I clearly remember (as a young first-time mother struggling with my son’s colic and projectile vomiting) being told by other mothers; “Oh, that’s nothing, just you wait until he hits the Terrible Twos!”
That colicky baby turned 21 last month, and I have learnt a few things along the way! First and foremost, children tend to live up to our expectations (even our subconscious expectations). If you’re sure that you will experience the “Terrible Twos” chances are better than fair that you will. The sad thing is that most parents don’t know that it doesn’t have to be that way!
Every child is unique, and every parent-child relationship is different, that’s why there are as many parenting styles and beliefs as there are parents. That said, most parenting sites and blogs tend to reinforce certain ideas (like that of the Terrible Toddler years and Terrible Teen years) so that new parents accept them as being inevitable stages of life.
“Robert Rosenthal brought to public attention a powerful type of self-fulfilling prophecy, in a classic experiment about the expectations of teachers (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968). In the experiment, all the students in a class were given a standard IQ test. After the results were scored, the researchers informed the teachers that five students in the class had unusually high IQ scores and would probably be “spurters” who leaped ahead of their classmates during the remainder of the year. In reality, the five children were picked at random. By the end of the year, all the children had gained in IQ, but the five “spurters” had gained much more than other students. Evidently the teachers treated them differently after being told to expect sudden improvement.”
Since 1968 many similar experiments to the one cited above have been carried out.
“Rosenthal notes that the expectancy effect has been documented in business management (where the biasing effect is the expectations of employers about their employees), in courtrooms (where the biasing effect is the expectations about the defendant’s guilt or innocence), and in nursing homes (where the biasing effect is the expectation that a patient will get better or worse).
In all cases, the expectations tend to come true, whether they are based on any objective evidence or not.
Apparently, as a general rule, people make their expectations come true. Rosenthal’s research shows the Pygmalion effect is not only important; it is robust. It is a strong effect that occurs in many situations.”
I believed in the “Terrible Twos” with my son (because I didn’t know any better) and we battled for 2 years! By the time my daughter was born, I’d learnt a lot, and I believed we wouldn’t have any trouble at all … guess what, we didn’t! We also haven’t experienced any of the unpleasantness that some believe is unavoidable during the pre-teen, teen and early adulthood years.
Given the above, I feel that the Terrible Twos and Terrible Teens are only fact if you believe them to be!
Can you think of ways in which your children have lived up to your expectations? Do you believe that by expecting a different result you can create a different result?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Mamma Simona from Cape Town, South Africa.
Wonderful topic and I totally agree.. It’s a low of attraction; what your minds attract will reflect on your life..
Not sure about it. I was very (very very) sure that the terrible twos would NEVER happen to me. But they did. And they did happen hard. With my second child, I was expecting it and nothing. She is as sweet as she was as a baby. “That said, most parenting sites and blogs tend to reinforce certain ideas (like that of the Terrible Toddler years and Terrible Teen years) so that new parents accept them as being inevitable stages of life.”- no actually, now they’re trying to reinforce the belief that if your child misbehaves it is your fault- and you didn’t know any better. I am quite critical of psychological experiments of these kind- they can’t ever be objective- adn the idea of IQ is also quite controversial at this point, becuase you can have better test scores if you know hwo to prepare for the test. I think it is better to expect that the terrible twos will happen adn then consider yourself lucky when they don’t than not expect them and be hit on the head like I was. It is better to be prepared for the storm than to have your house distroyed becuase you ignored the warnings.
I don’t know Simona, it comes and goes with my expectations and outcomes. I agree with some aspects of the study, and totally agree with your last sentence….
People will always say this or that behavior is normal based on nothing but past experiences etc. For example, it’s supposed to be normal for my teens to experiment with drugs and slam doors in my face???? that scares the heck out of me, lol.
Having 4 kids with big age gaps, I don’t know if I just got too tired to project and reflect on what has happened and what is happening.
That’s exactly my point, Salma, we shouldn’t say it’s “normal” for teens to experiment with drugs and slam doors in our face! My son is 21 and my daughter will be 18 in May this year. Neither one has felt the need to even try cigarettes, never mind drugs, and neither has ever been disrespectful to either me or my husband. We talk about everything (and I really mean EVERYTHING) we have an awesome and “easy” relationship with a lot of laughter and banter. I don’t think my family is in any way “special”, I just think that we don’t hear enough about GOOD experiences with toddlers and teens! 🙂
I think every stage has its ups and downs. As children grow and evolve, they test boundaries and learn to assert themselves in new ways. How it manifest at each stage depends on their personalities, temperament, environment and relationships. While some kids are naturally explosive in their 2’s, some are not as much. But they still are learning and testing. I think that if parents go into a stage expecting a child to be difficult, they can unintentionally contribute to making that expectation a reality. But I also think you can make valid assumptions on behavioral outcomes of your own kid based on past experiences. My sons have pretty intense personalities, and I can tell you pretty accurately when they are going to have a “terrible” few days. I’m not sabotaging them in my mind. I just can read the cues and know when they are going to be more sensitive, amped, and testy. Those are days I really need to be more on my game as a parent and dig deep in that well of patience 😉
Exactly right, Tara. We know our own kids best. 🙂
I have to say is that what resonated the most for me were the studies about self fulfilling prophecies and its ramifications in medicine. Wonder if a study was ever done for that.