How Expectations Can Affect Our Relationships by Stephanie Heartfield

Our culture is filled with expectations, how to learn, how to behave, how to feel. How to parent. Then there's the list of endless perfect partner, children, job, house life. The problem is that expectations have a nasty habit of ruining our goals, our dreams and our desires. This is especially true when it comes to our expectations of ourselves, and our relationship with others. Including the sacred relationship we have with our child/ren.

When we hold expectations about how others (and ourselves) “should” act, behave and live we are essentially projecting our own issues, insecurities and values onto another person. When that other person happens to be your child, the consequences can be far reaching, and can influence the person your child becomes. When we place expectations are now children, you should be more like this and less like this. They go through life feeling like they will never measure up. This can lead to shame and worthlessness. When our expectations don't play out the way we envision it then becomes a loss. And with loss comes grief.

Before I gave birth to my first child, I would visualise what it would be like to be a Mum. How I would really nurture who this little person was, who was about to enter my life. I would focus on how I would parent, what we would do together and how our relationship would have a strong unconditional loving connection. All of this was fine, because it was all up to me and how I acted as a parent, and my responsibilities to my son. However, as time went on and my son entered toddlerhood and his strong personality came stampeding to
the forefront, I realised I had (at the time) become attached to these unrealistic. expectations of not only how he “should” behave but also who he “should” be. This ironically, is one of the very strong values that I vowed to myself I would follow – that my children would be who they are born to be. That I wouldn’t shape, or mould them to my values. That I was their equal, not their superior. That I would nourish and nurture their uniqueness and celebrate them as the beautiful person they came here to be.

Unfortunately, along the way in my parenting journey my vision became clouded. It became murky. My expectations of how my children should act and who they should be tainted not only our relationship, but also how I saw them as a person and how I acted – or rather reacted towards them. My expectations of them were of these well-behaved, quiet, dreamy little boys who would stay next to me at the shops instead of running off and stressing the hell out of me; who would clean up their own messes; who would sit quietly in their own imaginative world; and who would exude peace and serenity.

As an example, when my children did not meet these preconceived expectations, I felt angry, frustrated and annoyed. I would meet their storm with my own storm. As you can imagine there was thunder, lightning, cyclones and hail. They would run around the house creating a mess of toy destruction in their wake, and claim they are too tired to clean it up. I would threaten and bribe– all things I swore I would never do – to try and counteract and “persuade” them to clean up as they went. In all honesty, it became exhausting. My energy got depleted. The more I pushed my expectations on my children, the more they pushed back, and then some. We were all trapped in this vicious cycle that I had created all because I had these expectations of who my children should be instead of embracing the beautiful person they have always been.

When I realised how much my expectations were projecting on my children, how it was negatively affecting our relationship and becoming extremely detrimental to their personal growth, I had an epiphany. I realised that by having all these confounded expectations, I had single-handedly destroyed the relationship with my children. In that moment I made a decision. A decision that has brought me more peace, more acceptance, more authenticity and more love. That decision was to release all my expectations and to fully embrace EVERY. SINGLE. aspect of my children for WHO THEY ARE.

In that moment I made a choice. The choice to see my children for who they are, instead of who I think they should be. Now when I see mess and cushions all over the floor I no longer feel frustrated and annoyed that I will be the one that cleans it up. Instead, I see the growth and learning that is occurring. The world of imagination and creativity that my children have produced. Yes, I am still the one that cleans up the mess but what is more important: becoming a raving, yelling lunatic and shouting “if you don’t clean up your mess then [insert threat here]” or that my children are learning, expressing themselves and being so present
in the moment, in their own world that nothing else matters. Cleaning up messes is what comes through developmental milestones and modelling cleaning up – as they say monkey see, monkey do. It just takes patience…a lot of patience to get to the point where they are willing to clean up by themselves.  

Remember that how you react with or connect with your child is a choice YOU make. You could be yelling at your child to clean up their toys until you turn blue but as the saying goes “if you have told your child a thousand times, it is not the child who is the slow learner.” Choose a different response, talk to your child in ways that resonate with them, get them involved in problem-solving a way to get both your needs met. That way they also feel like they are in control of their life, which means it is less likely, they will “rebel” against you.

It can be easy to place expectations on others. Yet, in those moments, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to walk into that moment with unconditional acceptance. For where that person is currently at. We can then miss the chance for pure connection and compassion that is so vital in all of our human relationships. When we move from expectations to acceptance, we also minimise the accumulation of our own feelings because we are no longer grieving a loss, we are no longer feelings disappointed or frustrated when something outside of our control is not panning out how we imagined.

I invite you to maybe reflect on your own expectations. Are there expectations you have for yourself, your spouse, your children that on reflection your feeling aren't benefiting any of you? I would love to invite you to see if there are ways that perhaps you can release those expectations:
- Have a listening partner (or 3) – someone who will listen with compassion, empathy,
respect and acceptance, where there are no fixes, solutions or advice. It is a safe space
to be truly seen and heard.
- Write down all of the expectations you have noticed. How are they serving you?
How are they serving your child?
- Are your expectations adding stress to yourself and your child/ren?
- What feelings are behind your expectations? Do these feelings remind you of a time
in your own childhood?
- What would happen if you no longer had this expectation?
- What are you needing to move from expectation to acceptance? i.e. listening time,
support from a professional, reframes, etc.

As you reflect back, and realise that perhaps you have some expectations of your own that are impacting your relationships, I would love to offer so much compassion for the feelings that arise. I invite you to have self-compassion for the awareness, the feelings, the realisations, the process of transforming the expectations into acceptance. It can be so easy to enter guilt and shame mode, however, that will not be in your best interest or your child’s. It’s okay to put down the guilt, realise we are all humans, learning all the time, and
we all have the ability to change.Unconditional love, acceptance and being in the present moment are the greatest gifts we can give to our children and to ourselves.

Stephanie Heartfield is the creator and founder of Spirited Hearts® which is a multi-service community supporting children and families. She is a Parenting Support Counsellor, Aware Parenting Instructor and Early Childhood Educator. Stephanie has spent the better part of two decades, dedicated to child development, trauma and providing support to children, their families and early childhood educators.

She created her Natural Learning & Healing Haven (registered Family Day Care) alongside her husband, Lukas to provide the strongest emotionally supportive environment in the industry, which is trauma-informed, and where children have the space and freedom to be their beautiful, unique selves. 

She provides 1:1 support for parents all over the world, providing a space filled with unconditional acceptance, compassion, empathy and deep listening. Assisting parents with their own childhood traumas, as well as offering healing solutions for many parenting challenges from tantrums and crying to sleep and separation anxiety.

Stephanie has two children of her own, as well as a chocolate lab, rag doll cat and six chickens. 

To find out more about Stephanie please visit her website https://spiritedhearts.net or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spirited_hearts or listen to her podcast https://spiritedhearts.buzzsprout.com/