Or is this woman dead annoying? (Dragon Mother article in Sunday Times)

[ragged]

Amy Chua article in the Sunday Times -- I can't link to the ST version, but I think this Wall St. Journal piece is good-as identical.

I'm in 3 minds about it:

1. It's just one persons's perspective
2. It's a blatent brag fest
3. It's factually wrong and perhaps even defamatory in so many ways. If 25% of humanity are ethnic "Chinese", they can't all be high achievers, can they?

Related discussion here, too.

Do kids who are forced to play music as in this article play their instruments after they achieved grades?

Did you not read the end of teh article, how proud and happy the child was when sge finally mastered the piano piece?
She came away with the attitude that with hard work and determination you can succeed!

I read it in the Sunday Times and discussed it with the children. It was an interesting article and North London p[ rivate schools are littered with the Chinese mother. The one here was a Harvard law professor something in the article but a lot don't even work and simply devote their lives to pushing the children. The children do very well. We certainly came across a lot of them in music.

Our chidlren are very naturally musical and have been pushed or encouraged is a word I'd prefer to take grades and do well and they won't do as well as those who are doing 3 hours of practice a day. I agree with the poster above that most chldren can be encouraged to do well in plenty of things if the parental effort is put in.

Thankfully most English parents are too lazy to bother ( I certainly am) so that probably leads to a happier home life . I agree you might get more independence of thought the Western way.

Most normal children never want to do homework or music practice and probably not even go to school if not going were an option so therefore everyone of us every day takes decisions to make children do what they don't want. The issue is how far we go in that and when in fact someone mgiht break the law and become abusive. Was it this article where the lady said her husband's father had used a coat hanger on him to make him work?

iv'e certainly found it terribly helpful to have chidlren in private schools with lots of Asian parents (more Indian and pakistani than Chinese) as the ethose of the class is to work hard which makes it easier to persuade your own children making slightly mroe than the minimum effort might be sensible (I've very laid back chidlren who then tend to do okay later anyway perhaps because they're reasonably clever, were loved and are confident).

I think it was a very useful article for the ST to print.

I do not think we can always stand back and different culture, up to them. If you took your average English social worker and asked them about emotional abuse and when they take chidlren away from parents I bet they have often made a case to remoev a child who has come to the attention of SS for quite a few things this mother did. Whether that's correct or not is another matter.

I am trying to reconcile the fact that this woman's husband is Jed Rubenfeld who wrote The interpretation of Murder (best-selling fiction) and who apparently studied drama at Juilliard. Given that their children are never allowed to take part in a school play or complain about not being allowed to be in a play, you have to assume they won't be following in his footsteps! What is his input into their upbringing, I wonder?

So interesting and SO worrying. I look at the unhappy Oxbridge rejects and I really urge their parents NOT to wish they had been more dragonish. The whole person is more important than a crazily overdeveloped piece of them. And I also see that the US pre-publication details of the Tiger Mother book say the younger daughter rebelled... wh8ich is what has happened in all the Chinese families I know of. And what is the point in a place at Yale or Juillard if like any of my colleagues you are utterly haunted by misery about your failures, haunted because you are second to Dr D or promoted less quickly than Professor Y?

', how proud and happy the child was when sge finally mastered the piano piece?
She came away with the attitude that with hard work and determination you can succeed!'

Are you bonkers Katiestar! She is a DC, she wants to please her mother-and the relief that she gets her off her back must be immense! At 3 yrs old she was prepared to frighten her mother by not coming in out of the cold and that takes guts. Unfortunately she is completely reliant on the mother, and the father, although worried is too weak to stop the woman abusing. If that was me there would be hatred in my heart (complicated by love) and I would never forgive or forget. I would leave home at 18 and keep well away. I would make damn sure that my own children were loved unconditionally and it wasn't dependent on grades and performance. I wouldn't steal their childhood.

I couldn't understand why it had to be the piano and viola, what is wrong with the flute and harp?

I don't think that people have the slightest idea of the term 'average'. The average grade is C. She pushes her DCs to get As but if everyone was prepared to treat their DC like a performing animal the A would be the average, the exams would have to be harder and it would be more difficult to get the A!

