How do Asians and East Europeans e.g. manages to successfully to get their kids to revise long hours?

Wrt resilience - it comes from paying attention to the effort and not the results.

Celebrating results and achievements can hinder the development of resilience. It can make a child too focused on praise for the end product. Tying in an emotional reward to an end product means that the qualities which are really going to stand to a child in the long run are undervalued by the child, perhaps not even recognised by the child. A child who likes the kudos associated with an A, or has developed a self image based on the statement 'I get As in everything' at age 4-5-6 will often shy away from challenging subjects because he or she would not be able to emotionally handle a lower grade. A child whose identity includes the statement 'I am persistent, I work hard every day, and I am organised' may feel better equipped in an emotional sense to tackle challenges.

Acknowledging the 'effort factors' - factors such as persistence, organisation, curiosity, going the extra mile, time management, ability to defer gratification, and thinking and planning - will make the child aware of the way good results are produced. This is far more helpful in the long run. No individual piece of writing or maths test is important in and of itself at primary level. It's the work habits which go into the exercises that matter because if acknowledged they will produce a positive self image.

I consider my wrist well slapped then @mathanxiety. By the same token I could say that mumsnet is probably not a reliable source either.

I remember a while back reading on The Student Room about students from these countries being unable to cope with assigmnents where they had to discuss the pros and cons of something then form an opinion.

It probably wasn't a good idea to repeat something you read in The Student Room without mulling over the reliability of the source.

There are lots of urban legends doing the rounds online.

@BuddhaAtSea has your DD looked into access courses, or OU degrees?

She shouldn't feel she has to stay working at dead end jobs.

Very interesting thread and I agree with you onthefencesitter.

My cousin is quite severely autistic. At 21, he is not very vocal, he doesn't really respond when you talk to him and he still can't buy food (though he can buy things from vending machines) His mum tried to send him to 2 schools- mainstream school in the morning and special school in the afternoon at first. Honestly that was more hardcore than what I was doing. This was later abandoned. He went to special school full time and is now at polytechnic. Polytechnic is more projects- based, only about 30% in my home country do A levels/IB (as the prevailing thought is that you should only do A levels if you are sure you are university bound, as A levels are not much use in the workplace) so the rest go to polytechnic where they do vocational training so its a lot of projects and also part of your grade is based on work experience. You can then go to university after polytechnic but would be in a better place than an A level graduate who failed to get into university. My cousin is apparently thriving in that environment as its less structured and the focus is on practical subjects.

I did resent the slog as a child but felt like I had little choice. I didn't want to be bottom of the class or not go to a good university. Asian parents and grandparents don't really shy away from telling you how difficult life would be if you don't do well so I guess I worked also because I didn't want my life to be difficult in the future. My dad told me from a young age; if you are not in the top 33%, your life would be very hard as capitalist society is fundamentally unequal. I was born in 1992 so this was pre 2008 financial crisis. We can disagree about the stats and I also don't think what he said was necessarily the truth but definitely society is becoming more and more unequal (inflation and asset appreciation means that the barriers for every successive generation only become higher so the young are at a disadvantage). Most British people would not want to acknowledge this; i have had people on mumsnet tell me I should move to NW/Wales rather than stay in London where the career opportunities in my field are because London is expensive. Most asian parents I know would encourage their kids to aim for the best university/best career and go where the jobs are (certainly my dad encouraged me to buy a flat in London so that I could focus on my career). If society is becoming more unequal, you cannot economize your way out of that. You can live in a place where a house cost £100k and shop at Aldi but what happens when there is no more state pension or you need to pay for medical treatment (because there is no more NHS). I feel like as my parents grew up without a welfare state, they don't take any government incentives/benefits for granted or think that life would automatically be the same for any descendants.. Its very different from my European MIL who assumes that the government would always help the poor and as long as you live cheaply, you can always make ends meet. She never encouraged her children to work hard at school for that reason, she said that education wasn't very useful (even though she went to university herself), and you should just try to earn enough to tide yourself over. In truth, in the past, you could buy a house with a single income in many parts of the UK so perhaps it wasn't worth it to pursue higher education if you could have a comfortable life while not being highly educated. I feel like for my generation and future generations, it would be an existential crisis if you don't earn well and this is true for people for every part of the country due to high house price appreciation even in the cheaper parts of the country.

