Tiger Parenting is Not Good for Children
The education of children is undoubtedly one of the most important tasks of parents because excellent education could make kids more successful in the future. But in the meantime, the methods of educating younger generation are extremely different in eastern and western society. Some Chinese parents use somewhat extreme parenting methods. From my personal experience, a substantial amount of my friends have experienced it when they were young. Sometimes much harsher actions are used by Chinese parents like taking away their loved stuffed animals and throwing them away and even physical punishment as described in the book The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that all Chinese parents are "Tiger Mothers", a strict or demanding mother who pushes her children to high levels of achievement of their expectations, it is worth noting the result of a study conducted by Hongyu Wang, University of Macau. It suggests that "Only slightly more than 10 percent of parents adopt authoritarian parenting or neglectful parenting in China" (Wang). Some Chinese or Chinese American parents exercise this harsh parenting method because they genuinely believe that it is the most efficient way to educate their kids. What they fail to recognize is that the tiger parenting does not work for everyone, and even if it does, it comes with numerous downsides as well.
Amy Chua is an American born Chinese, who is the author of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and a professor of law school at Yale University. An article of an excerpt of The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was published on Wall Street Journal called "Why Chinese Mother Are Superior" (Amy) in which Amy talked about her tiger parenting method with pride in which she believes her parenting style leads children to success based on the fact that her daughters have gone to top universities and received dozens of awards. Since she brought the issue of the tiger parenting method to the public, it is important for people to explore this issue deeper and examine more the factual and logical aspects of what this type of parenting method brings and what it fails to achieve. Thetiger parenting method is not effective for everyone, and is bad for kids' mental health; more importantly, parents that use the tiger parenting are not caring for their children, and sometimes they use it just because parenting methodsare inherited through generations. There are limits of the tiger parenting that make it not omnipotent and superior as Amy Chua describes in her article; that is why it is not a great parenting method that should be used extensively on kids.
The tiger parenting is not superior because it is not effective for anyone. Parents who use this method raise kids like producing products on an assembly line. All it does is raise all the kids the same way, with one main standard-academic excellence; it cares about nothing else. tiger mothers are the representative of authoritarian parents, who seek absolute obedience from kids and exert their will on them. At the beginning of the article, Amy listed ten things with a proud tone that her daughters were never allowed to do, not to get straight As, watch TV and play games, be in a school play, attend a sleepover, or even choose their extracurricular activities. From those rules, it could be easily interpreted that this parenting method excludes anything that is not related to learning and getting good grades from children's childhood. It may seem that at least it guarantees that kids can get good grades, but the truth denies it. In aneight-year longitudinal study of Chinese American families in Northern California conducted by Dr. Kim, the result shows that "compared to children of supportive parents, children of tiger parents had lower school-reported GPAs in middle school (3.3 vs. 3.5-3.6) and high school (3.01-3.1 vs. 3.3-3.4), and lower educational attainment as emerging adults"(Kim). And she also points out that, "children of supportive parents showed the best developmental outcomes in multiple domains and across time periods"(Kim). According to DR. Kim S.Y, overly strict parenting method does not possess the effectiveness that people think it has. However, both of Amy's daughters are successful and that they all went to top ivy league universities, and younger daughter Sophia had played piano at Carnegie Hall when she was 14. The only conclusion can be drawn here is that the strict disciplines that Amy poses on her daughters have positive effects on these two areas, but it is just an individual case, and people should not assume the tiger parenting works for every child. Some of her points in the article make sense, for example, "To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences." (Amy) The parenting matches the human nature of kids and indeed it is crucial to override some of the kids' preferences, but the degree needs to be controlled. Making a kid play piano even she wants to watch TV is correct if it is done properly, but if the time of forced learning is prolonged to a degree where all the fun of childhood is taken away, it is not healthy anymore. Since the tiger parenting does not work on a majority of people, this method is probably not superior.
