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 ETWhen we enforce unreasonable expectations, and especially when we punish according to them, we put stress on kids, who respond by avoiding, escaping, and becoming irritable. Ironically, that puts them off whatever activity, skill, or virtue we're trying to inculcate, making it aversive rather than attractive. So how can a parent seek to counter the natural tendency to expect too much behavior from children?
First, aim to build competencies by inching toward success gradually, and focus on process rather than successful outcome: That is, focus on trying to do what's valuable, not on immediately reaching the level of performance you think a child of that age should reach. If you encounter strong resistance, then back off for a few days, and when you return to the issue, lower your demand. Seek to get the desired behavior for a shorter period, ask for less of it, or take some other step to defuse the all-or-none dynamic. Working up to the desired behavior gradually, in doable steps, is a process called shaping.
For example, let's say your child is lagging behind the rest of his class in reading. His teacher wants you to work with him at home on his reading every day for 20 minutes. Your child, who's embarrassed about his reading, resists this "extra" work, perceiving it as an unfair penalty. The resistance, on top of the reading problems, produces a situation that can make a parent crazy with frustration and anxiety. One move you can make in response is to try something low-key, like, "We're going to read to each other. You read for two minutes, and we'll talk about what you read, then I'll read for two minutes and we'll talk about it." Then, once you've got the habit in place, over a week or two you can escalate in easy stages up to 20 minutes of reading.
Try to bear in mind that you feel your child's resistance to learning to read, or perhaps his genuine difficulty with reading, as pressure on you. Your stress goes up, and, since you're not a saint, it's very likely that your increased stress will translate into behavior (such as harsh categorical statements in your Metallica voice about doing 20 minutes of reading every single day or else) that causes his stress to go up when you try to get him to work on his reading. So it's crucial that you separate the pressure you feel to help your child read from the project of working with him on his reading. If that stress gets into your voice, it affects the process.
Or reconsider what's vital and what's negotiable in your demands. Take the example of the non-napping child. Parents know that a child of that age should take a nap, and they've picked a time of day when that nap should happen, and yet the child cries or wants to play. If you're in that position, recognize that the problem here is in part the expectation. Shifting it to, say, having the child play quietly in her crib at that time will take care of most of what's really at issue: The child needs to rest, and you need a break. A designated number of minutes of actual unconsciousness on her part is probably unnecessary.
If you find yourself saying, "No matter how hard I try and try, I can't make my kid do X ..." or "No matter how hard I try, I can't make my kid understand Y ..." it's usually a clear sign that expectation and enforcing that expectation are a significant part of the problem. Your expectation may in fact accurately address the mean—that is, you may expect a behavior of your 9-year-old that most 9-year-olds can do—but remember the range of human variability and try to structure antecedents (the things you do to encourage a behavior to occur) with room for that variability.
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)
What did you think of this article?
Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum
SPONSORED CONTENT
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUpon
Hitchens: The "War on Terrorism" Didn't Cause the Fort Hood Shootings
Enter Slate's Write-Like-Sarah Palin Contest
Whoa! The House Health Care Bill Is Actually Less Expensive Than the Senate's.
Like Israel but Colder: The Jewish Autonomous Region of Russia
Why Everyone Should Read When Everything Changed
Spitzer: How Tim Geithner Was Fleeced by Wall Street
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)