Expectation Management for Advent by Georgie Tennant
My friend and I have coined a term which is helping us to navigate the ups and downs of family life – Expectation Management. We remind each other of it frequently, particularly at times when our expectations are in danger of running away with us. We look forward to special days, birthdays, Christmases and holidays – but it is dawning on us both that Expectation Management is essential for these times. The trouble is that we our victims of our own high expectations, as we envisage the most wonderful of days, our Mary Poppins-like selves, swirling and singing amongst our children, offering them home-baked wares and fun without ceasing. They, in turn, will listen to every sweet-sounding word we utter, offer their siblings first choice in all things and skip home, to head straight to bed with no need for toe-nail cutting, three extra drinks, five snacks and seven stories. Reality, as you can well imagine, never matches up – not even nearly. I am a gold-medal w...