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

[examitis]

I'm not generalising here but, yeah I guess I am, based on speaking with some of my Asian and Russian friends, so am aware of how much their kids study for exams. Right through primary and now in early secondary.

Some started their revision after Christmas, others have been doing 10am-4pm stints over Easter hols preparing for end-of-year exams, on top of playing numerous instruments or sports or chess.

Before anyone says, 'poor kids, what about their social life and friends', the children I know who have a busy study schedule, all seem well adjusted. Maybe some do less sports than other kids but, on the whole, they're lovely.

A few of these kids are super bright thought most are like all the other kids in terms of ability, but they really seem to ace some of the tests (and get music exams) due to their incredible commitment and time spent revising.

Getting my kids to sit down for even an hour is like pulling teeth. One of mine is gifted but lazy!

I'd like to receive some advice on how to instill that drive and tips for how to structure revision and the after-school day. If at all possible.

Thanks.

@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.

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.

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!

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.

@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 :(

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.

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.

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 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!

@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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Fascinating thank you.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.