While some participants were not always academically high performing, almost all remember being thought of as smart and capable when they were young boys. Even when their behaviors or school outcomes may have suggested otherwise, students said their family, church, and community members rarely failed to acknowledge their potential for greatness. Reflections such as this were commonplace: “Everybody is expecting me to be something big… this kid is going to be very successful – it’s a possibility that you will see him in the newspapers one day.” — (Harper et al., 2014)

Among those findings from high school participants in the research, high expectations from their parents have a positive effect on their good performance in school. However, the multiple ways of those parents’ conveying high expectations remind me of some negative influences on many Chinese students, including me.

Born as the only one child in the family, children receive tremendous attention from families. Parents invest so much on their children and almost every parent has high expectations for their children’s future success. However, such high expectations do not always lead to children’s success, including school success. When I was in elementary school I usually got 100 out of 100 on tests. When I got 98, my mom would reprimand me for not getting 100. When I was in secondary school, since it was hard to get full marks, my mom would like to look at the percentile rank. If I was below 90%, my parents would be disappointed with my performance. I often got anxious when taking exams, because I was afraid that I might not do well. Years later, as a tutor of high school students in China, I noticed that my students had the same “pressure” from their parents. Low achievement students were disappointed because they failed to meet parents’ high expectations; high achieving students were worried what if they might not live up to their parents’ higher expectations. High expectations became a burden for many Chinese students.

Parents are always expecting their children to be better, which is at least a value shared by many Chinese parents. However, I think what really matters is whether students have high expectations for themselves. Instead of imposing their high expectations on students, teachers and parents should help students to believe themselves, set a proper goal, and make efforts to achieve it.