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

I am Indian. For my mum it was about appearances. If I didn't excel, I was an embarrassment, if I did, she felt good about herself. I would get verbally & physically abused if I didn't score an A grade. Once when I was NINE(!) I had to come home & tell her I came 5th in the class at end of year tests. She shouted, "FIFTH?! Fifth STINKS!" Before hitting me. I ended of with high grades, studied a prestigious degree & have a good professional job, but would trade it all back in a heartbeat.
As a result, I let my daughter "freestyle" her learning and she's turned out to be wonderfully creative and surprisingly conscientious. And HAPPY!

But l also think some kids just are naturally very driven and that isn't something you can instil. My 16 yr old is a very high achiever, his mental health has suffered through it previously, yet l am a very relaxed parent. Happiness is paramount, l am not from an academic background, l live a simple way of life.

I think this is absolute rubbish. I have never been in the least authoritarian, in fact rather the opposite and prone to wanting to explain the reasoning behind any instruction and find natural consequences rather than external punishments for any misbehaviour. DD is a year away from GCSEs and is revising hard for her end of year exams. She's drawn up a plan with times for every subject and topic and left three slots free in case she suddenly thinks she needs extra time on something. She works really hard and I am proud of her for that.

Neither are we focusing on high standards except in the area of how much effort she is prepared to put in. I have told her all along that I don't care about the numbers or the marks but I do care that she has put a decent amount of effort in to trying to do her best. Nobody can ask someone to do better than their best and what that is varies for each person.

They just get in early and set it as a solid expectation while their children are still very young. children will live up to what we expect of them.

I think about this on the many occasions that I hear parents complaining that they can’t get their children to read at home as if it’s completely out of their control. The fact is that if they’d build books into their toddler’s days and got the school reading book out every night as soon as they were given them, their children would be in a habit they enjoy and it wouldn’t occur to them to refuse.

@examitis lots of stereotypes in your OP. I am half Chinese. My mother was born in the UK but her parents weren’t. I was brought up, from a very young age, to be resilient and have aspirations. They also took an interest in reading with me every night and spending good quality time with me everyday. Learning was never a chore.

Good grades and doing extracurricular activities meant that I respected myself and wanted to do well for myself, not for others. Some students won’t get excellent grades, but they still show great work ethic and that’s what matters! My parents never forced me to revise. They never asked because they had instilled that resilience and determination. They let me go out and socialise, even during exam periods. I got almost straight As, first class degree and a post grad.

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 :(

There is just a general expectation in these cultures to focus on education and a view that to get a decent job, you need decent grades. In my circle of friends, parents aren't cane wielding authoritarians, but have instilled a culture of prioritising education and instilling an expectation of good exam grades. Believe it or not, the children are happy and able to enjoy life with friends and non educational activities.

People in the trades can earn very well but if the work is physical it does take a toll as people age, unless they move into managing others. Thinking of my BIL, a gardener, who is struggling physically as he approaches his 50s. He's bright but not very qualified due to a lack of family interest in education. He has strongly encouraged his DC and nieces to get as much education as possible!

Its cultural thing. I’m indonesian. I brought up very strictly. I’m very much relax here but according to uk standart i’m strict aswell. My kids both autistic (high functioning). They are nursery and year 1. They have to spend a hour everyday to study even during the weekend. Usually at 5-6. Then they can do play games or whatever for an hour. If they refuse to study then no games. and of course i’m teaching them aswell. Usually with my year 1 i do math or writing and with my 3yo boys just reading story. Everyday. Just off if we go on holiday. But only for an hour otherwise they will get burnout.

@Only4You it is a prevalent attitude amongst many that non academic children can go into the trades and that a plumber can earn more than a solicitor in a high street firm (this is true). How many kids who don't go to university or college end up as plumbers or electricians, I have no idea. I would hazard a guess that many more end up working in minimum wage type jobs. I once commented on mumsnet that my DH only ended up with a City job and a higher rate taxpayer because he grew up in London and was able to attend a RG university while living at home. And that a poor child in the NW could not replicate that. I was told by another PP that working in the trades was just as good, no need for university or a fancy City job. But the thing is that being well educated does not preclude you from the trades. My ( British Chinese) gas engineer has a degree in engineering. But not having A levels or a degree means that it is more difficult for you if you don't land an apprenticeship (as opposed to a university graduate). What many Asian parents tell me is that they want their children to have options to do whatever they want in later life and not suffer from a lack of choice.

Or that you can just move to a cheap area and buy a house for 100k (achievable for those on minimum wage). In a lot of Asian countries, the countryside is not a viable place to move to,it is not the same thing as a Londoner moving to Wales.

Hello, my life has been far from idyllic. I do work full time. My sector is Law.

My ex-husband left me in 2015 with 3 children (7, 3 and 1 at the time), he had an affair. When he left, he had no contact with our children and to this day, he has no relationship with them.

I met my DH exactly a year ago and we got married March of this year so up until that point, I was a lone full time parent and a professional.

I absolutely would not pretend that the level of interaction I have with my children is easily done, it is hard! Often to the detriment of your own needs -
especially when you're exhausted.
But when I see how they thrive and grow, how much love and dedication they have, when my 14 year old tells me 'I KNOW my worth and I'll never compromise it' - I feel wonderful that I see the benefits of the life we've built.
I won't let them have entitlement of any sort and thankfully at this stage they don't.

The revision and (self taught, we couldn't afford professional lessons when we got the piano), music practice is what they fill their time with. They also cook, spend a lot of time outdoors, argue like hell with one another and have the world's biggest stock of all things art related.
It works for us.

@GrandSlamFinale,

I agree that emigration has an impact.

