Are Your Expectations Helping or Hurting Children?
The Hidden Impact of Expectations on Children’s Well-being
Question for you: “Do you hold expectations for children?”
Do you have daily contact with children? Are you a parent? A teacher? Maybe you coach a kids’ football team or read picture books aloud at the library. If so, you probably hold some expectations — big or small — that the children around you will grow up happy and healthy.
Still, as you know, children are all unique. And sometimes, when you see a child with tons of potential, don’t you find yourself expecting just a little more from them?
The Secret Behind Expectations
You might already know that the expectations you place on children can actually influence how they perform. This is called the Pygmalion effect (yes, it’s named after a character in Greek mythology).
But, did you know this effect can work both ways — not only as a positive force, but also as a negative one?
The Bright Side of Expectations: The Power to Lift Up
The Pygmalion effect is a theory that was introduced through a fascinating experiment by an educational psychologist Rosenthal and his team. In the study, elementary school teachers were given false information that certain students were likely to show highly intellectual growth. About a year later, those students — despite being randomly chosen — showed much better performance than their peers. That is, even unconsciously, the teachers created positive interactions through their expectations, and the students responded accordingly.
This is the positive side of expectations — when you hope “Maybe my kid is a genius!” it can actually help them reach their potential!
The Dark Side: When Expectations Backfire
While our expectations can lift up children, the opposite can also be true: low expectations or negative assumptions can bring them down — a sort of reverse Pygmalion effect, where lower expectations lead to poorer outcomes. (This is called the Golem effect.)
And here’s the kicker — this effect can happen even when we don’t realize it.
Children pick up on subtle differences in how they’re treated. A teacher’s unconscious attitudes and behaviors — verbal and nonverbal, facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, eye contact, or physical proximity — can significantly impact students’ perceptions and experiences. All these signals affect children’s feelings of worth and shape their self-image.
Are We Pushing Kids Too Hard?
There’s another point we should notice: even positive expectations don’t always land well.
The expectations we place on children often come from us, not from them. Words like “good,” “smart,” or “special” might sound nice, but they’re really just labels shaped by society. These can create their own kind of pressure because children don’t necessarily want to be what we expect them to be. Moreover, once a child accepts that label, it can be hard to step away from it — even if they feel content at first. They could feel they have to meet others’ expectations, even when it becomes painful or no longer feels true to who they are.
So, what can we take from all of this?
- Be mindful of our biases (If you are a professional, this is exactly what makes you one!).
- Understand that children are not who we hope they’ll become. They are individuals with their own potential.
Thank you for reading.
Sources
Babad, E., Bernieri, F., & Rosenthal, R. (1991). Students as Judges of Teachers’ Verbal and Nonverbal Behavior. American Educational Research Journal, 28(1), 211–234.
Babad, E. Y., Inbar, J., & Rosenthal, R. (1982). Pygmalion, Galatea, and the Golem: Investigations of biased and unbiased teachers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(4), 459–474.
Rosenthal, R. & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom : teacher expectation and pupils’ intellectual development. United States of America. Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Sato M. (1996). Pojitibu Reiberingu [Positive Labelling]. Soshiorogosu, 20, 115–127.
