Expectations
When I hear the word expectation, it elicits a certain visceral feeling in my stomach and my mind drifts to clichés about expectations. “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed,” Alexander Pope. I think this is a dangerous notion to push on parents. If I could pick one piece of advice to offer to new parents, it would be to establish clear expectations for the standard of care for your child and to not be afraid to make them known.
Setting expectations does a couple different and productive things for parents. The most important, in my eyes, is it allows parents the peace of mind associated with knowing the standard of care their child will receive in their absence. This should not be under appreciated. Even something as simple as, “when my child spills water all over their clothes, please change them into their spare clothes,” sets a standard that can be depended on. There is something so reassuring about trusting the environment you leave your child in and knowing that when you return, you should not be caught off guard.
Setting and explaining clear expectations is necessary in many common sense child situations such as from interactions with your in-laws, the babysitter, and other care takers. However, it is important to consider discussing expectations in a perhaps less intuitive situation like with your spouse. As a mostly stay at home mom with a husband who travels out of town for extended periods of time, my daughter and I have fallen into a set of routines that we follow pretty strictly. We have clear set boundaries and expectations for what our life is like. When my husband returns home, it is easy for these well established, and if I may say, successful, routines to be disrupted. But all kidding aside, as important as it is to set expectations with outside influences on your child, it is equally as important to come to a spoken consensus as parents. A good general rule is to leave any notion of assumption out of expectations because, as the saying goes, “when you assume, you make an … out of you and me.”
I speak from experience when I say that as parents, we set ourselves up for frustration and anger when we are not clear about the expectations surrounding our children. We are able avoid unnecessary conflict when the people involved with caring for our children understand the level of care we expect.