Our responsibility as parents

Parent Cafe
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<p>One of the hilarious aspects of these threads is that practically everyone is a super-successful parent when their children are the age of IP’s kid. Everything works, and parent and child are completely on the same page. The parent absolutely knows what the child wants and – guess what! – it just happens to be almost exactly what the parent wanted the child to want! What luck!</p>

<p>Hey, I was there once upon a time, too. I don’t know if I was ever as smug as IP, but I’m sure I registered pretty high on the smugometer. I was a molder of men and women! My children were acing every test! They were little supermen!</p>

<p>Then, of course, reality caught up with all of us. As it does with most parents, including Asian parents, too. I don’t know that I take parenting advice from the parents of middle schoolers, no matter how accomplished.</p>

<p>Also, Mr. Reading-the-Numbers:</p>

<p>Asian kids are overrepresented at elite universities? Really? And admissions staff do that because they know how great they are?</p>

<p>Overrepresented compared to what? To their incidence in a population that by and large doesn’t care about elite universities? Or to their incidence in the applicant pool? I’m sure the percentage of Asian-something students at elite universities reflects the rate at which they apply to those universities more than anything else. The percentage of those applying who get picked – that’s the figure that everyone is always complaining about, the one admissions staffs control, and there it looks like Asian applicants somehow come across as WORSE than average, because they DON’T get accepted at the same rate as everyone else.</p>

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<p>People always get upset when I refer to numbers that contradict preconceptions. <sigh></sigh></p>

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<p>I would love to see the stats on this. Published, of course. Seems like you have the stats JHS. That is awesome. In the past, I was told that Universities do not publish these stats and hence no one knows.</p>

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<p>If the doctors, lawyers, and engineers are all gone, I doubt there will be enough money in the economy to hire plumbers. People will go to the DIY route. At the minimum, salaries for plumbers will get depressed. Be careful what you wish for. Globalization ruthlessly normalizes wages across countries and right now US professionals get paid far more than the open market global rate, and even adjusting for skill levels and impact. It is not sustainable. It happened to the blue collar manufacturing labor and was largely ignored by the professional class. Now the displacement is slowly creeping up. And without big earners and taxpayers, who is going to pay for SS and Medicare, or pay off the national debt? Income inequality always spirals out of control under globalization. The old days of middle class life with hardly any effort may be gone. Question is, are you still stuck in the past or are you educating your kids about the realities of the coming future when they may have to take a drastically different path than the one taken by generations before them?</p>

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<p>I was going to say that plus that almost everyone thinks their kid is a genius at that age. Wait til high school or college.</p>

<p>Regarding parenting style, I came up with the following bus riding analogy to college admissions.</p>

<p>In country A, everyone at the bus stop can get on a bus. In country B, only 15% percent of people at the bus stop can. So, they do anything to get to the bus stop sooner. When people from country B come to country A, they do their home country thing - they get to the bus stop sooner and fight for the best seats on the bus. “What are you guys doing?! There are plenty of seats to get to your destination,” someone would say.</p>

<p>They say that globalization makes the next bus stops packed and they better fight on to the bus now.</p>

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<p>Checking in as one of the higher posters noted above. Pls understand I had a “dog in the race” about med school and comms skills- as I am affiliated with a med school (some of) your kids would love to attend. </p>

<p>Oldfort and others: I liked aspects of Chua’s book, though I felt some things were unjustifiably harsh. Since my kids were in K, I disagreed with the idea that parents should stand back (vis-a-vis homework, practice, etc) and let kids sink or swim on their own (more nicely put: explore their interests, strengths and ability to accomplish things on their own.) Why? Because they are kids. They don’t know why it’s important to understand others’ expectations, to learn to commit, set goals and work toward them and learn to love giving that extra 10% (note I say 10%, not surrender.)<br>
But, I absolutely respected their “kid needs” - and plenty of it. Including making plenty of mistakes, sometimes delighting in unexpected treats or last minute adventures even if it meant not practicing the violin that day, letting them occasionally call the shots, and on and on. I’ll include the need for age-appropriate goals that they could reach, in order to feel pride. I suspect many here did the same. It’s balance. Way different than execting X hours of focus on something, devotion to coaching, etc. Definitely different than making affection and approval hinge on performance.</p>

<p>At a certain point, we have to be commited enough to THEM to allow for their own interests, styles, preferences AND let them try to fly on their own, learn from their own wins and losses. At the same time, with two home this summer, darned straight I still wore my Mom hat. I’ll skip the details of their successes and ups-and-downs. But, as I see it, I have 2-3 years left to ensure my babies have some life skills, a sense of love, security and acceptance in their family- and things in-between. NOT direct them, NOT instill in them my interests and standards, but make sure they are grounded, can make decisions and face life’s pressures. And come up with their own definitions for happiness and success.</p>

<p>One thing DH and I have tried to ensure our kids can identify is: when they are thinking rationally versus what I call, “I think it so it must be true.” If it’s aggravating to see this in some hs and college CC kids, it’s also aggravating to see it in adults. Often, as someone noted, the poster arguing the hardest about some point will admit he hadn’t considered this or that angle, would think about it, etc. When instead it’s robotic “bat back” or “But I know” or “You people…,” or the like- it’s not fun.</p>

