5 Things Parents Expect their kids to do Way Before it’s Appropriate, Revealed by a Parenting Expert
Source:https://www.msn.com/
The unrealistic expectations parents often place on their children’s emotional development. Parenting expert Rachel Rogers highlights that many common milestones, like sharing or controlling emotions, are often expected too early. For instance, she notes that children under three are typically in stages where sharing is not yet developmentally appropriate, and impulse control doesn’t mature until their mid-to-late twenties. This underscores the importance of aligning expectations with actual developmental capabilities.
Here are things parents expect from kids too early on in their lives:
1. Expecting children under the age of three to share with their friends: Rogers candidly states that expecting young children to share is unrealistic. She explains that one-year-olds are in the onlooker play stage, while two-year-olds engage in parallel play, both of which involve limited social interaction. It’s not until around ages three to four that children typically begin to engage in associate play and share with others.
2. Expecting young children to be able to control their impulses and emotions: Rogers explains that emotional and impulse control are advanced skills that most children cannot fully master until their mid-to-late twenties, highlighting that managing big feelings takes much longer to develop than many parents might expect.
3. Expecting children under eight to be able to calm themselves down: Rogers emphasizes that expecting children under eight to manage and recover from their emotions independently is unrealistic. She explains that they need a calm adult for co-regulation to help them learn self-regulation. Without this support, their emotional development may be hindered.
4. Expecting children under 25 to think logically and reasonably: Rogers explains that when parents ask a four-year-old why they acted a certain way, the child may genuinely not know. Their decisions are often impulsive and emotional rather than logical. She notes that children can’t be expected to make reasoned decisions until their frontal lobe, which governs rational thinking, is fully developed—typically around age 25.
5. Expecting children under the age of 12 to be empathetic: Empathy is a skill every parent wants their child to have but, Rogers said, most kids ‘do not care’ about what others are experiencing. This is simply because they haven’t learnt that it’s necessary to do that yet but will in time as they pick up more and more lessons from their environment.
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