Anyone who has had children or taken responsibility for their care can tell you how exhausting parenting can be. And I’m not saying it in a negative tone, I say it because it is basically about teaching a little boy, whose brain is just developing, to do everything that we already know how to do.
On this path of motherhood and fatherhood, we lead our children by the hand with love, but sometimes, we hope that they will understand or do things that they are not yet capable of understanding. Therefore, today I invite you to reflect with me and I will tell you why we must change our expectations about childhood .
When you were born you didn’t know anything
Perhaps now that we are adults we find it difficult to imagine a life in which we do not know how to talk, walk, eat or manage our emotions. But like everyone else, we were once babies and came into this world knowing absolutely nothing .
Our only way of communicating was through crying, and over time, with gestures, to later finally begin to develop language and learn to communicate with other people. And what about being self-sufficient and fending for ourselves, simply unthinkable at such a young age .
But this is how we were born: knowing nothing . And this is how our children come to this world, to be guided, cared for and protected by us. We will be their teachers of life and the main people in charge of teaching them everything they should know how to do, so that one day they will also be independent and responsible adults like us.
However, I have noticed that sometimes we forget that. We know that they are babies or children who have a lot to learn, but from time to time it seems that we want them to understand everything by telling them or showing them once or twice .
There can be many reasons why we want children to understand things faster, most likely being tired. And it is that parenting can be exhausting! But we must not forget that they are only children, and that without realizing it we may be demanding or expecting more of them than their capacities allow .
Let’s not forget that children are just that: children
As a mother, I find it fascinating to watch my daughter learn every day, surprising me with her progress and new achievements. It is truly an honor to witness how a human being evolves so much and with such speed . But it is not an easy process either.
Growth involves many learnings that are based on trial and error , so in childhood it is very common for children to make mistakes, make a mess or simply cannot do things because they have not yet developed the necessary skills to do them.
But as I said a few months ago: where you see a disaster, your child sees a new learning. So that’s why today I want to invite you to re-evaluate your expectations of them and think: am I waiting for what is appropriate for their age, or am I waiting for them to do more than their abilities allow them?
Many times we wish that they already sleep through the night, after they eat by themselves or without getting dirty, then that they can do things without help, when the need for support and mistakes are something basic of those first years because they are barely in that beautiful process of discovering the world and understanding it .
Remember that childhood is a stage full of surprises, changes, trials, errors and constant adjustments, in which there will be ups and downs, progress and setbacks. Let’s stop having such high expectations and understand our children for the little children that they are .
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In Babies and more | Do we expect too much of our children? A study tells us yes
