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Written by Becky Bennett
It’s easy to feel discouraged and incapable, and it takes a special person to believe in us and help us with positive encouragement. Thankfully, we can all be those special people!
Oh, I was feeling like a pretty lousy parent! Parenting had seemed much easier before I actually became one. We had entered the “terrible twos” (even before my daughter was actually 2—but then she’s always been a bit advanced for her age), and I was feeling as out of control as she was acting! I remember one time abandoning a cart full of groceries—unable to complete my shopping because my child was having a tantrum.
It was bad. I knew it, and I knew everybody around me knew it.
That’s when I learned about a power that is truly amazing that has stuck with me ever since. It’s the power of positive expectations and encouragement!
Self-fulfilling expectations
The power of self-fulfilling expectations has been seen in studies time and again. Perhaps you’ve heard of the 1960s experiment by Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal and San Francisco school principal Lenore Jacobson. Their study was designed to answer the question of whether students’ academic performance might be related to their teachers’ expectations.
A group of kindergarten through fifth-grade students was given a test, which was said to predict which students would “show an unusual forward spurt of academic and intellectual functioning.” Actually, the names were just drawn at random, but the results at the end of the year were nothing short of astonishing, with students gaining as many as 15 to 27 IQ points.
Rosenthal and Jacobson wrote about the study in their book Pygmalion in the Classroom. One memorable example was of a young boy named José who had been classified as having very low ability. He started out with an IQ of 61, but scored 106 after he was “identified” as a late bloomer (1992 edition, p. 86).
Alan Loy McGinnis in his book Bringing Out the Best in People, where I first read about this study, noted that “the teachers described these children as happier, more curious, more affectionate than average, and having a better chance of success in later life” (1985, p. 32).
These students hadn’t suddenly become more brilliant—but their teachers’ expectations of them had changed. Rosenthal speculated that “the explanation probably lies in the subtle interaction between teacher and pupils. … Tone of voice, facial expressions, touch and posture may be the means by which—often unwittingly—teachers communicate their expectations to their pupils. Such communication may help a child by changing his perceptions of himself” (as quoted by McGinnis, p. 33).
Believing in you
Have you ever noticed how many great people give credit to some person along the way who truly believed in them? Consider Helen Keller, for example. Where would she have been without Anne Sullivan?
Having someone believe in you is a powerful form of encouragement. Most of us, at one time or another, have felt discouraged—insecure, unsure of whether we might be able to accomplish something. It’s a wonderful thing when someone can come along at just the right time and give encouragement. We can feel strengthened to try again or try harder.
It’s the type of thing that songs have been written about. I don’t know about you—but I feel like crying when I hear the Bette Midler song “Wind Beneath My Wings” or the Josh Groban song “You Raise Me Up.”
Those songs have meaning because I can think of people who have given me encouragement and strengthened and helped me!
Encouragement is not pressure or preaching
In thinking about what encouragement is, it’s also helpful to think about what it is not. Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages explains that encouragement is not pressure. Encouraging a friend to lose weight, he explains, is not encouragement unless she wants to lose weight. “Until she has the desire, your words will fall into the category of preaching. Such words seldom encourage. They are almost always heard as words of judgment, designed to stimulate guilt. They express not love but rejection” (p. 44).
When I think of encouraging people, I can’t help but think of the biblical example of Barnabas. The apostles called him that because he was a “Son of Encouragement”! Paul and John Mark and doubtless many others all benefited from this humble, unassuming man’s support and encouragement. He believed in them, and by his words and actions he helped them to believe in themselves.
Turning the negative cycle around
Obviously, encouragement and positive expectations go hand in hand. They did for me.
At a time when I felt deeply discouraged—wanting desperately to be a good mother to my child, but not knowing how to deal with her unique personality and temperament—I am thankful that I had some encouragers who had positive expectations of me.
One was a teacher at a mommy-and-me class that I was taking. She could see the problems I was having, yet when I talked to her, I knew she considered me to be a good mother! I don’t think I can express what a difference that made to me. Her positive belief in me made me take a deep breath, redouble my efforts—and learn things that I could do to improve the situation! She was a wise lady and she gave me several tips that made a big difference.
There were also family members. My parents and my older sister had their own experiences. Yes, it was humbling too. But their advice was given with love, encouragement and, again, positive expectations.
It’s interesting to look back on that time. What helped me at this discouraging time was actually what helped my little girl the most. She, too, needed encouragement! She, too, needed positive expectations. It didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it took months to turn our negative cycle around. But I’m happy to report that the results were good and have been long-lasting!
Becky Bennett is proud to be a mother of two wonderful young ladies. She considers parenting to be like the Peace Corps—“the toughest job you’ll ever love.”
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