<p>Are you guys typical Asian parents?
Do you force your kids to excel academically?</p>
<p>Let me start.
I have Asian parents, but they never ** forced ** me to excel academically.</p>
<p>What do you mean by force?</p>
<p>I had to lol at this! Are there Asian parents here?!!?!</p>
<p>Force for me is too strong, and academic excellence is not a certainty, as I’ve seen with D2 who doesn’t do well enough to make the top 10%ile. The advantage parents have with kids is that at a young age, the parent can greatly influence the environment the child experiences without necessarily forcing the child. So I gave them, at least the older two, a lot of math- and science oriented early youth. As elementary schoolers we did a lot of “amusement park physics” and things like mental math as we stood waiting in lines. We did many many math, science, and chess tournaments. The most drastic step was we discontinued network TV and we sometimes watched video cassettes, but never got hooked to daily couple-of-hour ritual in front of the screen.</p>
<p>Rather than focusing primarily on school grades, we spent time on activities that had synergy. All three were involved in chess from an early age and ended up starting a club at our library and attended and ran tournaments etc. When any of them showed more in-depth interest, we tried to accommodate it taking them to clubs with like minded kids, tournaments, spending time teaching them, buying equipment and supplies, etc.</p>
<p>By early HS, one had decided on a computer based career with a passion, the second leaned towards biological sciences, and the third has wanted to be a vet for the longest time. For the most part the kids themselves wanted to do well in the subjects they fancied, and for the subjects that we both felt were tertiary, such as art or history, neither party felt the need to aim for APs or invest extra effort for an A instead of working on something in the math/science arena.</p>
<p>So yes, there was the stereotypical emphasis on math and science as kids, less on overall grades, and not really by force.</p>
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<p>Very interesting… Thank you.</p>
<p>A great deal depends on how recently the family immigrated from another country to the US, in our experience. There are a TON of Asian families in HI and my kids have consistently noted that while education is an important value for nearly all Asian cultures, those who most recently came from their home countries often put more pressure on their children to succeed and excel academically. Of course, this is a gross generalization, and there are exceptions.</p>
<p>Uh oh. Here we go again.</p>
<p>OP, you might want to check for the thousand or so threads about Asian parents. It will save you time and save everyone else a little agita.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you referring to parenting modeled after Amy Chua?</p>
<p>[Why</a> Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html]Why”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html)</p>
<p>The Amy Chua model totally works.</p>
<p>
No it doesn’t.</p>
<p>As an Asian applicant, I really pity some of my fellow Asian applicants who had to go through the “Asian parenting business”.</p>
<p>Trust me, the admissions officers do ** not ** want another cookie-cutter Asian applicant!!!</p>
<ol>
<li>Sport: Swimming, tennis, badminton: FAIL</li>
<li>Instrument: Violin, Piano: FAIL</li>
<li>Drama: HELL NO</li>
<li>As many APs as you can: FAIL</li>
<li>SAT is the most important factor in the admissions game: FAIL</li>
<li>Community Service: Key Club, NHS: FAIL</li>
</ol>
<p>My parents were always different. They knew that if you are a cookie-cutter applicant, you will face more competition.
Let me analyze this Amy Chua business:</p>
<p>
Amy you fool… School plays are really eye-catching
Amy you fool… so many Asians play piano and violin it is ridiculous… Play something exotic will increase your chances
Amy you fool… The student HAS to choose his or her extracurricular activities!! More interesting on the app.
Cool, your generalization makes me sick.</p>
<p>As an experienced high school graduate who got into the top schools in the world, this is my advice to success:
- High SAT and SAT IIs (but don’t sweat on it, 2200+ is perfectly fine)
- Straight A’s
- Every instrument BUT piano and violin
- Don’t make your child go to orchestra if your child is Asian
- Never ever swim team!!
- You don’t really need 20+ APs you only need to have the most rigorous box checked
- Excelling in an exotic sport</p>
<p>The model worked for her daughter.</p>
<p>
It won’t. Trust me.</p>
<p>Did it?</p>
<p>[I</a> have the opposite problem with Chua. I believe shes coddling her children. Shes protecting them from the most intellectually demanding activities because she doesnt understand whats cognitively difficult and what isnt.](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/opinion/18brooks.html]I”>Opinion | Amy Chua Is a Wimp - The New York Times)</p>
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</p>
<p>LOL. It won’t?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>is a very different concept than</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you see the difference? Most people would not agree with your first post, while almost everyone would agree with your second.</p>
<p>I think there’s a lot of truth in #7.</p>
<p>As an aside, for some odd reason, I felt compelled to watch The Joy Luck Club last night (before I saw this thread) after not seeing it for almost ten years. Very, very powerful movie about what happens to Chinese-American children when their Chinese moms project all of their hopes and dreams on them, to the detriment of not allowing the girls to discover who they really are.</p>
<p>For those who believe in the Tigermom approach to parenting, theirs seems to be a very single/close minded approach. No point in trying to discuss. Its not open for discussion.</p>
<p>"The model worked for her daughter. "
Hello?? the MOM was ALREADY a PROFESSOR at YALE, for God’s sake. Don’t ya think that MIGHT have had something to do with where the D was accepted???