I would therefore encourage my child to study hard and pursue higher education as it at least offers the most options for future well paid careers (even if its not a guarantee). You need maximum options in the face of increasing scarcity. It is more valuable than any inheritance; as inheritance can be spent. I think people who have always been privileged or always able to scrape by due to favourable circumstances when they were younger, may not always appreciate that

I taught DD to read, age 3-4, she was able to read ‘big’ books by 5 (think Moomins, nothing fancy), the school was asking her to read Chip and Biff. uhhh, those bloody Biff and Chip books! They were okay in small doses, but at our dcs primary schools you had to read so many of each colour set before you moved to the next, regardless of ability. I told the teachers I wouldn't support the school home reading scheme, and that we would provide our dcs books ourselves based on what they liked and what we thought appropriate for their ages. Their enthusiasm and abilities flew as a result.

It is very simple. No screen time, no phone, no treats, no play unless work is done. How much work you require is up to the parent and there are some extreme cases, but many families simply ask for a good attitude and a reasonable amount of work. I agree that starting at age 16 may be a bit late, it is about having a good attitude towards work from an early age. Children grow up knowing that it is good to be honest, hard working and to have high standards.

How strict you are can depend on the child. If they have glowing reports and score high, you can be more hands off and lax. But I would not let my children spend hours on phones / computer games if they bring home bad grades or reports. I give them as much responsibility as they can handle. If they show a mature attitude with long-term thinking, I let them decide, but if they show an immature attitude towards work / studies, I become stricter.

Interesting comments. We are an indigenous British family. My DH and I and our families all have a strong work ethic. Our parents were hard working, working class and whilst sucessful now, we saw our parents struggle when we were young. My DH and I both run our own businesses and our children see us working hard. I have always instilled in my children ths importance of education and to be the best they can. They are both bright and very studious and oddly enough I have noticed that their friends tend to be Eastern European or Indian, all from good families. What I've seen it isn't about strapping them to a desk, its about the work ethic filtering down.

In my family shame and fear were the methods used to encourage high academic performance. It had a 50% success rate - worked on me but not my brother.

I’m an immigrant, married a middle class Brit. DD was/is stuck in the middle of two very different cultures. Where I come from, you work hard. Where my ExH comes from, it’s doesn’t matter, the welfare system and his mother took care of his lack of application. Still does. He’s in his 60s.

When DD learned to write, they didn’t have to link the letters. They had the bus shelter method of dividing and instead of normal addition, numbers one under the other, they had this convoluted mess. I taught DD to read, age 3-4, she was able to read ‘big’ books by 5 (think Moomins, nothing fancy), the school was asking her to read Chip and Biff.

Any attempt of teaching my DD to link her letters, do simple mental additions etc, were curbed by the school and ExH. I was the weird, pushy immigrant mother, and they knew better.

So my poor kid grew up thinking I expect too much of her.
Funnily enough, the school or the ExH didn’t have any expectations on her learning morals, logic, social etiquette, a foreign language. In those instances I had the freedom to teach her about fables, about Greek and Roman mythology, about sharing food and cooking it from scratch every time, about mindfulness, acceptance, about other cultures.

She’s now pretty much grown up. She’s told her dad her only regret is that she listened to him when he said academic success is not important. ‘Mum wasn’t the weird one, I work in a cafe’.

It is very much a cultural thing.

Two of my children are highly driven internally. They have both had to work hard, especially at primary to overcome difficulties but this has made them more determined. I don't need to tell them to revise, they have learnt for themselves the importance and relevance. We reward effort not grades. It is all though their responsibility, we make it clear that we have been through our education, it is their turn now. We only help with homework when (rarely) asked and then just to get started, beyond that it is their responsibility.

Like others we always discuss things a lot, always have one meal together. They always need to justify their viewpoint, but are accepted regardless of their views and achievements. There is an underlying expectation that they will go to university but that comes more from them than us. We have always made it clear that there are other perfectly valid options in life and we will support them as long as they are not harming others.