It always astounds me that the majority of MN's DCs are above average when common sense tells me that most must have average DCs!

ah well now.

first - learning by rote is ok so long as you make it fun. it has its place.

the reason to make it fun - is that it is mor effective - when learning is fun, the child learns more, stays switched on.

teaching Chinese: there is a system of phonics called bupomofu which children learn to read alongside ideographs. then they drop them once they have the gist of odeographs - although there are myriad numbers of characters there are clues in each that can help you to work out the meaning (in the same way as we would work out the meaning of a work we didn't know from context and its component parts). It is possible to teach Chinese language using games - and this was the approach used in my school.

Chinese parents so far as i have encountered them have been every bit as loving as Uk ones. I think all the ones I worked with would view placing a child in the cold as a shocking thing to do - and agred that makinghework more entertaining and rearding them for success would be a better approach (possibly this is because the parents at my school had chosen this approach themselves)

The view often encountered on MN that education is somehow bad and damaging, and that encouragement of any kind to succeed is pressure i did not encounter, but no doubt it exists there too.

Chinese children are, strangely enough, often naughty, and do play video games. sometimes all weekend.

My brother worked in a Chinese Uiversity where people were doing projects on 'reverse engineering the F-15' and regularly handed donload-and-print esays in to him. the univentive approach certainly wasn't benefitting those undergraduates....

' US pre-publication details of the Tiger Mother book say the younger daughter rebelled... wh8ich is what has happened in all the Chinese families I know of'

Proof then Katiestar, I knew that she would, any 3 yr old who can stand up to her mother in that way isn't going to go under! The mother said that the problem was that DD2 was just like her and stubborn.

We all know the UK stats that no group of children of any race white, black or otherwise does as well as Chinese children in British schools. Presumably part of that is pushing at home. I suppose another explanation might simply be that they are genetically more clever but that is less likely to be so. There are also notable cases of rebellion but that doesn't prove that encouraging children is wrong as even non pushed chidlren go off the rails. However they do go too far in my view in this sort of a case.

Vanessa Mae is another one who is now estranged frmo her mother if you want examples but you would probably find many many more examples where that did not happen.

The writer ends her pice with poor immigrants work very hard. Their children then do very well as first generatino in host country - we see it all around us everwhere.She then fears next generation - the chidlren here - will be spoilt, entitled and take their wealth for granted. I don't think forcing them is the solution to the extent she has done here. The issue is getting the right balance with an intelligent approach to the psychology of the child.

Perhaps this is as much an article about immigrant cultures as it is about the Chinese. You move abroad to seek a better life. It's hard and you work very very hard and you don't want your children tainted by the laziness of those who are content and have been there for generations.

if you are going to comment try reading the damn thing first. Child was SEVEN not 3, big bloody difference.

Some of you have no ability to think outside of your very narrow viewpoints.

I would agree Xenia. Every DC need a bit of pushing, my parents were very pushy as were my grandparents and so I am I. We all want the best for our children.
But the important thing is to know how hard to push and when to stop and when to not push at all.
If a 3 yr old wants to make a noise with the piano keys you let them! You encourage but let them decide on their direction. If that child had had the urge to play the cello at 6 yrs their chances were nil!
The have to make their own decisions, you may want them to be a lawyer but they may want to be a fashion designer. If you try and mould them it will end in tears!
They need time to make friends, time to be bored and use their imagination, time to play sports, join Brownies, get muddy, help in the community etc etc
The psychology of the DC is very important, some will thrive with pushing, some will break and some will rebel.

I don't think that children owe their parents anything. I chose to have them, I love having them and the most important thing to me is their freedom to make their own way. I have already told them that they are not responsible for me when I am old.

Despite my own dislike of the Tiger Mother approach, I feel a bit dismayed by the ethnocentrism on display above - Asians can't think questioningly, etc. Really? Tell that to the martyrs of Tiananman Square, or the electonics whizzes of Japan. Just saying it may be, erm , a bit of a generalisation.

The child was THREE when she stood in the cold. Perhaps you ought to read it BuzzLightBeer, she was 7 when her mother insisted she played a particular piece that she couldn't manage.

nowhere in the linked to piece does it say that, And you clearly answered katiestars comments about the piano playing and talking about 3 year olds and music. Perhaps you should be clearer.

