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

I was one of those kids, but I wanted to do well - like @HowIsItMarchAlready .

You hear it from a young age - praise for cousin x doing well, v smart.
Parents say: I work hard and spend money on your education, make sacrifices so you can have more opportunities and a better life than I had.
When I was young…..
They talk about careers - how relative y is a lawyer and got a first from top uni and has bought a big house now.

1 parent did want to do an artsy subject but was forced to do a business degree by grandparent.
So, as a reaction to that we weren’t pressured into the ‘usual’ stable jobs: doctor, lawyer, engineer, finance.
But academic success was prized.

It can be a lot of pressure - and it is bad for some kids.
Especially as they can focus on results as opposed to effort (I have purposely tried to do the opposite with my kids).

BUT, I did see that my parents genuinely were working hard/sacrificing to help us.
My mum used to stay up late with me to revise and tutored me to a scholarship (though no experience teaching).
This showed me that working hard did increase my chance of success - so I carried this on independently as a teen.
I think my brothers were generally lazier - but probably studied more than my English husband did.

did it pay off? I am a middle earner, but had a lot of choice due to doing well academically. I appreciate what my parents did for me and we have a good relationship.

The GCSE attainment statistics by ethnicity/FSM etc. show some interesting patterns

www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/11-to-16-years-old/gcse-results-attainment-8-for-children-aged-14-to-16-key-stage-4/latest#by-ethnicity-and-gender

High value placed on education right from the start.
Lots of books and reading in the home.
Good teachers and interested parents who the child wants to please.
A desire to succeed and an understanding that playing football or being a YouTube star isn't going to cut it.

You are generalising 🙄🙄

I am assuming that most of the Asian and eastern European people you know are those who've come to the UK as immigrants, so you are seeing a fairly driven, achievement focused and hardworking subset of people from those places.

Some families are more driven than others I guess. If the parents have an internal voice saying "work hard, don't waste time, don't waste your opportunities" you'll often communicate that to your children (regardless of cultural background). I'm not an immigrant but many of my friends at school were (mostly 2nd gen) and it focused their minds watching their parents work their arses off day and night

I'd say it's less to do with race and more to do with who is seen as responsible for the education of the child, which also comes with the expectation of ownership.

In the UK, some children and families see it as entirely their responsibility to ensure they are educated and act accordingly. Some children and families see it as entirely the school's responsibility and act accordingly. Most children and families fall somewhere in the middle and have varying degrees of ownership over learning.

A lot of support from parents. Time spent revising/practising with them or hiring people to help. Hard working, ambitious parents with an expectation that their children will work hard and do well. In some cases fear, but certainly not in all. I know plenty of English parents who are similar, but a lot pretend they are laid back and that it all comes naturally to their gifted children.

Also to add : I’m Singaporean, I’m certainly lax with my DC because the U.K. is more flexible. There are so many ways for people to get additional qualifications, work up to a degree, even get on graduate schemes with a 2:1 from a ‘low ranked’ university. People with say performing arts degrees can go into good jobs.

If I was back home however you can GUARANTEE that I’d be a Tiger Mother 😂

This. It starts when you’re born, not when you’re about to take your GCSEs. It’s a cultural thing and it involves children having this concept of respect and obedience ingrained in them.

Don’t get me wrong, my family comes from a similar country and they were still very loving and allowed us to be kids too. I didn’t grow up in fear, so it is possible to do it without being this mean authoritative figure to your child.

But, they were very clear from as early as nursery - we were meant to work harder than they had done (difficult to beat that, I tell you!) so we could get better jobs and have a better quality of life.

Being an immigrant also has a big play in this. I’m Spanish born and bred so naturally a bit more chilled than my E European grandparents - but now I’ve emigrated myself I get it more. When you move somewhere else (not as an expat, but an economic migrant due to lack of opportunities in your home country) you put more pressure on yourself to perform well. That involves ‘beating’ the locals. Otherwise why bother, just stay home and be comfortably mediocre there. So there is even more of a reason to work hard when you’re an immigrant.

Read “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”. A classic. :-)

Frankly? Knowing the consequences of failure…. in countries where :

• There are no benefits


• Very few professional jobs enabling a good living


• Being kept out of said jobs without a good degree.

Well-off Asian migrants don’t need to do that, but they still pass the attitude on to their children.

It always makes me think of a boy I was at school with, I didn't know him well as he was quiet but he was friendly and always had great grades and high aspirations. He was the same at college, never came on nights out but would sit with our friend group at breaks and he was set to go to a very good university.

One of his friends told us later that his grades slipped in the first term at uni and he completed suicide.

I’ve worked in education in an Asian country and in that location at least I’d agree with the other posters - it is a totally different culture both in terms of the value placed on education and parenting. Fear and obligation built into the culture of filial piety.

having said that I was a very diligent student myself at school, but it was largely because I was terrified of failing and disappointing people. So different context but similar themes with upbringing really!!

This OP.
Also more awareness - of the children- of the reality around us and the impact of education. E.g. I was reading multiple newspapers from age 10 (when our country's revolution happened and we started getting a free press).
Also awareness of the reality of life in poorer / home countries (no UC, various benefits etc.)
My brother went (slightly) off the rails as a teenager for a couple of years but pulled up his socks in light of the above and still ended up a surgeon.

This. Or the ones that really resent their parents because of the parents’ horrible treatment of them when they “fail”.

It's just engrained. That kind of compliance and the way they see their parents, and their duty. Says ds1, who says all the Asian, Malaysian, dc at his school have always been like this, all the way through school since year 7, in fact even in primary, and very much so still at A'level stage.

Big culture thing. Kids are brought up differently and there are variations within those cultures too. I can only speak for polish culture I was brought up around but if you failed it was seen as a family failure. My mum wasn't my friend and she made that clear. I think some people see it as evil but it made me feel safe. As a society too, a kid who fails would be met with comments like 'who raised him' etc rather than they're just plain stupid.
As a country in general they also place much more value on academic achievement and achievement of the citizens. This doesn't translate to jobs necessarily lol. It is slowly changing though but in my day, failing would have you and your family marked as a Jeremy Kyle candidate so it was a mix of shame and authority.