Becoming Aware of Reasonable Yet Unrealistic Expectations

My son gets credit for being the catalyst for my expanded awareness on this topic.  Yesterday afternoon, in almost every way possible, he failed to meet expectations that I believed were quite reasonable, but in hindsight clearly were unrealistic.  

I sensed the truth of this, vaguely, at the time, but felt the gears of my brain - the old beliefs grinding against the actual, present dynamics - processing too slowly to quell my frustration and desire to bend him to my will for him. Yucky.  I admit it.  Bad Mommy!  My old beliefs say that to be a good mother, I must set high expectations, communicate those expectations clearly, and when my child fails to meet them and does not also express dismay and/or a plan of action to do better next time, I must express my disappointment and/or disapproval, restate the expectation and extract a promise that he or she will try harder next time.  Yucky.  I admit it.  And, all of this despite limited evidence of any success with this method.  At least, not success without some pretty deep scars.  But, that is one of the definitions of insanity, right, doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.  Well, this insane illogic-loop kept spinning while I took some deep calming breaths and then, because I was still trapped in my loop, stated my expectations calmly and, because some new wisdom was beginning to percolate through, I prayed to let go of the results.  I promised myself I would not repeat myself as evidence that I truly had let go and detached.  I reminded myself that when it comes to my son, verbalizing disapproval of him never, ever gets me the outcome I desire.  I took a few more deep calming breaths.  I managed to maintain the intention to detach, but then steeped in the repressed disapproval all through his little league practice and even barked at him to RUN FASTER as he happily lolly-gagged to first base.  Yuck.  Bad Mommy!  Needless to say, I awoke with some regrets about my parenting choices and entertained a shame-spiral as I sipped my morning chai tea.  Thankfully, I have some self help literature I read daily and today I read this:

 "The greatest obstacle to the learning process is shame. Shame is an excuse to hate ourselves for something we did or did not do in the past . . . . Today I will love myself enough to recognize that shame is an error in judgment." I know this to be true, but it helped to read it again.  

Later, I texted my Mom and shared this story with her.  She had some remarkably wise feedback.  Here is what she wrote (with some minor edits): 

"About unrealistic expectations.  Sometimes we can only see that in hind-sight. Parenting especially is like that because everyday we are faced with one of several 'people' our child is that day or even that morning versus the afternoon. What they were capable of yesterday may not be possible for them in that moment. Sometimes we are graced with insight or telling cues. Other times we are 'blind-sighted'. We are all at different levels of our best on any given day within a range of 'selves'. The wise come to know this. Children are in much greater flux and lack the insight or vocabulary to know what self they are dealing with that day, time, even moment.  So as you know, sometimes we fail, expect too much, and then forgive ourselves for being human. Over and over again."

Here is where I offer up a prayer that I can remember these words the next time I am tempted to slip into my old illogic-spiral because I know there is a better way and I trust that my son and I can find it together.