the night -- maybe not for years. I don't expect her to be quiet, play on her own, etc -- maybe not for years. It's really sad to me that people have babies and then expect them to never act like babies. Why is she crying all the time? Why does she always want to eat and be held? Why won't she sleep more? Because she's an infant. Our job is to conform to them, with total surrender at first and then increasing boundaries as appropriate later on. I loved this article, thank you!
--lolacat
(To reply, click here.)
The truth is, kids develop at their own speed, in their own directions. The leading scientists of the 20th century didn't go to kindergarten, much less get "coaching" or constant checks on their homework. It's pure vanity to think that you really "raise" your kids. They spend most of their childhood trying to shake you off - and that's a good thing.
--JonFrum
(To reply, click here.)
I can't argue with the story as a whole because I think kids are over-coached and asked to grow up way too fast nowadays. But, the question it asks early on of "Shouldn't a child be toilet trained by the age of 4?" is a poor example, given that this is one area where kids' development has actually stepped considerably BACKWARDS over the past few generations. Prior to the super-absorbent, disposable diapers of today, kids knew they were wet and felt discomfort, leading to their being potty trained at a younger age. In the 1960s, 95% were toilet trained by the age of 18 months. It used to be almost unheard of for a 4-year-old to still be in diapers, but today the average for potty-training is 37 months and they make diapers to fit 5- and 6-year-olds.
--Sundown
(To reply, click here.)
Being a teacher for 20 years, the opposite problem seems to hold true. Parents' expectations of their children's behavior is too low. We have children misbehaving at school. When we visit with parents about these disrespectful behaviors, generally parents shrug, "Yeah, they do that at home, too. They're kids, what we can do?" What? Be a parent!
--KKB
(To reply, click here.)
This is really a big problem. A lot of parents come in with highly unreasonable expectations for their child. Often, it is the parents who enforce "study time" but who do not actually "go over" the work with the kid that do the best.
In my experience, when parents get overly involved (and want to say, look at EVERY problem the child does and critique it) everyone suffers. The parent may want to teach their child differently from the way I do it, which can create conflicting impulses. Also, much of what makes testing difficult is the perceived stigma and heightened consequences of the exam. Parents with too-high expectations and an overbearing demeanor just reinforce the fears that the child already has.
In all, I think it is important that parents maintain an active role in the schoolwork of their children, but that role should be encouraging, not one of micro-management.
--morphicresident
(To reply, click here.)
(11/08)
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Call me old fashioned, but isn't it a parent's job to teach children how to act like a civilized human being? So yeah, you might expect that your 3 year old will have difficulty not acting like an ape in play school, but shouldn't you still punish them for bad behavior? I'm not advocating violence or medication, but I know when I was fussy as a child my parents made damn sure I knew it was unacceptable so when I could control myself, I did it.
I remember my mom telling me I was tired and crank whenever when I acted up when I was little and that meant I went to B-E-D, which I hated. And I would cry and cry, but since I was tired and cranky, that pretty much put me to sleep and I'd wake up refreshed and ready to get into more trouble. Even if it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
--stackey-ackey
(To reply, click here.)
Kids these days have it tougher. In the past, our parents could only use us to compare and compete within a smaller group. The worst shame you suffered was a wrong note at the piano recital, not at what age to meet the "PlayItWithMeNow toy piano Milestone." Now, with the ease of access to information, every kid is graded against a "milestone" even though more parents do not understand that the milestone is just the mean of child behavior. Most parents are emptying store shelves of Baby Einstein DVDs in hopes that will cultivate their genius.
All of the toys are colored so brightly that a parent is unable to identify them. Yet, my one year-old picks up the remote control, cell phone and spends his time pulling out pots and pans and all of those child-proof outlet plugs as well as any device plugged into the wall. What is up with this baby industry?
--Ian Blokesworth
(To reply, click here.)
Thank you for this sensible and compassionate article. Since my daughter's birth I've let my "baby's first year" books get dusty and "milestone" newsletters from various websites go directly to my spam folder. Once I let go of what "should" be happening and embraced what is happening, my parenting life improved so much. Yes, I wish my daughter would take naps that lasted longer than 30 minutes and didn't require my presence (or breastfeeding!!) 100% of the time when she was 6 months old. But fighting it would have made things a lot worse and added to the stress level. Here we are 3 months later and those things are now happening by itself, without a fight, and without frustration. Your point about parental frustration stemming more from expectation than from children's abilities is spot on. I don't expect her to sleep through the night -- maybe not for years. I don't expect her to be quiet, play on her own, etc -- maybe not for years. It's really sad to me that people have babies and then expect them to never act like babies. Why is she crying all the time? Why does she always want to eat and be held? Why won't she sleep more? Because she's an infant. Our job is to conform to them, with total surrender at first and then increasing boundaries as appropriate later on. I loved this article, thank you!
--lolacat
(To reply, click here.)
The truth is, kids develop at their own speed, in their own directions. The leading scientists of the 20th century didn't go to kindergarten, much less get "coaching" or constant checks on their homework. It's pure vanity to think that you really "raise" your kids. They spend most of their childhood trying to shake you off - and that's a good thing.
--JonFrum
(To reply, click here.)
I can't argue with the story as a whole because I think kids are over-coached and asked to grow up way too fast nowadays. But, the question it asks early on of "Shouldn't a child be toilet trained by the age of 4?" is a poor example, given that this is one area where kids' development has actually stepped considerably BACKWARDS over the past few generations. Prior to the super-absorbent, disposable diapers of today, kids knew they were wet and felt discomfort, leading to their being potty trained at a younger age. In the 1960s, 95% were toilet trained by the age of 18 months. It used to be almost unheard of for a 4-year-old to still be in diapers, but today the average for potty-training is 37 months and they make diapers to fit 5- and 6-year-olds.
--Sundown
(To reply, click here.)
Being a teacher for 20 years, the opposite problem seems to hold true. Parents' expectations of their children's behavior is too low. We have children misbehaving at school. When we visit with parents about these disrespectful behaviors, generally parents shrug, "Yeah, they do that at home, too. They're kids, what we can do?" What? Be a parent!
--KKB
(To reply, click here.)
This is really a big problem. A lot of parents come in with highly unreasonable expectations for their child. Often, it is the parents who enforce "study time" but who do not actually "go over" the work with the kid that do the best.
In my experience, when parents get overly involved (and want to say, look at EVERY problem the child does and critique it) everyone suffers. The parent may want to teach their child differently from the way I do it, which can create conflicting impulses. Also, much of what makes testing difficult is the perceived stigma and heightened consequences of the exam. Parents with too-high expectations and an overbearing demeanor just reinforce the fears that the child already has.
In all, I think it is important that parents maintain an active role in the schoolwork of their children, but that role should be encouraging, not one of micro-management.
--morphicresident
(To reply, click here.)
(11/08)