The Crushing Weight of Lofty Expectations

Maybe if I start a blog post at 9:50 at night, I'll stop eating peanut M&M's....

On Monday, I had been listening to two moms with new babies talk about their stresses - regular homeschooling moms in the thick of raising kids and providing an education for them on top of it. As so many point out, we homeschoolers are an "ambitious" bunch. Well, we are. These moms were no exception, with grand visions of pulling it all off. A few hours of school, one on one time with each child, enriching activities and field trips and extras for everyone depending on their talents and interests, AND healthy food (preferably home grown and canned), AND a clean house, and nursing babies with eco-friendly cloth diapers too. (Okay, they didn't talk about cloth diapers. That's mine for dramatic effect.)

As I listened to the stress they were feeling, I sensed they felt they were failing, and those feelings reflect a host of worries. After all, we often set such lofty expectations for ourselves because we're worried "What if we don't." What if we don't keep up with the pacing of standardized classes? What if we don't teach discipline and structure? While we're worried about that, we may simultaneously worry that our structure is killing the joy and discovery of the learning process. What if one focus might misplace or delay another? And perhaps more than anything, seeing the fabulous potential of a child, what if our actions or lack there of, permanently harm that potential/curiosity/inner drive?

The result of such stress was two maxed out mothers who didn't seem to be having much fun. I wanted to hold the two baby boys for them and tell them to let go, shake all the worries and doubts from their shoulders, figuratively and physically, tell them that they are doing great and important things and that it WILL be hard to do it all AND change diapers, AND NURSE, AND not sleep through the night, but that they don't have to do it all RIGHT NOW.

Such wisdom, right? Well the very next day I was struggling through my own teaching experience, in dance class.

I had a rough class this past week. NOT the fault of my little dancers. They are adorable, good kids, and there is actually great potential in the class too. But that's what got me.

I was thinking about how great they were, how they could do great things if they wanted it and worked hard, and IF they had good help along the way. That would be my part. So I started to stress. Was I helping them enough? Was I helping them so much we lost the fun? Was I emphasizing the right stuff? I feared I was going too slow. I'm pretty sure in the standard classes for dancers their age, the students are learning more steps. I feared I was bogging everyone down in trying to make sure the steps, and all that goes into them is done correctly WITH a correct knowledge of the how and not just dumb luck. I felt torn between teaching more steps and teaching good technique.

Sadly, I think this inner battle was felt by my sweet little dancers. Probably not in any way they could put their fingers on. But our last class was off, and I knew it, and I think they knew it too. I don't remember how the light bulb went on, but I thought of those stressed homeschooling moms and saw them in my ballet teacher self.

I set about taking my own unspoken advice and began to mentally tear down and shake off my crushing expectations. Instead of expecting my students to be as good as or better than their peers, I can expect that I will instruct them to the best of my ability every time we are together and work on exactly what each dancer needs to know to progress. Perhaps most importantly I can detach my ego and identity as a ballet instructor from their dancing. Making the mental shift actually isn't all that difficult. Who cares that what we are working on is different than what might be covered if they were in a standard class? Who cares that they might know fewer steps than their peers? (In fact, the steps DO hardly matter. If you dance well, you can learn steps quickly and prestigious schools and companies will be happy to teach you. If you dance poorly, lots of steps don't make it better.)

Now my challenge will be to remember this shifted focus....

Isn't that a challenge for all of us? How often to our lofty expectations kill relationships? How often are our expectations born from fears of judgement or a desire to feel better about ourselves, our teaching, or our experiences?

Thankfully I had already begun the practice of shedding such burdens. I have learned to expect of my children that we will learn to clean. I don't expect to have a clean home for more than a few minutes at a time. I expect to continue to instruct them many times on good manners and getting along with family members - I don't expect to say, "No fighting with your sister" once and have that be the end of it. And when it comes to school, I expect that I will help my children learn, and more importantly, learn to learn on a regular basis. But I don't expect that each day we will have fabulously planned lessons, or that they will be ahead of their peers at each benchmark.

After shaking off the crushing ballet expectations, I'm excited to get back to my ballet class this week. An expectation that the magic will be back and that we will all have a great time? Yes, I suppose it is. Seems I can't help setting expectations. And I don't think all expectations are wrong or bad. But I'm recommitting to examine which expectations serve me, or help me serve others, and which are just heavy burdens that kill the joy, and rid myself of those. As I tell myself from time to time while wildly waving my arms, injured-ballerina-swan style, "Flap it off, Steff." Join me in the flapping.