Meet Britain's Chinese Tiger Mums BBC 2 Now!

[sailorsgal]

I think I'm going to feel like a bad mother.

It's important to remember that your child is like a blank canvas - Yes general play is fun, but piano can be too, as can swimming, maths etc, they don't know any different when they are young. The extras only become a chore if it is not the norm from the start.

I found the programme really interesting.It didn't make me dislike the chinese, but rather admire the sheer drive of the mothers.The're are some faults in the push for academic excellence though.Many of the children in Hk/China grow up as only children that are very highly educated.They is no emphasis on social skills at all.Consequently they are not able to get on with people and often do not do well in international corporations, and as well as they should do advancing up the ladder.I'm speaking from being married to a Chinese man and having lived in Asia for many years.My dh had a very unhappy childhood and this has very drammatically colored the way he brings up his kids[the total opposite].His sisters -one of whom was totally brilliant never got to become a professor because of her social awkwardness.They had no toys growing up.They never had friends round for 'play dates'.Their childhood has emotionally stymied all of them-to the extent of making disastrous marriages, bad career choices [and bad parenting].In hk children past the age of 3 are expected to study all the time.Kumon is very common, as is tuition from 4 years old.Children are not encouraged to play [my dc's were the only one playing in chinese playgrounds as they were all working upstairs].Coupled with over anxious parenting -the children were not allowed to learn to crawl, as the ground was dirty!.I am keen to see how the next generation of chinese kids will grow up.But i don't have the greatest of faith that this generation will be equiped to make the best decisions.Especially as China looks likjely to be the worlds next super power.
Finally i don't think this style of parenting is exclusive to chinese parents-mine were very similar.Not to the same extremes however but we were definitely pushed.

teta Sorry to hear your DH had such an unhappy childhood but like you acknowledged, that is extreme. Like you said, there are 'white' parents who do the same and so on with the other races. However, I have to admit I do have a dilemma - on one hand, yes, I want my kids to enjoy their childhood but on the other hand, to excel at a particular calling be it music or sport or academia, does require dedication and groundwork from young. My DS1 is almost 4 and as yet, he doesn't 'do' any organised sports, music or studying outside of what we do at playgrounds and as a family. And yes, I do know a parent whose child does music and sport classes already at 5 years of age and interestingly, she is white British married to a very laidback Chinese guy! We joked after the programme yesterday she is more 'tiger mum' than me!

I am hoping that as he develops his personality even more in the next year or so, we can see what area we might like him to do some proper classes in. It's not so much I want him to be the next Tiger Woods or anything (we are a bit late for that as I believe Tiger Woods started playing golf at 3! ), but I believe there is value in them learning from young the discipline to keep at something for more than 5 minutes and it does wonders for their self-esteem to be good at something. Like CinnamonStix said, they are a blank canvas and you need to instill in them values from young.

Also, I have to admit the reason we haven't started him (and his brother!) on extra classes yet is because I am lazy and the thought of having to ferry them around for all that is putting me off so I do admire those mothers in the programme for their drive too.

teta Sorry to hear your DH had such an unhappy childhood but like you acknowledged, that is extreme. Like you said, there are 'white' parents who do the same and so on with the other races. However, I have to admit I do have a dilemma - on one hand, yes, I want my kids to enjoy their childhood but on the other hand, to excel at a particular calling be it music or sport or academia, does require dedication and groundwork from young. My DS1 is almost 4 and as yet, he doesn't 'do' any organised sports, music or studying outside of what we do at playgrounds and as a family. And yes, I do know a parent whose child does music and sport classes already at 5 years of age and interestingly, she is white British married to a very laidback Chinese guy! We joked after the programme yesterday she is more 'tiger mum' than me!

I am hoping that as he develops his personality even more in the next year or so, we can see what area we might like him to do some proper classes in. It's not so much I want him to be the next Tiger Woods or anything (we are a bit late for that as I believe Tiger Woods started playing golf at 3! ), but I believe there is value in them learning from young the discipline to keep at something for more than 5 minutes and it does wonders for their self-esteem to be good at something. Like CinnamonStix said, they are a blank canvas and you need to instill in them values from young.

Also, I have to admit the reason we haven't started him (and his brother!) on extra classes yet is because I am lazy and the thought of having to ferry them around for all that is putting me off so I do admire those mothers in the programme for their drive too.

Missed it. Thankfully. I am already aware of my general lackadaisicalness and inadequacy. Leave me some comfortable delusions please!

It was extreme, and I agree with FrankH, BUT, as someone who is currently battling the dc finishing school at 4, spending approx 7 mins on homework and then staring at a screen for five hours, I think a bit of Tigering is a damn good thing.

