tiger mother

Why not a “Tiger Mother” Nowadays, numerous parents connected their strict Asian-American parenting style with their children’s academic success, but is this narrow definition of success sufficient for raising an effective member in the society and have the parents pondered the consequences of this kind of parenting? “Tiger mother” refers to Amy Chua, a Chinese-American Yale law professor and author of the book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”. Her book documents her motherhood experiences has become a controversial subject that has been discussed ultimately in The Time Magasin under the title of “The Roar of the Tiger Mom” in 2011. “Tiger mom”’s method has intrigued American public opinion toward obvious anxiety related to the American identity crisis that affected various aspects, such as economic, political, and educational sectors.According to the article above, Amy Chua's authoritarian parenting manner was positively received by many western mothers. Although the Chinese “tiger mother's” method has triumphed in producing successful children compared to western mothers, this kind of parenting style can be counterproductive because the children would suffer from psychological troubles, reduced communication, and deficient creativity.

First of all, psychological troubles have been marked as one of the unfavorable consequences due to the “Tiger mother” style. According to the precedent article, various revelations of Amy Chau described what her children had submitted, especially, “ never accepting a grade lower than an A, insisting on hours of math and spelling drills and piano and violin practice each day (weekends and vacations included), not allowing playdates or sleepovers or teleplays”. Chua’s children were suffering an enormous pressure of satisfying their mother expectations under hard circumstances in consideration of verbal harassments and punishments. As consequence of these conditions, children can lose their self-esteem. Next, during our debate, various students from different cultures confirmed that vulnerable children under constant pressure caused by hours of concentration and hardworking could develop depression. Multiple psychologists have confirmed these results in consideration of the study of Qing Zhou, an assistant professor of psychology who led a research followed more than 250 Chinese-American immigrant families with first- to second-grade children in the San Francisco Bay Area for over two years, has attested that “We found that children whose parents use more authoritarian-type parenting strategies tend to develop more aggression, depression, anxiety, and social problems and have poorer social skills”.In other words, children are exposed to numerous psychological troubles which can cause their social isolation under the drastic pressure that strict parents impose. On the other hand, this category of children who are raised in a severe psychological environment compared to children who are raised in a supportive one have the ability to pass various challenges.

Secondly, another reason that makes tiger mother’s parenting style disadvantageous is reduced communication. At first, the initial article “The Roar of the Tiger Mom” shows that authoritarian parents do not offer numerous chances for their children to express themselves and their objectives because of their isolation and hours of loneliness. When more communication is implemented, parents can know more about their children’s personalities and characters in order to adjust their parenting style for the amelioration of their children. In addition, after our debate, we deduced that “permissive” parents encourage the communication between them and their children while authoritarian parents’ communication is resumed in orders and directions. David Brooks, American conservative cultural commentator, wrote in the New York Times in 2011, “Another problem is that Chua’s style of parenting resulted in a lot of lonely hours, because she didn’t allow her girls to go on playdates or sleepovers.” In other words, Keith Sawyer, writer of the book Group Genius about how to be more creative in collaborative group settings said, “This means the girls missed valuable developmental opportunities to learn social, conversational, and collaborative skills. And in today’s world, most creative work is done in collaborative teams, not by solitary individuals.”.In other words, the most important setting to raise successful adults, parents need to interact socially with them as children, and prepare them to collaborate effectively as member of society.

Finally, deficient creativity has been marked as one of the disadvantageous impacts resulted by the “tiger mother” style. Above all, Amy forced both Lulu and Sophie, her daughters, to practice for hours until they succeeded in completing their tasks perfectly. To illustrate: Lulu, her 7 years old daughter, practiced for hours until she learned to play the note, and when Sophia came second on multiplication speed test at her school, Chua ordered her to do 20 practice tests every night for a week without time limit. In these two cases, the repetition of the same exercises under these circumstances, young age and duration of the training, represented the children’s obedience to their parent’s orders, but this sort of training could be effective way to be creative if children understood it as mastering in their tasks and not just repeating them.Moreover, many students from different cultures and origins debated this previous point profoundly and inferred that tiger mother method to reinforce the burial of hidden talents because they do not allow their children to express their interests and communicate their ideas. Furthermore, Kevin D. Arnold, a psychologist and Board Certified in Cognitive & Behavioral Psychology, lined up that “ Tiger parenting falters in at least two ways. First, it promotes conformity over creativity.” Then he added “The price of conformity is the loss of creative potential” In his study “Is Being a Tiger Mom Really the Best Example of Good Parenting?”, these revelations identify that the “tiger mother”’s method favorises the conforme repetition of the original version rather than considering the new ideas of the children. However, were the authoritarian parents’ children guided to the real objective of the task’s repetition which is not just compelling what the children are asked to complete, the extensive practise could be the key of the creativity because creativity is a combination of the personal hard work and the interest in the subject. In conclusion, the article of “The Roar of the Tiger Mom”, the class debate, and the other research clearly indicate that “tiger mother” can be a counterproductive parenting style compared to the western parenting method in three significant points: psychological troubles, reduced communication, and deficient creativity. Successful children are a complicated combination of pressure and relaxation, hard work and communication, and imitation and innovation. Under this kind of complexity, neither tiger mother nor western parenting style are the perfect method to raise psychologically balanced and academically successful children. Even though “Tiger mother” has succeeded in many cases as a parenting style in consideration of acceptances in prestigious universities, the severity of this category of parenting is harmful in many ways. Children need parents who exchange with them emotions, knowledge, and experiences. On the other hand, parents desire excellent children at home, class, and in society. For these reasons, the relationship parent-child requires various adjustment to satisfy both sides. Parents should choose parenting styles that are suitable to the personalities of their children.