Our parents' belief in us and the expectations they have of us are the determining factors in the emergence of self-confidence and competence. Complaints of "he doesn't believe in me" or "she doesn't trust me" mirror belief difficulties. Complaints of "he expects too much" or "she doesn't expect enough" show difficulties around expectations.
A clear distinction needs to be made between belief and expectations. Belief in a person is the essential building block of confidence; it is an affirmation of the capability of the person. Expectations need to be related to the development of competence and have to do with the encouragement and creation of knowledge and skills. It is not uncommon to come across people who have a high degree of competence, but little confidence; the opposite is less common.
Expectations can be realistic, unrealistic, absent or low. Realistic expectations centre on a person's present level of knowledge and set the next learning challenge just a little beyond that level. For example, a child may be able to put shoes on her feet, but may not yet have identified the right from the left. The next step would be to get her to notice that each shoe is different.
Unrealistic expectations are typically performance-driven, with the emphasis on getting things right. There is a failure to appreciate that there is an achievement in every learning effort. Unrealistic expectations make learning extremely threatening, because the possibility of getting it right may be remote.
In some homes and workplaces, people's love of learning may be gradually extinguished by parents or managers having no expectations and giving little or no recognition to efforts to learn. An equally powerful factor is how parents or employers react when children or workers fall short of, rise above or actually meet expectations.
Certainly, realistic expectations go a long way to maintaining people's love of learning and working, but this can be undermined if critical reactions follow failure to measure up to these reasonable demands. These critical responses can take two forms: enmeshment of the falling short with the child's or the worker's person; and direct criticism of the failure experience. The latter is certainly the lesser of the two evils but, nonetheless, it poses a threat to future learning efforts and may result in the person cleverly devising protective strategies to offset that threat.
Typical strategies are avoidance (with no effort there can be no failure; and with no failure there can be no rejection), compensation (with great effort there can be no failure; and with no failure there can be no humiliation) and rebelliousness (by getting somebody else to take on the challenge there can be no failure and therefore no rejection). Another ingenious protective response is to become hypersensitive to criticism, act fearful and show visible upset when it is present.
The enmeshment of failure with "person" can be devastating to a person's eagerness to learn. Examples of this kind of reaction are: "Are you stupid or what?"; "Don't you see what you are doing wrong?" (said with exasperation); "You're not paying attention" (said angrily).
It is important to note that the non-verbal messages that accompany the verbal critical message lend considerable weight to the impact of the punishing feedback. Victims conclude from this kind of feedback that they're stupid, unlovable or slow. These self-labels often follow them for the rest of their lives.
Unrealistic expectations in themselves pose an enormous threat to the pursuance of learning and work, but when they are accompanied by punishing responses to failure to attain these high levels, the threat is greatly increased. Generally speaking, where there are unrealistic learning or work expectations, there is also the tendency to confuse person with failure. Criticism can be expressed harshly or great hurt and disappointment can be visibly shown. Powerful protective reactions are needed in response to these blows.
Positive over-reaction when individuals meet either realistic or unrealistic expectations is also a block to the emergence of confidence, but is often not seen as such. Examples are: "You're an amazing worker"; "You're a cut above the rest"; "You're great, we're so proud of you". The difficulty with these responses is that those at the receiving end of such accolades become dependent on their accomplishments in order to be deemed worthy.
They also know that falling short would result in emotional rejection.
Dr Tony Humphreys is a consultant clinical psychologist and author of Work and Worth, take back your life.
