Tiger Mother, Tiger Children

A response to: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html

I've been meaning to respond to this article for quite some time now. As a child brought up under both a stringent regime consistent with Asian Culture as well as a more laid-back version that has been slightly saturated with Western values, I feel that neither camp is "right", in the sense that you cannot be too strict with education, nor can you be too lax. Both methods of upbringing taught me important life values that I had only come to realize in more recent years.

As a child, grades were important in the sense that your entire life, starting from Pre-school, was a form of preparation for college and beyond. I went to pre-school in Asia, and they were ranking kids by academic performance even at the age of 4 or 5. This sort of competitive environment was completely normal, whereas in America, the introduction of such fierce competition between peers might be seen as damaging to a child's development of confidence or self-esteem. In Asia, there are winners and there are losers. In America, everyone, it seems, is a winner (or at least when you are a child).

There are good and bad aspects of instilling the importance of "being on top". Obviously, in the real world, people are going to step all over you to get to the top of success, and it would make sense to prepare kids by having parents adopt a stricter control over their education. However, being strict means not going soft. At all times. You see your kid cry? You can't give in. I can't even count the times I cried in front of my parents because they were simply too strict. The idea that it's either success or nothing, has been drilled into my mind. I don't even know what the consequences of failure is; I just know I have to avoid it at all costs.

Which brings me to my next point. As I grew older, and life takes greater and more frequent unexpected turns, I have come to realize that failure is not only an inevitable part of life, but that if you don't experience it enough, it will actually hinder you as a person. A more lax style of parenting allows for a child to have that bit of wiggle room of experimenting, of risk taking, of learning how to fail. If you don't follow a strict policy, a child will be MORE prepared in the sense that they will learn how to deal with failure as it occurs in life. It's kind of strange, how you might actually be more prepared for life by being more accustomed to the idea that you will not always be the best in everything.

Yes, it is obviously important to have a child understand the importance of success, but you should not have that factor be the sole determinant of their self worth. What I have always admired about other people, that I can never find in myself, is how they deal with failure. If something in my life doesn't go as planned, I admit, the first thing I do is freak out. Even if I calculate everything to a t, there's always the possibility of something going wrong, either within or beyond my control. You cannot simply treat life like a math function: to plug in the numbers, run it through a formula, and expect a certain result each time. This is one of the lessons that a "Tiger Mother" style of parenting would not factor in. On the other hand, if I had not gone through a stricter view on education in the past, I don't think I would have developed such a strong work ethic, which is so ingrained in me that I will carry it with me even if I'm not under the watchful eyes of my parents.

The best style of parenting? First get your kids to understand the real, true meaning of being successful. If they can appreciate it without incentives (like rewards for good grades), then you can deviate and be more lax about the rules. Set the rules, then let them break as necessary.