Parenting Expert Reveals The Top 5 Things Parents Expect From Their Young Children That Are 'Not At All Developmentally Appropriate'
Have patience. Your children will develop emotionally in their own time.
VGstockstudio / Shutterstock It's only natural for parents to have expectations for their children. Unfortunately, they may not always be age-appropriate.
One parenting expert revealed some of the most important things to consider when raising children and what you should and shouldn’t expect from them based on their maturity.
Here are 5 things many parents expect from their young children that are ‘not at all developmentally appropriate.’
Before Rachel Rogers became a mother, she admitted that she had certain expectations in mind for her future children.
However, after becoming a parent, she quickly learned how to manage her expectations realistically. She shared the top five unrealistic forecasts she had for her children and urged other parents to be mindful of what is feasible for kids based on their age.
1. Expecting children under the age of 3 to share with their friends.
For those parents who are trying to encourage their toddlers to share their toys with their friends, you have great intentions! But Rogers wants you to know that “it ain’t gonna happen!”
“One-year-olds are in the onlooker play stage, and two-year-olds are in the parallel play stage, and in both of those stages, they have a bubble,” Rogers explained.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the terms, the onlooker play stage refers to the stage when young children observe other children playing with toys without engaging themselves.
The parallel play stage is when children play adjacent to each other but do not attempt to influence behavior.
They are experiencing the world around them for the first time, and of course, they are going to want every toy and swing on the playground to be “MINE!” Like Rogers said, they will be in their own little bubble.
However, if your children have trouble sharing with others as toddlers, this does not mean that they will never learn to share.
“Around 3 to 4 years old is where we see them move into associate play where they can share with each other,” Rogers explained.
2. Expecting young children to be able to control their impulses and emotions.
According to Rogers, being able to regulate one’s emotions and impulses is “such an advanced skill” that young children will be unable to comprehend until they are in their mid to late twenties.
When you tell a toddler “no,” when they see a toy at the store they want you to buy for them or spot the ice cream truck outside, they will likely have a complete meltdown as if the world is ending.
That’s because, in their little minds — it is.
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Even teens go into crisis mode when their hair isn’t cooperating, or they have to do homework instead of going out with their friends.
This is because, as children grow up, experiencing all of their emotions for the first time can be overwhelming, and they don’t know what to do with all of them. It also doesn’t help if they are hungry, stressed, or tired and something goes wrong.
The best parents can do is comfort them, validate their emotions, and wait for this stage to pass.
3. Expecting children under 8 to be able to calm themselves down.
“Calm down” is something most parents say to their children more often than they should. While they know that everything is going to be okay, their children likely don’t.
Often, when children are acting up, parents send them to their own private space, such as their bedroom, until they’ve calmed down. However, Rogers said this will only backfire.
“That child may learn to appear calm on the outside just to regain connection with you, but they are not calming down on a nervous system level,” she says.
“Children under the age of 8 require co-regulation, having a calm adult to regulate with in order to learn how to self-regulate their own emotions. And if we don’t give them that, we stunt their emotional development.”
So the next time your child is upset that they spilled juice on their drawing and are having a tantrum on the floor, get down on their level and sit with them until they calm down instead of banishing them to their room and leaving them to deal with overwhelming emotions by themselves.
4. Expecting children under 25 to think logically and reasonably.
While 18-year-olds are technically adults, the truth is that our brain’s frontal lobe is not fully developed until age 25. The frontal lobe is responsible for rational decision-making and understanding the consequences of our actions.
Therefore, we cannot expect anyone under the age of 25 to make intelligent choices 100% of the time.
“When you try and reason with your 4-year-old and ask them why they did something, and they’re gonna say, ‘I don’t know.’ And they actually do not know,” Rogers said.
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“The decision to do the thing was not made out of logic and reasoning. They didn’t think it through; they just impulsively and emotionally reacted.”
Until they are 25 (and maybe even long after, depending on their personality), your children are going to make stupid decisions.
Try not to go too hard on them, as they are still learning and comprehending that actions have consequences!
5. Expecting children under the age of 12 to be empathetic.
Children and young teens are usually in their own little bubbles most of the time, which makes it hard for them to empathize with others.
So if your child truly does not care that their best friend’s grandma died, cut them some slack for now. They are not trying to come off as rude or uncaring on purpose.
Children learn empathy through their environment. If the people around them show them empathy, they will grow to be empathetic.
It's important for parents to be patient with their children as they learn and grow.
“If I told you that I was disappointed that my 2-month-old baby was not walking and running already, you would look at me as if I was absolutely out of my mind,” Rogers said.
“But expecting a child to do any of these five things I just listed is just ludicrous.”
She explained that part of the problem was that many of us were raised by parents who had a complete lack of understanding of what was developmentally appropriate for us and expected too much from us too soon.
It is up to parents today to break that cycle and start understanding their children on a more emotional and empathetic level. Rogers promised to be one of those cycle breakers for her own children.
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When people have children, they often have general expectations they have in mind for them, whether they want them to be kind right away, make smart decisions, or know how to calm themselves down.
However, children have lots of learning to do from the day they’re born until their adulthood. It’s okay if they do not pick up on skills like sharing, having empathy, and regulating their tantrums right away.
This doesn’t make them “bad kids.” It just makes them human.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.