I was brought up in HK and like teta's DH very very pushy parents. I think a lot of the things they did can't be applied in britian. Social services would be called for a lot of methods my parents used to discipline us. We accepted it because it's the same as what our peers got. Getting a lashing with the feather duster was normal. I rememebered cousin got dragged out from a family meal for the feather duster because she tried to forced her mum to eat a peking duck parcel. Our naughty step was the balcony. I remembered my brother being locked out in the balcony for a whole evening for not doing homework. Also you don't get upset about no playdates because no one has them. Everyone went (and still goes) to those tutorial schools. I was striked everytime I went back how there are posters of the kind "Mr Chan, star teacher of biology from Eton College" all over town. My very much younger cousin (about 10 now), started going to those tutorial schools from preschool. I think it's actually Kumon. He also started some music beethoven thing from a very young age too.

It's a very different culture to grow up. I will not wish to push the same to my DD.

Oh just to add the lang lang story is true. What his father did was competely not acceptable in British culture. But chinese parents back home would say 'well done'.

Hully I think you hit a sore sport for many parents there. If you have not instilled discipline in your kids from young, you cannot moan when they are adults that they are not motivated to do anything etc. How is scheduling in 30 minutes a day to sit down to do something (homework or sport or practising an instrument) a BAD thing? I know some of the parents on the programme were doing 3 hours a day but hey, if they have the patience to do it, then fair play to them!

I think I'll check this out on iplayer... Sounds like good old fashioned car crash telly. Perhaps slightly uncomfortable for me as I've only just realised at the ripe old age of 25 that academics aren't everything. My parents weren't tiger types, but I missed out on Real Life because schoolwork was all that mattered. I wonder now if they would've even liked me if I hadn't been a naturally intelligent child. I already feel like they look down on my 4.6yo because she can't read like I could by age 3.

The closest I got to pushy this winter was giving her another Little Einsteins DVD in her stocking. She has since mastered a demonstration of a diminuendo on the piano all by herself though :o

If anything this show might confirm to my anxious brain that I am doing the right thing by attempting to bring up my DCs as happy and well rounded individuals.

Forgot to add that, not sure what the school system is like now. But when I was at school, both primaries and secondaries are streamed. There were entrance exams for primaries. Mums fondly tells us we can do carries in arithmatics and say simple english words before primary because it's needed for primary school entrance exams. And for secondaries, your catchment has schools of different bands (5 bands iirc). And if you score well you go to a band 1 school, and if you score badly band 5.

If britian has a school system like this, do you think middle class mums will push a lot harder?

yyyyyyyyyyyyy

of course

But they'd lie about it

of course

I think you are right fuzzpig. For all the work Matthew was doing, I don't think he was that far on. The sums on his Kumon sheet were things like 57 - 5; not exactly difficult for a child of nearly 7. His mum seemed to make him do a lot of work but that is not the same as making a lot of progress. And according to the timetable, he was going on till 9 pm, which is a rather late bedtime for a school night.

Frank, I honestly don't think this look at extreme and rather quirky examples could make anyone dislike Chinese people.

I thought that the children were achieving great things, it was sad just how scheduled their lives were was really, really sad. I expect that the programme only showed what the producers considered to be the "worst" excesses, of course. I think we could learn a lot from the Chinese way of doing things and they could probably learn a lot from our way of doing things and find the balance somewhere in the middle.
I was a bit about how well the girl played the piano but for the 6 year old having to learn those spellings.

Onelittle, there are streams by ability at both the local primaries near here - both where my DC go and where I work, they stream from right through from Reception to year 6.

Really interesting to get the input of Chinese people on this thread. I am not Chinese, but do live in Hong Kong. My observation, as an outsider, is that Chinese culture is very achievement/hard work orientated and parents are very invested in their children, of whom they generally only have 1 or 2 (even in HK where there was never a 1 child policy). However, I think the people in this programme are extreme examples of tiger momishness and shouldnt be seen as the norm.

A couple of people have already touched on the fact that China and HK don't have expansive welfare states like the UK. That's certainly one factor contributing to why people want their kids to be the winners academically.

I think there's also the fact that the present decade is seen as China's "time" economically. There are always going to be periods in a country's history when social mobility and wealth accumulation are easier than others. For China, the next couple of decades are likely to be something of a sweet spot in that respect. Particularly in mainland China, the growth of the middle classes/professional jobs will be very significant. Therefore, you can't really blame parents for wanting their children to be able to capitalise on that and not get left behind on the farm, or doing poorly paid manufacturing jobs.

I'm not saying that I agree that a life filled with structured activities is the ideal situation, but I can see why it's come about. One downside is that it does probably limit creative/imaginative play. One of the commonly cited barriers to China's world dominance is that they are not very good at inventing stuff- just making it. I guess we'll see if that changes going forward.