For NON IVY league legacy students, or for asian students who have no legitimate or UNUSUAL hooks, such as DA’s, or being a recruited athlete, the Tiger Asian Mom’s model is guaranteed to do one thing- make your child’s HS years something they wish to forget…</p>
<p>Agree 100% with HImom (#7). My Japanese grandparents immigrated to the U.S. as adults more than 100 years ago. My parents were not tiger parents, but still wanted me to do well in school. My mom was the only one in her family to attend college; same with my dad. My dad managed to get a Ph.D. and was Phi Beta Kappa. They never pressured me or my brother regarding ECs, acceptable majors, or careers. I was a sociology major and eventually went to law school. Married someone who is a blue collar worker and not a college grad; they objected to THAT.</p>
<p>DD is not an academic superstar; more like B+/A- in rigorous but not the most rigorous classes. Her ACT scores were abysmal/embarrassing, so now she is working with a tutor to get them out of the automatic reject category. I was born and raised in the U.S. in white suburbia, so I expect my kid to do her best or close to it, but recognize that she would have a nervous breakdown from the stress if I demanded straight As. She is not Ph.D. or MD material, and doing that type of work would not make her happy.</p>
<p>She is a kid with many strengths, and is off the charts in terms of Emotional/Social Quotient, so I know she will be successful in the work world. This summer, she is making $17/hour at a part-time job assisting with the internship program she participated in last summer and made $8.50/hour. She is pretty much guaranteed a paid internship next summer after she graduates from high school and I guess the one after that since I think it is multi-year.</p>
<p>DD played tennis thru middle school with the goal of beating her dad. She got pretty good from playing against boys, but she eventually had to drop the sport freshman year due to injuries and time constraints. Her arms are still so strong that she can do five or six pull-ups w/o practice. I think if she had her choice and the time, she would play boys’ lacrosse (more of a contact sport than girls’) or even rugby. (Mama shudders.) She was exposed to broomball in P.E., so if she has the opportunity in college, I think she would want to join a team.</p>
<p>But – As an Asian parent, I want focus on academics and may value athletics less than some non-Asian parents! OTOH, when she was in preschool, I noticed that she was more physically active than a lot of other kids (whose parents held or were working on Ph.D.s!), so I always tried to ensure that she had large muscle activity every day so she could focus later.</p>
<p>No musical instrument, but she has participated in choral singing since the age of 7. That is somewhat Asian, but she doesn’t want to be a soloist. She has toured with the choir in Europe, and this summer, she is singing in the chorus of a regional opera. I guess this is more team work than is <em>typically Asian</em>?</p>
<p>Doesn’t do Key Club, a bit too Asian for her, but last April decided to run for student body president – and won. Student Body President is her only formal leadership position, but it seems to be taking up a significant amount of her time and effort, from participating in the interviewing and hiring of a new Vice Principal, countless meetings with the Principal and staff, research, and working on new initiatives. She seems to be taking on a lot of tasks that I would think are within the purview of paid staff, but with a cash-strapped District and school, I am not altogether surprised.</p>
<p>Finally – DD will not be applying to any name brand USNWR school. For one, her stats are not competitive, and I don’t think she would enjoy being surrounded by hyper-competitive people. For her learning style, a LAC would be the best match, so I suppose pushing that type of school is not very Asian. We need good financial/merit aid, so the school where she ends up is likely to be one w/o many overachieving Asians.</p>
<p>Much as we might like to, we cannot exchange our parents. We may be able to broaden their views. My grandmother, for example, did not want my dad to attend college because she thought he would end up back on the farm due to the legal racial employment discrimination back in those days. Luckily, after WWII, there was a need for a highly educated workforce, so he was hired by a Fortune 500 employer after he got his Ph.D. and kept that job until he retired. I’m sure she was proud of him; I know the entire family held him in high esteem.</p>
<p>IMHO, the strength of Asian (immigrant) parenting is that their kids achieve their academic potential. Minds are most elastic when they are young, and concentration takes practice. I find it very sad and a societal waste when I see very bright kids fritter away their potential through laziness. I can only hope that they can get on track, but that is extremely difficult after years of seeking instant gratification.</p>