What's the key to bringing up a successful kid? All parents grapple with this question, and all parents have their own answer.
Amy Chua, author of the new book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" (reviewed in Sunday's paper), shares her emphatic answer in an excerpt that ran in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend.
Chua takes a strict approach to parenting and she begins her essay by listing the things her daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do.
•attend a sleepover
•have a playdate
•be in a school play
•complain about not being in a school play
•watch TV or play computer games
•choose their own extracurricular activities
•get any grade less than an A
•not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
•play any instrument other than the piano or violin
•not play the piano or violin.
Chua is Chinese and she says that's why she forced her daughters to practice violin and piano not one, but two, sometimes even three hours a day. It's her heritage that leads her to demand perfect grades and yell, scream, and call her children "garbage" if not delivered. This sort of forceful parenting, she says, is typical among Chinese parents and that's why they produce so many "math whizzes" and "math prodigies."
"Western" parents, on the other hand, take a softer approach, and so their kids tend not to be as successful. The strictest Western parents forces her child to practice violin 30 minutes a day. They encourage the arts, foster the idea that learning is fun, and let their children choose their extracurricular activities and support their choices.
Why such extremely different parenting styles? Chua gives many reasons but her strongest argument is that "Western parents are anxious about their children's self-esteem" while "Chinese parents aren't." She writes:
For example, if a child comes home with an A-minus on a test, a Western parent will most likely praise the child. The Chinese mother will gasp in horror and ask what went wrong. If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure, and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless" or "a disgrace."
Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.
Chua does recognize that Western and Chinese parenting styles aren't always this black and white, and recognizes that there is some fuzzyness with some Chinese mothers who really aren't "Chinese mothers"--i.e., their kids only play the violin for a half-hour every day. But these mothers, of course, were most likely born in the West.
What do you think of Chua's "Chinese" parenting style?
