Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

[qqwref]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

I wouldn't say it's good parenting to make your child spend all of their time practicing piano or studying, to the exclusion of a fun childhood or social involvement. I also wouldn't say it's good parenting to make your child's life as comfortable as humanly possible, to the exclusion of skills or schoolwork. You have to choose a middle ground.

[AlexDest]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

In my perspective, parents should let their kids express themselves so that they can lead a healthy social life; however, the parents can have limitations to what they do.

But I wouldn't exactly call it bad parenting, the parents in this article are helping their kids have an excellent education leading them to have great jobs, which is a good thing, though they should at least let their kids have a break once in a while.

[Evnoir]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

There is control through fear: being suspended of freedom, inflicting punishments for unacceptable behaviour, and having one move only under your command.
On the contrary, there is control through bonding: letting one pursue their own dreams, acknowledging accomplishments, and letting them lean on your shoulders whenever they need support.
As Mahatma Gandhi once said:
"Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment."
Thus, in my opinion, I would say this is 'bad' parenting because of the way they handle their children. These actions are unheard of around my community, even though there are many Chinese parents present. I am glad to have laid-back Japanese parents xD

[Reincarnate]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

Most of the kids I know who had parents like these are not being done any favors. They may come out of it all as musical prodigies or mathematical juggernauts, but they're utterly incapable of making their own decisions.

[XCV]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

In my humble opinion, school =/= intelligence. Having a 4.0 GPA means nothing more or less than that the child is willing to do schoolwork.

That aside, I do believe a certain degree of strictness is beneficial to anything. But taking this to the metaphorical fringe is a bit over the top. Being on the quizbowl team, I have several friends from that part of the world, and I can grasp or at least begin to grasp the extent to which they take it. (One was told by his parents to attend tutoring because he had a 98 in diff'eq.)

I've said before that I don't care about school much, mainly because in the majority of cases I've been exposed to the material taught before the school curriculum catches up, making classes pathetically easy. [I've also been informed that college is a different world, and I'm used to studying at the perceived rate.] Admittedly, in freshman year (the first semester at least) I was extremely lax about school, mainly because I was far more interested in mathematics and programming. The lowest grade I made was an 89. In the interim between then and now, I've made about one B; this wasn't due to parenting (mine are quite laissez-faire.) But then, I'm really not qualified to comment on the correlation there, because I'm a couple standard deviations above the mean and haven't really experienced the consequences of substandard performance.

I don't agree with humiliation as a consequence for anything, especially mental matters, especially-especially school. Probably Western influence operating there. [For the record, an extreme amount of negative reinforcement is detrimental to emotional performance, which in any event is more important than academic performance because it directly interferes with life on both a subconscious and conscious level.] Call me soft, but it doesn't strike me as emotionally balanced.

[Guest15937]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

Fortunately, I don't have any of these cases, but I've heard a story about another Asian who is mathematically talented but despises mathematics because his parents ruined his joy of the subject.

While neither I nor my parents are actually Chinese, this actually happened to me. I once loved math, and could easily spend an entire day doing math because I found so much joy in it. That all was ruined because I got pushed into taking AP Calculus as a freshman. Now (not counting homework) I am more inclined to avoid math like the Ebola virus.

Go figure.

[XCV]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

I'm trying to figure out how you can even take AP Calculus as a freshman, that's way too much acceleration. Maybe it's because of where I come from, but the absolute minimum around here is eleventh grade.

[Minati]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

I'm trying to figure out how you can even take AP Calculus as a freshman, that's way too much acceleration. Maybe it's because of where I come from, but the absolute minimum around here is eleventh grade.

AP Calculus as a freshman is pretty easy... the concepts are very easy to grasp, don't require too much thinking, and the numbers aren't mind-numbing either.

It's very healthy to start off your high school carrier in advanced maths & science courses because you'll then know whether you want to pursue a carrier in the maths & sciences (ex. engineering, aero, biochem, etc) or whether you want to pursue a more liberal arts & humanities carrier (ex. law, econ, poli sci, etc) or even both (ex. finance).

All in all, pushy parents create prodigies and the 4.0 students that most of us have envied at one point in our lives. We even wish we had their grades, their skills, and that's where the difference comes in. The parents.

[XCV]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

No, I've been through calc, I understand it just fine, but the way my schedule works there's too much prep before it to take it in ninth grade.

[dag12]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

Depends if the school allows acceleration.
At my school, if you could demonstrate that you understood everything preparatory for calculus, you could take calculus whenever you wanted.

[XCV]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

I suppose that's true, I just didn't want to get embroiled with the college too much back then...

/offtopic

[FFR4EVA_00]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

One thing that I think is important to note is the cultural background. Many first-generation Asians have pushy parents. Given that the parents moved to the United States for greater opportunities, of course they would want to push their children as hard as possible to be "successful" (I'm hesitant to use that term, because the definition of success, again, varies). So there's already a mentality putting a strong emphasis on hard work and diligence, as well as a willingness to obtain a financially stable and successful life, from the start.

If this is true, then explain why this isn't a stereotype among Hispanics, who usually perform worse than the average American?

I'm trying to figure out how you can even take AP Calculus as a freshman, that's way too much acceleration. Maybe it's because of where I come from, but the absolute minimum around here is eleventh grade.

I taught myself some basic calculus in seventh grade. It's too bad I decided to get myself sucked further into this shithole instead of pursuing it further. The hard part of calculus, like basically everything else in the current education system (for some bizarre and stupid reason), is list memorization. The jump from 1/sqrt(1-x^2) to arcsin x (or vice-versa) is hard to understand if no one demonstrates how it works, which hardly any high school class bothers to do. But I digress.

I think Minati puts it very well. So-called "Chinese parenting" looks extreme because "Western parents" are too nervous. They think that any exertion of force will make them explode into a frenzy of distrust which, of course, no parent wants. There are some exaggerations in this article, of course, but some of the arguments do have a little sense to them if you think about it. In plays and musicals, the prospects of landing a big part involve a hundred things besides talent. Why bother with something that can, in some cases, be unwinnable?

[leonid]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

Helping children push their potentials is a good thing, doing so without knowing their true talents is not really..

[esupin]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

I'm more curious to find out how these children will act one they grow up and have their own kids. Will they do the same thing or take the exact opposite approach?

[FFR4EVA_00]

Re: Why Chinese Mothers are Superior

It depends. Are they surrounded by the same environment that they grew up in? In that case, most likely. Are they more aware of pop culture forcing an idealized world where all people with IQs above 100 are soulless voids and all people with IQs below 100 need to "work" "hard" while keeping in mind that the importance of self-value and predestination might make it completely unimportant down everyone's throats? It depends on whether or not they succumb to peer pressure.