When it comes to life, we hear and repeat phrases like “expect the best!” or “if you can dream it you can do it!” If only we maintained that positivity when it came to our children, all of our children and their true potential. It’s easy to give up on kids. It’s easy to accept that what they say, do, or demonstrate is all they have to give. It’s more comfortable to say “he is defiant”, “she doesn’t pay attention”, “he is cognitively impaired”, “he can’t sit still.” When we make those presumptions, it allows us to give up and accept sub-par performance. Leave them alone. Keep them from regressing, but never expect progressing.
If we presume that our children can and we make it our job to educate, facilitate, figure out how to help them bridge that gap in what they demonstrate and what they are capable of… isn’t that safer, more loving, more humane than to presume the opposite? If we assume that a child has limits, limits that we can’t change, but rather treat as inpenetrable walls, do they have any chance to succeed? What if we found out later in life that they are more intelligent than we previously knew? Then, what, exactly, is the most dangerous assumption? We believe in expecting the best for our children, presuming their competence and giving hope to families in the process. We believe there is nothing dangerous in that