Parenting Expectations

Do you want to live your life with more grace and ease? Do you want parenting to become less stressful?

I know I do. It's a process I am working through now. It's a 2 stage process. The first stage will bring you more grace and in the second stage you will find ease.

The first stage is what I like to call "getting right with your expectations." Here is a little secret, if you check your expectations with every situation, you will live your life with more grace.

Now this is helpful with EVERY person and situation you meet. Absolutely! When our expectations are off, what do we often get? Disappointment. Does that mean that we always need to lower our expectations? No, but we do need to make sure they are based in reality. Doing this will

Finally, even if the person is capable and we have communicated appropriately, we must ask if is this something the person can emotionally take on now?

Often times we do this automatically. We adjust expectations for the people we know. For example, do you have a friend that always cancels at the last minute? You may have learned over time that this is their modus operandi or way of doing things. After this has happened a few times, you start to change your expectations. We do this because it helps with feelings of low self-worth, abandonment or plain old disappointment.

When we are working with expectations and we know what to expect, we feel better. We feel safer. Do your children meet their teachers before the school year starts? Why do schools do this? To help the child manage expectations. In doing this they feel more comfortable. They know what the classroom looks like, what the teacher is like, where they will sit, where they will put their things and what will be expected of them on the first day of

I suggest, when you are ready, are you ready? Are you ready to change your stress levels for good? I like to call this stage "letting it go." STOP EXPECTING. When we don't expect anything, we don't get disappointed or aggravated and we live life with more ease. How about being pleasantly surprised?

When you can successfully achieve this idea, you live your life with grace and ease. When your child comes home and puts his things away in his room - YES! What a great occurrence. If you expected him to and he didn't, then you become upset. When he doesn't do it, without the expectation, we can just ask him to do it. We do not get emotionally involved.

Expectations rely on others doing something, but we all know that you can only control yourself. Let go of expecting, let go of the control and parenting (and other aspects of your life) becomes less stressed.

I hear you. "But shouldn't I expect my child to do things? Shouldn't I expect they do things around the house?" I know some parents like the expectations and are not ready for the second stage. That is ok as we discussed above, just make sure they are capable and aware. However, if you can work toward letting go of the expectation, you will feel less