Not only that the tiger parenting does not work as people expected, but also it has serious adverse effects on children that mainly reflect as metal health issues. Parents care about their kids' well-being because nothing could be achieved by kids that are not mentally healthy. The tiger parenting or authoritarian parenting is not good for children's mental health. Amy told a story about her calling her daughter "Garbage" in front of other friends of hers. She told the story to illustrate a point that Chinese mothers could do things that western parents could not. She also stated that she has been called "Garbage" when she was young, and she claims that has no effect on her. But, again, this is just an individual case, where there are no known psychological issues of her daughters to public knowledge at this moment. She then talked about that western parent care too much about their kids' self-esteem and individuality, where Chinese parents do not. First of all, as I mentioned at the beginning, most Chinese parents have already changed their parenting method, the ones that exercise the tiger parenting including herself are the only ones that do not care about children's self-esteem. Because the tiger parenting does not care about self-esteem, a study shows that using the post-hoc test to analyze the questionnaires on different categories of mental health, and it shows that children reared by authoritative parenting style had higher self-esteem and better mental health than children reared by authoritarian parenting style( Niaraki et al.). Authoritative parenting is different from authoritarian parenting, in which authoritative parents are more issue-oriented, and they adjust expectations for their children rather than using an absolute standard. They are also strict with kids, but they never force their kids to do things purely out of parents' will, but rather actually listening and discussing issues with kids and treating them respectfully. So, children reared by authoritative parents are more likely to have better mental health. A study named "Family functioning and suicidal ideation/ behavior in adolescents" (van Renen et. al) gathers information from a large number of young adolescents (age 15-24), and suggests that high levels of psychological control from both parents significantly increase the suicidal ideation in adolescents. The similar result is drawn from dozens of studies conducted by different people with different sample population. It was even reported as a news article on "The independent" called "Psychologically controlling parents 'damage children for life'" (Cooper), which says that a large-scale research done by experts in the University of London of 5000 participants are followed since their birth of 1946, and it have confirmed that authoritarian parents' overly harsh control on kids will result in long-term mental trauma with similar effects on children as bereavement. With all of these evidence, it is an undeniable trend that what the tiger parenting is bad for children's mental health. Using the tiger parenting method on children to in hope they could get a higher grade is not worth sacrificing kids' healthy mental state. Considering the flaws that the tiger parenting may have on children, it should not evenbe allowed to use.
A lot of people still use the tiger parenting even they know that is not an optimal parenting method. Asian tiger parents who use extremely physiological controlling and manipulative method in parenting is not doing what they say is the best for children rather they are doing it because they want to acquire approval from other people; in some degrees, the achievement of their kids fulfills their vanity. A recent study by Ng and colleagues (2014) shows that Chinese parents' self-esteem tightly associated with their children's achievements, "and that explains their heightened tendency to hinge their self-worth on their children's performance and their vulnerability to engage in a detrimental, psychologically controlling style of interacting with their children" (Wuyts, D., et al.). It is true, sometimes that social pressure is huge and raising a successful kid seem to be a way to respond to that pressure. The study also suggests that when parents have unfulfilled dreams, they tend to pressure their children so they could make those dreams come true. This phenomenon is common, because I have heard parents told their sons and daughter that they want them to be a doctor or achieve something, but the difference is that the tiger parenting forces the kids to choose that path rather than letting themselves decide. In the article, Amy says how she forces her daughter to learn different instruments, but it could fall into the category that she just wants her daughter to fulfill her dream of performing an instrument at a world-class level. Sometimes, the parenting method is inherited in a family. As it says in the article, the reason that she calls her daughter "garbage" is because she was called that way when she was young by her parents. Amy may genuinely not realize that the effect of her childhood and her parents' parenting method is affecting her, but it is there. The tendency of establishing self-esteem based on the success of kids and the phenomenal that parenting method is inherited both exist, and parents who are falling into these categories need to be aware and examine themselves to see if the tiger parenting is necessary and purely for the sake of the kids.
The tiger parenting has yielded to some positive results for daughters of Amy Chua, but according to different studies, it does not have positive results on academic performance on most children. The effect of the tiger parenting on children's mental health should be heavily considered before deciding whether to employthe tiger parenting onkids or not. Lastly, the tiger parenting is sometime used by parents to pressure their dreams on kids. Parents need to stop thinking selfishly and consider more for the kids. The best alternative parenting method would be authoritative parenting, which respects children more comparing to authoritarian parenting, but it will not spoil kids like easy gong parenting method. In conclusion, the tiger parenting is not superior and is not a good parenting method that parents should use.
Work Cited
Chua, Amy. "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." The Wall Street Journal. Penguin Press, 8 Jan. 2011. Web. 7 Apr. 2016.
Cooper, Charlie. "Psychologically Controlling Parents 'Damage Children for Life'." The Independent 2015. Web.7 Apr. 2016.
Kim, Su Yeong. "Defining Tiger Parenting in Chinese Americans." Human Development 56.4 (2013): 217-22. Web.7 Apr. 2016.
Niaraki, FahimehRezai, and Hassan Rahimi. "The Impact of Authoritative, Permissive and Authoritarian Behavior of Parents on Self-Concept, Psychological Health and Life Quality." European Online Journal of Natural and Social Sciences 2.1 (2013): 78. Web.7 Apr. 2016.
van Renen, Lindsay J., and Lauren G. Wild. "Family Functioning and Suicidal ideation/behaviour in Adolescents: A Pilot Study." Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health20.2 (2008): 111-21. Web.7 Apr. 2016.
Wang, Hongyu. "The Relationship between Parenting Styles and Academic and Behavioral Adjustment among Urban Chinese Adolescents." Chinese Sociological Review 46.4 (2014): 19-40. Web.7 Apr. 2016.
Wuyts, D., et al. "Social Pressure and Unfulfilled Dreams among Chinese and Belgian Parents: Two Roads to Controlling Parenting Via Child-Invested Contingent Self-Esteem." JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY 46.9 (2015): 1150-68. Web.7 Apr. 2016.