Please please accept if you are a parent who RESPECTS your DCs and wants to treat them as you would wish to be treated you ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING!!! Regardless of race.

That's how we bought up our own DCs who are now totally successful hard working adults; they are doing what they WANT to do.

I TOTALLY disagree that we are blank canvases when we are born we bring genes with us (our DS is a gifted musician and artist he has been since 2 or 3 yrs. no one pushed him BTW but we made sure he had the right help when he needed it) If yr DC is unhappy with a certain subject then you can't MAKE them good at it especially if there's dyslexia or similar

Also if EVERYONE goes to uni to do academic work there won't be enough jobs for them (I think in Asia there are too many doctors now!!).

I'm watching it now on iplayer, very sad that she was telling a 6 year old that level 2b maths was not good - assuming she means level 2b on the national curriculum, that is great for a 6 year old.
Feeling a bit [smug emoticon] that my youngest was a 2a at that age without all the stuff that her son has to do though. Not something to be proud of, the being smug I mean, it was just the way they were at that age, god only knows where their maths ability comes from it - it's not from me.

I agree about the blank canvasses as well, they are so not blank canvasses. My 3 are all very artistic, very musical, very good at maths and science. I was a completely the opposite at school IMO and never lived up to my parents' expectations whereas my 3 are all those children that, irritatingly for their peers, are good at whatever they set their mind to. They haven't inherited that from me! I can cope with the maths but not to the extent that they can whizz through it and I am not at all musical or artistic.

I agree that they aren't blank canvasses. Some is nature, some is nurture. I don't think it's a bad thing to teach children good study habits, self-discipline and the importance of routine though but there needs to be a balance with other activities and time doing "nothing". Creativity in particular requires a lot of daydreaming and allowing the mind to wander.

My two eldest sons have had Chinese/HK students sharing accommodation with them at uni and boarding school and their (admittedly limited) observations are that they have zero personality or appetite for fun and larks, only communicate with one another (not a language thing, but a social preference) barely leave their rooms, study ALL THE TIME to an insane degree, never party, and basically just live to work. They rarely fit in in mixed student digs because they find them too lively and not conducive to studying.

My kids on the other hand, are all rather more like Thompson's - I could not have forced enocuraged any of them to do their piano practice if I'd tried. (Did try, and failed) Hence none of them play the piano or are competent at a language or excel particularly at any sport. It's a mine of half-hearted mediocrity round our house.

Oh, but we do plenty of creativity and letting our minds wander. Mind-wandering is practicially our Specialist Subject.

ppeatfruit You aren't a gifted musician or a budding artist because of your genes; you might not have pushed your DC but you gave them the tools to learn. If you give a child a football instead of a paintbrush, I'm sure they'd prefer sport to painting. I think children (who do not have learning difficulties) reject certain things because of how it is thrusted upon them, clearly it's not been made fun or encouragement wasn't given. Obviously there are many other factors to it, I don't really want to digress to nature/nurture.

My cousin is 10 and she's been doing Kumon since 5 or something. It is incredible the kind of maths she can do; some of the stuff resembles GCSE Maths higher paper. Because she started young and it became a norm, she really enjoys it. She loves that she's smarter than the other kids at school and is already set on what she wants to do at Uni.

Thanks for all the considered responses to the programme. These would be so different on the male-dominated forums I am used to - not that the ones I visit most are discussing the programme, as I suspect most men wouldn't have watched it.

Yes, perhaps only racists would have had their dislike of Chinese increased by the programme, but IMHO the boundary between racists and non-racists is not clear-cut. Few people are irremediably racist but I suspect that no one is entirely immune to racist influences throughout their lives. It may be only too easy for dislike for the way individuals of a particular "race" behave, to turn into a blanket racist denigration of that race as a whole - such as the rock-singer Morrissey describing Chinese as a "sub-species" because he didn't like the way some people were mistreating animals in China.

Thus programmes such as the one we are discussing, with its biased production and editing, could have influences on particular people in their perception of people of another race - could indeed sow the seeds of racist dislike and hatred.

Incidentally, British mums need have no fear that the programme would make them feel inadequate - rather they could be left with a feeling of effortless superiority over these crazy Chinese tiger mothers. Is it a coincidence that the most sympathetic character portrayed was the white husband of one of the women?

I may be being over-sensitive, but if so, I hope you will forgive me in my circumstances, which I could detail if anyone is interested. Actually, I am culturally almost totally British, and regard myself as British of Chinese ethnicity. I think the UK is still an admirable country, and wouldn't prefer to live anywhere else. I believe that the British people in general are among the most civilised and tolerant in the world, but there is a large and significant minority who are highly xenophobic. This is not confined to the BNP types, but includes many who read such papers as the Daily Mail and Daily Express.