The other child is more into gaming, academic achievement comes easily and they have never had to persevere to succeed, although some might say it is a gift, I am not convinced that it isn't a curse as well. The only silver lining is being the youngest, some of the sibling work ethic and their expectations has rubbed off.

In our case the working hard is not due to immigration at all, each generation has had more opportunity, ambition and drive than the previous one though.

Ultimately though it is their lives and they need to work for their own goals and their own benefit.

Fascinating thank you.

Resilience means never give up at the first sign of struggle. See it as a challenge. Be positive and think about how amazing it will be in the future to be able to finally do it. My parents were not strict or overbearing, but they had boundaries (like all good parent child relationships should have). We weren’t glued to screens and we played outside together (as well as gaming on the Nintendo - a healthy balance). My parents ensured they spent good quality time with us - reading to us, taking an interest in our hobbies, playing with us etc.

My parents were a lot younger than my peers’. We weren’t well off. Sometimes there was a little bit of “hard love,” but I developed the resilience and determination I needed to get through some really traumatic times.

Too many primary and secondary children give up straightaway. You need to start young.

That wasn't meant to be a dig, honestly. This is simply DH's experience from working in those two countries. I was a bit worried that someone would take it the wrong way TBH, and I'm sure that there are loads of overseas students who aren't only able to just learn by rote. I am simply repeating what I read on The Student Room.

And yes, I know there are loads of students here who probably don't even know the meaning of common sense. DD is a student and she has come across several who shouldn't be allowed out in public. She took a gap year before going to university and went knowing how to live life and look after herself.

Nice dig at East Asians. Have you been to a British university? So many adults have absolutely no common sense and true opinions (they’ll follow the general consensus) because they’ve always expected their parents to do things for them. Zero critical thinking. My bachelor’s degree ended 4 years ago. I made friends who were and weren’t like this (didn’t stay friends who were like this). It all depended how much they’d been wrapped in cotton wool and been treated like god’s gift😂 it’s not an ethnicity thing.

well our education system is fucked, and many graduates end up in minimum wage work. what to do?

Overall these children have grown up around family members who have had to work hard, in truly meritocratic circumstances. Levels of unemployment and claiming benefits are also low in these groups are comparatively low. Their grandparents took any job, even the jobs that others wouldn't dream of doing. The work ethic is ingrained through the role models throughout their family. In short, everyone around them works hard so they do too. The groups that do these jobs are now changing... so in a few years we will be asking why, for example, Ukrainian children are doing so well in their exams. In fact early studies in France have all ready shown that those children who have arrived from The Ukraine were over a year ahead in their studies compared to their French counterparts. When they looked at why it was because of strong teacher/ parent partnerships, solid
family units and parental expectations to study not make excuses for the child when they didn't. This could be an interesting discussion but already seems to have been derailed with casual racism and baseless accusations of physical abuse by using examples that cannot be substantiated.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of children (regardless of ethnicity) that lack resilience and determination. They give up at the first sign of struggle. By the time they get to their GCSEs they don’t see the point. It’s really sad :(

Agree, @stopthepain

Some Asian mums I knew would pinch their DC when they were misbehaving when they thought no one else was looking. They also didn't let their DC go on all play dates. The funniest ones were when they gave their DC strict diets in their lunchboxes and all the other DC felt sorry for them so brought in extra crisps and chocolate to give them.

DH used to work in South Korea and China. He said the people he worked with were very highly educated in terms of knowledge, but they were completely unable to think for themselves, use their initiative or think outside of the box.

I remember a while back reading on The Student Room about students from these countries being unable to cope with assigmnents where they had to discuss the pros and cons of something then form an opinion. Give them a maths or physics exam and they would ace them, but something less tangible was more difficult because they were never taught to think that way.

I was brought up like this and I'm thankful now that my parents made me sit down and study. It began a few years before the 11+ exam when my dad would come home from work and sit with me for hours going through past papers. We'd walk to the shop across the road for a treat (a choccie) after so it wasn't bad. I grew up knowing my parents had set expectations of me when it came to study and there was no alternative. But they spent a lot of time with us helping us understand things too and making us sit down and get work done. We also had a tutor.

@stopthepain could you explain a little bit more about what you mean bey resilience? I am finding this thread really interesting. How did your parents instils resilience and what does resilience mean to you?