Some of the comments on here are actually quite offensive and straying well into racist territory.

I am not Chinese but Italian and noticed that the general culture in the UK is to be much much more relaxed with children. So you don't have to travel as far as China.

Children in Italy are pushed a lot harder, not just by the parents but generally by teachers too - not just academically but in music, sports, etc

I think there has to be a balance. The Dragon Mother approach is extreme, but I do genuinely believe that the other extreme is not good for kids too.

I do think children need SOME pushing or encouraging, for their own sake. I do think that pushing has become a swear word in this country now.

Her husband is so having it off with someone else...

I thought it was a bit of an odd article, because the mother was convinced that it was her pushiness that made them get A's (anyone can set rules like no playdates or no TV). But of course, she was highly intelligent herself, being a law professor and the husband was no slouch, and it's quite likely the children would have got A's even with a bit less pressure (not likely to have played the piano to that standard). Maternal IQ is going to play a large part in that, kind of weird to be very academic and then have academic kids and congratulate yourself! It's clear her rules wouldn't produce 'A' students in all children, and that's why she's not as clever as she makes out.

There's nothing wrong with talking objectively about what is best for children. I am sure we all want free speech and the right to say eg its wrong in Somalia that 80% of girls are subject to female genital mutliation. i don't care if the mothers want it or the girls get a husband if they've had it - it's objectively wrong as can be some things parents of all cultures do to push their children too hard (or too little).

It would be a sad day when people couldn't say I was more likely to feel pain because I've reddish hair and freckles or that women might be better at Z than men. Just because people find within their experience (as I have) that CHinese parents can be very forcefully pushy when they are immigrants in my own experience doesn't mean all such parents are but there are certain cultural norms it would be ridiculous PC to ignore about all of us.

I read the account in the Sunday Times,OP said that it was as good as identical so I didn't read the link.
I am not a person straying into racist territory.I am calling it child abuse and anyone who thinks that it is a good way to bring up children is asking for trouble and adult estrangement.

She's a bully. She condescends her DH "you take them to Yankees games, I deal with academia" as well as her kids. She might be producing little exam machines but I bet those children have barely any social skills. I never knew why the chinese students at my uni were mostly so socially awkward. This has been a bit of a revelation for me, I must admit.

You are calling another way of rearing children, which is culturally defined, child abuse, and you don't think you are on slightly dodgy ground?
I bet you wouldn't make such sweeping comments in a room full of chinese people in real life.

BLB, I understand what you are saying about the chinese child-rearing methods being culturally defined. However, there are many practices that are "culturally defined" which are at best a bit odd, at worst horrific. I don't think that saying that behaviours can't be challenged because they are culturally defined is helpful.

IMO threatening to put a kid out in the cold, whatever their age, is very dodgy.

Apologies. I have now read it. In the Sunday Times she had had success with the older child and the piano, so when the younger one was 3 yrs she sat her at the piano and tried the same thing, teaching some simple notes. The DC just wanted to bang a lot of notes together and make a noise. There was a battle of wills the mother was insisting she tried notes and so the DC wouldn't play at all and went into total meltdown. The mother said that if she wouldn't do as she was told she couldn't stay in the house. The DC wouldn't stop and so she opened the door and shoved her out. It happened to be mid winter, blizzard conditions and she had no coat. The mother said that she could come in if she played the notes. The 3 yr old looked her in the eye, teeth chattering and refused! The mother actually panicked! She worried about the cold and getting reported to the authorities. It was the mother who had to back down and let her in. The father pointed out that DD2 was not like DD1 and the approach might be wrong. The mother refused to listen. As she then cuddled up with DD2 and hot chocolate it was forgotten but she carried on getting her to play the piano. Are people seriously telling me that this was acceptable?

challenged, yes. Very specific bits about this particular women, maybe.
But sweeping comments about the entire thing, calling names and sneering,and the "all asian students are x or y"....very dodgy ground.

Well, I am hoping that she is an extreme case. I don't doubt that chinese parents are pushier as a rule than western parents but I hope they're not all as tyrannical as she is. She sounds like a fecking nightmare.