Through the influence of social media and media, people often compare themselves to higher and somewhat unrealistic social standards. It can be seen everywhere you go.

People constantly compare themselves to others. If your hair, clothes, or body don’t look a certain way, your grades aren’t as good as someone else’s, or you don’t have a lot of money or things, maybe you aren’t good enough. This is a feeling of what you expect from yourself and others expect from you.

Expectations are especially high for today’s teens. With finals passing by, many teens felt the pressure. For our juniors and seniors, questions about their grades and colleges are piling up.

Many are expected to have a plan set out for them, their own or someone else’s. Freshman and sophomores have no room for failure, having the criteria of 24 credits. The pressure can become a lot. Who really is holding us to these expectations?

Students often bring up their parents in school. “My parents don’t like my grades, so I’m grounded.” or “If grades drop below (x grade), then I won’t be allowed to do anything.”

The opinions of parents matter to a lot of kids. What do parents at capital really think? Chipman and

Bonds are the librarians at Capital. Both have children (at least one in high school). We asked them a couple questions about what they expect of their kids.

The first question seemed fitting to ask was, ‘What do you expect from your kids not just in school?’ Chipman responded with, “In life I just want them to be good people and be an asset in our society..(in school) obviously to just get through high school and hopefully get into a trade or something that’s going to support them and their hopefully family someday.”

Bonds had a similar answer, “Just to be nice, be friends with a large group of people, make good choices, and that their thinking about what their going to do in their future, not just now. As a teacher, I do have pretty high expectations because I’ve seen kids, where if you show up and do your work you’ll be just fine. So that’s a minimum.”

  We asked, ‘How do you think your kids feel about your expectations? Do you expect a lot?’ “They know I expect a lot and I think they feel that, the high expectations, but I think that they are okay with it they know I just want them to be okay in life,” Chipman said.

When asked ‘Do you think they feel pressure from your expectations?’ Bonds responds “Yes, I do and I think that’s okay because I think you have pressures throughout your life and if you can’t learn how to manage those pressures you’re just going to end up being overwhelmed all the time.”

Bonds stated, “The older one has super high expectations of herself, she wanted do full running start and to be that student that got her AA and graduate at the same time. My younger one is more laid back and kind of needs the pressure to push him along sometimes, but he’s discovering in middle school that it’s more his job to take care of that.”

When asked ‘What do you think their expectations of themselves are?’ Chipman, she simply said,  “I think their expectations are similar because they’ve grown up around them.” when asked the same.

We last asked Chipman and Bonds “Do you think they expect more of themselves or hold themselves to a higher expectation then you?’ Chipman responded, “My younger son  yes..if he doesn’t have all a’s he stresses in academics..My older son..I think he more goes with the flow and is okay with knowing there’s the high expectation.”