I remember being shocked at the complacency of the middle class white Americans whose children were my DCs' classmates. They were sure their children would be fine despite taking general level classes and not really applying themselves when it came to homework or studying. They were right - their articulate, white, middle class children were mostly fine and there were few problems money couldn't fix

As an immigrant though, you are conscious of the lack of friends and relatives and old university buddies ready to give your children a good summer job or an internship during university. You weren't raised in a society where entire swathes of the population could just coast along thanks to skin colour and the confidence of a generation of grandparents which came out of WW2 the clear winner and generated the sort of wealth that lasted well into the 90s and beyond.

Most of my classmates in Ireland were the grandchildren of farmers. Nearly everyone had parents who had somehow managed to go to university - somehow or other, in the school I attended, they all seemed to be engineers. The idea that education could make your life more financially secure and intellectually fulfilling than the hard scrabble of a small farm was clearly one that had taken hold. On a national level, the importance of education was highlighted in Ireland for many decades, with an exponentially expanding third level sector and a huge uptick in numbers staying in school until age 18. You carry that culture with you.

Even if you emigrate and you don't have a white collar career, you realise that the standard of education of many of the people you work with isn't a patch on yours, and that gives you high hopes for your children. So you find a professor of English literature in an Ivy League university whose parents arrived from Ireland in the late 70s and worked as mechanics and cleaners.

You recall the standard expected of you when you were in school in your native country (in my case Ireland). So you look at what your children are doing in mathematics at age 9 with a very raised eyebrow. If you're Russian, you not only raise an eyebrow, you are so horrified that you take over the teaching of mathematics for your own children.

If you're Irish, you might go out and buy a globe and some books about climate and how mountains were formed, etc, because you realise your children will never study geography, and you read the books with them and point out what you know about social and urban geography too, and the history of places other than the US.

The key is that your children know the score from an early age. They also have a sense of perspective that their classmates lack. I used to say what my parents said to me when dropping off my DCs in school - "Listen to your teacher" - where everyone else was saying, "Have fun!"

In that case, seeing how poor the benefit and pension system is in the U.K., it should have concentrated minds of ‘native’ children…..

I think a good rule of thumb is: work before play. It’s kind of delayed gratification. If you work now, you increase the chances of success in future. Of course nothing is certain, but I think most people can increase their chances by doing this.

you do have to make sure your study is effective though. Staring at a book for 2hours is not going to do much good. Parents sitting and showing kids how to memorise (cover up, repeat back), quiz their kids and go through maths problems (show them where the mistakes are) is v helpful. But I realise not all parents are able to do this - my dad struggled with the language in school work as it is not his native tongue, but my mum was able to help a lot. Some parents do shift work, long hours etc.

@IsThisRealLife12 your family life sounds idyllic, especially the having lots of chats part. If you don't mind answering, do you work? I'm asking as that level of revision and music practice is impossible to achieve when both parents work full time and kids are at after school club, at least during the primary years, unless you have a nanny or au pair.

Also a country with limited pension provision where the children are expected to provide for parents in old age.

@Simonjt I imagine the middle classes in Pakistan value education? If you are the child of a peasant and there is no secondary school for miles,I can imagine that is not a great motivation! I once volunteered in China in a mountain village in Yunnan, the main aspiration of the boys was to be a soldier in the PLA and for the girls, I suppose it was to get married? This is completely different from the urban middle classes in China who often aren't even fussed about having an only daughter nowadays; all they want is a child who would go to university one day.

A friend once told me the vast majority of Pakistanis who immigrated to the UK are from the middle classes.

Hmm I know an Asian lad, he stands out for the number of hours of work he does. He had no friends, and is completely obsessed with academic and financial success. He openly says how people less intelligent shouldn’t get rewarded, and that subjects like art or pe do not matter.

@Simonjt , in France, the idea of doing the best you can, going as far as possible study wise is very anchored. Its culturally there. Nothing to do with being an immigrant.

Does it everyone gets amazing results at school? Nope of course not.
But it doesnt change the fact that working hard at school is seen as normal, unlike the UK where children tell each other they are wrong for actually working hard (I heard that plenty from my teens)

If your patents come from a country with no benefit system I would think that concentrates the mind.

I hate that too.
Tried to explain to my dcs many times but they get taken by what the hear around them (and its easier too!).

I think it has another unintential effect. When they do the algebra, instead of actually just concentrating on doing it and doing it well, they have this feeling that it's all for nothing etc.. aka negative emotions about it. It actually amkes the while experience harder than it needs to.

Immigrants aren’t representative of the general population, trust me, there are countless Pakistanis in Pakistan who don’t value education etc.

Racism plays a part, when you’re already on the bottom rung of society you have to do everything you can to prove yourself. Getting a good education and working hard is part of that. I grew up knowing I was the second choice, so I had to work hard and make myself as attactive as possible.

My refugee grandmother said ‘when they come in the night, they can take everything except what’s in your head’.

Four generations later, and as a family we still prioritise education and make it clear to the DC that they need to work hard and behave well because nothing in life is certain, and education plus a good reputation will give them options they otherwise wouldn’t have.

Never at the expense of health, though, both mental and physical.

I do agree with you that many SN children would find the orderliness and routine in the school of great benefit. In fact I think all children, SN or not, would benefit from this type of education.
During Covid, my granddaughter's school abandoned their round tables and had the children sitting in rows. There was no outcry about it and my granddaughter said she liked it better because she could 'get on.'
And yes, the provision of SEN schools is pitiful in the UK.

@IsThisRealLife12 this 100%. The 'when will I ever use algebra in real life' line always makes me irk. It doesn't matter if you'll never use it. At this point in your life you need it and I need you to understand that applying yourself is rewarding even if you fail. Dedication is a good thing and teaches so much.