Parents: your absurdly high expectations are harming your children’s achievement
Studies have shown that high parental expectations are associated with high academic achievement. But setting expectations too high is counterproductive, new research shows.
When parents had high aspirations for their children’s achievement in math, the kids in this study performed well in math. But if the parents’ hopes were unrealistic, their children’s math performance suffered.
“Although parental aspiration can help improve children’s academic performance, excessive parental aspiration can be poisonous,” said lead author Kou Murayama of the University of Reading in a release. The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Murayama and his co-authors studied data from 3,530 secondary students and their parents between 2002 and 2007 in Bavaria, Germany. The study assessed math achievement as well as parental aspiration, which was defined as how much parents wanted their child to earn a particular grade. They also measured parental expectation, or how likely parents thought their kids could actually achieve those marks.
The researchers found that high parental aspiration led to increased academic achievement, but only when it did not overly exceed a realistic expectation, or what was dubbed “overaspiration.” When aspirations exceeded expectations, children’s achievement decreased proportionately. To test their work the researchers tried to replicate the findings using data from a two-year study of more than 12,000 US students and their parents. The results were similar.
The question of how hard to push kids torments many parents. Amy Chua didn’t help: her 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Momexplained how she banned her kids from sleepovers, playdates, TV, and computer games, instead making them focus on school and piano. This sent parents into paroxysms of guilt over whether they were tough Parents: your absurdly high expectations are harming your children’s achievement - Quartz:
