Tiger Mum

In recent year, a book “Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom” written by Amy Chu have arouse public attention. It evoked general public’s vivid discussion about choose the Chinese or Western parenting way. Tiger Mom is denote to the aggressive moms, albeit originally it referred to Chinese mothers, since those parents succeed in raising extraordinary academic achievers' children. Tiger mum boost her offspring to be the best. She put all the effort to her son or daughter. Taking Amy Chu as an example, she is a typically “tiger mum”. She has two daughters who both are outstanding at academic and instruments. Chu (2011) claim that the main reason of her daughters having various achievements as she choosing Chinese parenting ways to raise her offspring. However, Chinese parenting way also exist several drawbacks. A Tiger mum does not equal a better future of child

Firstly, the most obvious disadvantage is damaging the child’s self-esteem. In Chinese parenting, parent tends to employ punishment than admiring. For instance, when the children got B at examination, Western family will give the child a lot of encourage and tolerance .On the other hand, Chinese family will penalize her sons or daughters, as they think the child must not work hard enough. Those parents may shame their child or call them useless or garbage (Chua, 2011). It would directly affect children psychological growth. If children always take punishment without praise or appreciation, they would have low self-esteem. They will not have motivation to improve because their parent have ridiculously high standard. Whenever they do a great job, they also think that is their responsibility. “The more conflict and less cohesion in a teen's family, the more likely they were to have poor mental health.” (Pappas, 2012, Para 5). Finally, the children not only do not have high achievement but also low self-identification.

Secondly, another shortcoming of tiger mum’s parenting way is restricting the teenager own critical thinking and creativity. Those adolescent only follow their parent order and desire from their young generation. Due to the parent ponder the younger are not mature enough to decide a right path (Peg Streep, 2009). Hence, their parents would arrange a very dense schedule for their children to observe. As time goes by, the juvenile will become as a machine or robot because they do not have critical thinking and creativity in their daily. They are not allow to choose their own choices. Everything must obey by their tiger parents. As a result, their children could not individually determine and propose new ideas. When they growth up, they cannot easily be promoted to higher position as they not well-equipped in this area.

Moreover, it is no exaggeration to issue that the adolescent who raising by Chinese parenting is lacking social skills, those adolescent have required fulfilling the schedule designed by their parent’s. According to Amy Chu (2011), she has very strict parenting to raise her daughter. She does not permit her daughters to have their liberal leisure time to watch television or play computer games, even does not allow them to participate in redundant extracurricular activities instead of playing violin or piano. Her daughter can hardly to meet their friends and play together. Also, she commands her offspring to maintain outstanding academic result. Every test and examination grade is greater than A. Those children do not have any spare time to chat and play with friends. They cannot practice their social skills such as conversation skills, social perception skills and emotional control skills. It is vital for them to work in the future as it could affect the relationship between you and your supervisor or colleague (Lee, 2000). It is truthfully to say that without social skills would not have a great prospect

Tiger mum expect their children to have great academic result to enter famous college. Nevertheless, in Tiger mum parenting way cause the children to become low self-esteem, stereotyped and lack of social skills. In the child grow up period, it is very important for them to cultivate these vital factors. In current years, Andy Leung, a Chinese University Of Hong Kong master had an outstanding academic result, but he was absolutely failed in his social skill. He also cannot find a job after interview more than 200 times. It proof that Tiger mum’s parenting way does not mean that the children can have brightened future.

Parents have responsibilities that are unique to parenthood, providing guidance and discipline for their teenagers. But they also gave a responsibility to respect their teens and treat them as persons having equal human worth and dignity. As the old saying goes that “all children are gifted”, parents should give more support and encourage for their offspring instead of pushing highly expectation on their child. It only makes the case worse and worse. It is a golden opportunity for parents to think twice how to up bring their child is the best.

Reference List:
“Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom” ,Amy Chu, Penguin Press, 2011
“Nurturing Success: Successful women of color and their daughters”, Essie E. Lee, 2000
“Mean Mothers”, Peg Streep, 2009
“Study: 'Tiger Parenting' Tough on Kids”, Stephanie Pappas, 2012 http://www.livescience.com/18023-tiger-parenting-tough-kids.html