Article and Book on Chinese Parents

quote:

Originally posted by Danny Boydston:
2Bmom,

I think you hit nail on the head, the American always has been and always will be a "leader".
I believe it is just natural for us Americans to always take the leadership role regardless of books, brains or upbringing. We are LEADERS!

Danny, while this is historically true, how can we be leaders when all of our time is consumed by getting fatter and logging into facebook? Back in the 1960's, when I was growing up, I used to be shocked to see a fat person. Now, I'm shocked to see a THIN person and if we dare mention to someone they're FAT we're being politically incorrect.

You can't convince me there's not a correlation between getting fat and being lazy. There is. America has gotten lazy.

There are posters on here who are deluding themselves into thinking, well, these Asians may be "smarter" but oh well, they can't invent or lead.

They are not smarter than Americans. But one is a fool to think Asians are robots that can't invent or lead. Truth is, we've gotten so lazy we can't even think clearly.. believing we can't be surpassed by folks who must be learning by rote and strict upbringing.. who can't lead or invent.. blah blah blah. Waxing philosophically while ******* on our supersized pop and downing two burgers.

Any baseball team that doesn't respect the competition will ultimately fail.

I find this thread offensive. It should end a quick death.

We have a tendency to rely on our "superior" technology but the reality is that our lead on the rest of the world continues to get slimmer. Probably the only reason we've maintained a lead at all is that some of the brightest minds from those "non-creative" countries are in our country helping to develop our technology.

Geez must have done something wrong ! My 4 kids are all happy and reasonably successful ~
Yes the Chinese parents push for success but they have lots pf issues. My youngest daughter dates a very successful 6'4 tech guy who is brilliant. He does often talk about never being good enough for his Mom. He also has trust issues ! My daughter and he have similar interests so things are good but he had to learn to trust her. He and she are tech fanatics and just started a photography business on the side.
I had several good Chinese friends in college. They were high achievers as well ! Their parents send them here for the full 4 years and don't go home until they have succeeded !
I hired a nanny years ago who came from Singapore and was working for a Chinese family . She said she could never discipline the kids . I wanted her to be disciplinary which caused a real problem. My kids were running the house while my wife and I were out. Bags full of cookies for lunch etc. Trips t the candy store. I was shocked at how tyrannical they became. We had to let her go !
Personally I feel we did a great job with our kids. We were never pushy on academics but we were tough on parties etc.
We would not change a thing !!!

I am about halfway through the book. When you take away the cultural aspect of what the author is doing, what is left is an experiment in the 10,000 hours of practice as applied to school and music lessons. My husband and I both read the WSJ article the weekend it came out, and caused a lot of soul-searching here. LHP is a B student who struggles. We make all the excuses for him that the author cites. When he was a kid, we did not push him to work harder than the schoolwork required. His free time was filled with baseball, s****r, tennis, swimming, birthday parties. Would he be a better student now had we focused when he was younger? The irony is, now that he's at a high school with a year-round program, he has no free time -- it's schoolwork, baseball, SAT prep, community service hours, the gym.

Opposing view from a Chinese writer

from a child's pov

2 things:

-At my daughters school, Wellesley, her first year class is some 30% to 40% Asian.

-her sister who is a year older but who I held back for a late birthday (therefore same graduation year) was treated exactly the same in her softball. They were both all conference as Sophomores. The same "demands" were placed on them.. IOTW they were treated the exact same. One went on the be named all state as a junior and play for one of the two top travel programs in the state. The other basically quit the game when she got her DL at 16.

Moral of the story? Every child is different... all you can do is give your kids the opportunity to excel and demand that if they do anything that they give it 110%. In the end the responsibility to compete and be their best falls on THEIR shoulders. I have seen parents of talented kids beat themselves up over unrecognized potential. "I pushed them too hard" etc etc. I have seen just as many talented kids get nowhere b/c the parents didnt push at all.

In the end either the child is driven or they arent. It is their life and not yours. If you have given opportunity to them it is all you can do... rest easy.

quote:

In the USA on the other hand, we are being pablum fed multiculturalism and non-entity status. We have ventured into an education system that no longer praises the gifted child. No longer separates the gifted from the average to give them a chance to excell. We have developed a system that praises mediocrity and then wonder why we are mediocre.

I just caught this post above and as the parent of a valedictorian I couldn't agree more. Success makes someone else feel bad...