Tiger Mom: Are there alternatives?

Amy Chua, in her new book, unabashedly extols the Tiger Mother’s approach to parenting: ruthlessly insisting, demanding and controlling her children’s lives. Rules, expectations, and not sugarcoating criticism: that’s what really works. She explicitly rebukes the focus on “self-esteem” which, to her, is the unfortunate groupthink of modern life here in the West.

Frankly, I love the boldness, even for its deliberate provocations, and I’d love for your book to spark a useful conversation about good parenting.

Her big point is that parenting in a chaotic world is a job that requires mom to focus fiercely and unapologetically on actively leading her children, and that Chinese mothers have one advantage: they deploy the backbone and influence emotional conferred by a 5000 year old. -old culture – rising again. Tiger Mom’s clear duty is to demand that her children navigate excellently in a ruthless world they are moving through and also shaping.

In my work, I particularly notice two parenting styles here in the US, neither of which would meet with Ms. Chua’s approval. One style is being so busy and overwhelmed that parents are barely functioning in their shoes well enough to maintain middle-class respectability: career, chores, cash flow, and the endless fast-paced options. They are simply too busy, too exhausted, and too stressed to even try to minimally confront their children about “things” like cell phones, TV, video games, and the Internet, let alone attitude, disrespect, and questionable peers. They’d be offended if they were called neglectful, but they just wring their hands or cross their fingers in the hope that the kids don’t turn into what we’re all worried they’re becoming: shallow, selfish, unconscious, and unemployed.

The other kind of parenting style is to be the fully engaged “helicopter” parents who hover: pick up and drop off kids at school five days a week, fully choreograph extracurricular activities, care about friends, and also supervise the task. like the completion of any other homework and school projects. They are pseudo-tiger mom. They have the energy, but they are not as confident in insisting on sustained effort and achievement, and they do not want to be totally controlling, for fear of damaging the child’s self-esteem.

I should also add that either style can produce parents who think that “being there” for their child means being automatically and aggressively adversarial to the school if you dare to discipline or give your child a low grade, an unintended consequence is the continuing and diminishing “authority” of the school.

My biggest problem, and the focus of my parent training and consulting, is the absence of clear, sober parenting learning. Yes, some children need and thrive under the close supervision, direction, push, and constant involvement of parents. If that’s what they need and what helps them, that’s much more important than staying late at work.

Other children need more flexible kidneys and less pressure, not micromanagement-level control. But the parents of those kids still have to stay “on duty” – engaged, expecting, and therefore noticing if those floppy kidneys are getting results instead of being the cover for avoidance, underachievement, excuses, and the illusions The obvious point is that children need what they need, not what parents want them to need, which is only discovered by parents who are active learners. Children need the active participation of parents who send a strong message: we have expectations and we will be here with you for the long term.

Finally, one of the most important expectations that parents should have of their children is that they behave well. Misbehavior at age seven is No the sign of an artistic temperament or a free spirit. It is avoidance: rude, disruptive, not nice, not correct, and most importantly harmful to the child who is allowed to misbehave. There is plenty of time to develop individuality, later.

Acting out and sabotaging the school due to a lack of fictional self-control as the child “being different” is not only wrong, it’s ridiculous.

Aside from the clearly unrealistic and provocative things that Amy Chua advocates, having expectations and keeping them up is crucial. You don’t have to be a Tiger Mom, but your child needs to know that he can’t outlive you, he can only wear you down. Manners, cooperation and effort should not be negotiable; It’s not like you’re going to scream and yell; it’s that he won’t let go until reasonable expectations of him are met.

One of my favorite quotes is: “Good parenting is hard, bad parenting makes it even harder.”