<p>"Every single time that Chua (or any other parent) says to a kid you can’t do X (something the kid wants), because you have to do Y (something the parent wants) instead, the parent is showing that they don’t care. "</p>
<p>The key words here are ‘every single time’. It is funny, those responding to this particular point assume that the poster was saying that a parent should abrogate all responsibility, and that is ridiculous. Equating sticking a finger in a light socket or playing with matches to making choices, for example, like whether to play an instrument or not, whether to play sports or not is comparing what should be discretionary to what should be mandatory as a parent.</p>
<p>The lines at times obviously can be blurred, but most of the time it is defining a line between at a given age, where the kid can safely make choices, where you respect their wishes, and where you don’t. When my son was little, he loved to draw, and at times we caught him drawing on the walls, and we didn’t exactly say “that is okay, go ahead, we understand” we stopped him from doing it and made clear it was something they shouldn’t do, and unlike many parents, we also told him why, but if he wanted to spend hours drawing on paper or cutting out paper and gluing it or whatever, we on the contrary didn’t sit there and tell him “you can’t be doing that, you need to be doing X or Y”. </p>
<p>I also question the mentality that ‘parents always know better’ when it comes to everything, I find that fundamentally flawed. Yes, we hopefully have wisdom and experience of years (well, I hope so, I have met a lot of parents who seem to have aged but not gained much wisdom) in guiding them, but there is a difference between the iron hand setting everything and the person who sets boundaries on some things and guides the other.</p>
<p>Examples?</p>
<p>-Kid is having trouble in school, isn’t doing well. It would be a ridiculous parent who ignores something like that, didn’t try to find out what the problem was and rectify it, whether the kid isn’t focused, whether they have a learning disability, whatever. Given the importance of learning, of being able to learn, not working on this when it comes up is not a good thing. </p>
<p>-Kid wants to play an instrument, parent says “Why should we spend money on it, you’ll never be any good”. Really? First of all, how does the parent know, and how don’t you know until you try? Even if the kid is notorious for starting and not finishing things, maybe this will be the one that changes the pattern, you never know. </p>
<p>-14 year old girl wants to get a body piercing because her best friend did…might be a gray area for some, but given the nature of such things, I suspect most parents would tell her if it was important, she could wait until she was older…</p>
<p>-Kid wants to play little league baseball, parent thinks it is a waste of time (for whatever reason), etc… Kid showed an interest, why not?</p>
<p>When you rigidly control everything the kid does once they get past the very early years, you are telling them basically that they have no sense of self, and more importantly that they have no right to explore and find out there own things, and quite frankly how are they going to develop a sense of making choices for themselves, of facing the fact that choices have consequences, when we make them all for them? The approach Chua and her type take is basically that the kid is a total loser, that they know absolutely nothing about what is good or not, and therefore they have to control everything else there be disaster, and that is crap, and I suspect any therapist worth their salt would be as appalled at Chua et al as they would be at the parent who had no boundaries or control over their kids. </p>
<p>And the whole idea of ‘parent always knows best’ is bizarre to me, on top of everything else, I know damn well from how I was raised that what my parents knew and believed was best in some cases wasn’t best for me, some of which I regret quite bitterly as an adult (not questiong that they meant well, of course they did). What they couldn’t understand was I am a different person then they are, and what they wished for me might not be what I wished for myself. On the other hand, my parents gave me latitude with things and they allowed me to make choices and they also allowed me at times to fall flat. Put it this way, a kid when they learn to walk , despite all the precautions we take, often fall down and sometimes get bumps and bruises, and that pattern goes on as we go through life, albeit in different forms.</p>
<p>One of the most valuable lessons is the lesson in learning how to take adversity and failure, how to pull yourself up because the parents allowed you to do that. What happens to the kid whose parent steered them into everything they ever did, sat on them to do everything to a high level, decided pretty much the whole course of their life through college, and then when they are on their own and face a situation, for example work, where they have to make choices, like, for example, to take another job or not, they make the choice, and it doesn’t work out…will they be able to handle it, or will they collapse like a house of cards? Will they have the courage in a situation that demands action to do something where the outcome isn’t known, where it could be dangerous or <em>gasp</em> they might even fail, or do they shy away from that?</p>
<p>What would be particularly interesting is to see if with kids like Amy Chua’s kids, what percentage of them ever become entrepeneurs, willing to take a gamble on things, risk takers, etc? I would be willing to speculate that a very high percentage of kids raised like this won’t have the self confidence to jump out on a limb like this, whether it be at work or as an entrepeneur. </p>
<p>Based on my own experience over the years, I have met people whose childhoods were like this, and I can tell you that many of them were people who in their work life were known for hanging back, who when meetings happened or when decisions had to be made, shied away from stepping up and disagreeing with what was being said if they felt it was wrong, who were afraid to trust their own instincts and take that leap…how can you gain self confidence in your own decision making when you were never allowed to make any real choices? Sorry, choosing between the violin or piano is not a choice nor are other ‘choices’ on this path, since the choices themselves are proscribed (reminds me of an election in a communist country where there are 2 slots and 2 candidates, and you can choose which candidate gets which slot, but the 2 slots are identical). </p>
<p>I also have seen this in music with the kids whose parents were just like Chua, who guided the whole thing, pushed them, they got into high level music schools, and then got out there in the ‘real world’ and really hit a brick wall, because they didn’t really know what to do or make decisions (and in music these days, even with soloists, there isn’t the nanny state that once existed).</p>