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<p>I am guessing that the overall suicide rate mentioned above is collapsed data across all age groups.</p>

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You are completely misreading the tables I linked. They look at the percent of suicides relative to the total number of deaths by age group, not the total number of teens. It is looking at mortality numbers only, in a mortality table from THIS CDC link on mortality rates <a href=“NCHS - 404 Error - Resource Not Available”>NCHS - 404 Error - Resource Not Available. Has nada to do with total population numbers. Apology accepted.</p>

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<p>No, people do that when you are insulting and condescending to people discussing simple statistics, and then you go out and defend propositions that the numbers don’t support at all. In this case, not only do the numbers not “contradict preconceptions”, they are the very source of those preconceptions – that far from being endorsed by Ivy admissions staffs, Asian applicants face discrimination and rejection.</p>

<p>Re the gap between Asian applications and Asian acceptances, I certainly don’t have the data, but Espenshade and Radford had a data set reflecting applications about 15 years ago at a pool of elite institutions, and it showed that Asians overall represented 22% of applicants (as high as 33% at some of the colleges) and about 15-18% of the admitted students (not as high as 20% anywhere). Thomas Espenshade’s many articles are the source of much grousing – which may well be justified – about discrimination against Asian college applicants.</p>

<p>I get that your argument was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But you are trying to avoid facing the facts, too. You can argue, like many others, that these data reflect discrimination against qualified Asian applicants. Or you can consider the possibility that Asian childrearing patterns, diverse as they are, in aggregate produce many attractive admissions candidates, but fewer than expected.</p>

<p>I don’t think middle-class whites come off any better on that score, either.</p>

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<p>I can’t help explain it any better to you JYM. Talk to woody. But ponder one thing. Let’s say there was only 1 Asian teen out of millions who died, and the death was from suicide. The cause of death for Asian teens is then 100% suicide, which you consider to be very sad. But the rate of death of Asian teens from suicide is super low as well, which you ignore. This is what happens when statistics get misinterpreted. But we are talking past each other now.</p>

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<p>You are mixing apples and oranges, IP. And yes, I consider suicide, especially high rates, very sad. So did the folks at Cornell when reporting the stats on their campus, as Robyrm noted. I hope you consider suicide sad too. Thats a pretty normal feeling.</p>

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<p>btw- good analogy, lake42.</p>

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<p>I’m a firm believer of let-kids-be-kids and should have fun.
I’m for studying smart instead of studying hard.
Children should pick a subject of their passion. Life will be better if a person is a good HS English teacher than a bad doctor or an engineer.</p>

<p>I think as a parent we should first concentrate on raising a good human. Children who have ethics, morals, who are liberals and free from orthodox views.
Parent should provide a good environment which is liberal, open, nurturing, and filled with good education. Children should choose their passion and should be allowed to follow it. Children education should be the responsibility of the parent and should not be pushed under debt for getting it.</p>

<p>I’ve come across engineers/doctors/Phd in sciences from top universities who refuse to eat food at some one house just because the person cooks meat at home or not from the belief or some other blind faith issue.</p>

<p>What’s the use of such STEM education? I would prefer to raise children in Liberal Arts major who have more liberal view of the life than an orthodox STEM major.</p>

<p>To me there is a difference between being literate and being educated.</p>

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<p>Problem is, the rate of suicide for Asians is the lowest in the country. That for non-Hispanic Whites is double that of Asians.</p>

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<p>^^^
Hallelujah! Just when this thread was getting boring and repetitive, the answer to my prayers!</p>

<p>Wait, maybe I should rephrase that.</p>

<p>Edit:
Damn, I think it’s impossible to post faster than IP. This was directed one post above.</p>

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<p>I think as parents ( to go back to OP) we have a responsibility to try and teach our children resilience & flexibility.
To get back up when they fall down & to have a belief in the greater good/ or higher power or whatever way they want to explain it.</p>

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<p>Happily, there are people who are actually trying to use science to understand the predisposition of certain subsets of a population to certain behaviors. The notion of ‘maladaptive perfectionism’ as a predictor of poorer overall outcomes has been discussed for several years.</p>

<p>There is weighty evidence out of Asia of the frightening incidence of suicide in adolescent populations in Korea and Japan for example. Singapore, which I am most familiar with, does not have a ‘free’ scientific press so this data would not be expected to be available. Rather than assuming there is a move to the American mean for Asian Americans (which is not born out by the data) in terms of suicide incidence; perhaps the higher incidence of suicide, specifically as noted above in the 15-24 year old Asian American female population, reflects a more intrinsic challenge. </p>

<p>I think all responsible parents of adolescents are mindful of their mental health risks. If your child bears higher risk, whether due to genetic or environmental factors, it would seem prudent to understand the contributing factors. </p>

<p>Maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms among Asian American college students: Contributions of interdependence and parental relations.
By Yoon, Jaimin; Lau, Anna S.
Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Vol 14(2), Apr 2008, 92-101.
Abstract
Maladaptive perfectionism among Asian Americans may represent a shared social construction socialized within an interdependent cultural script. The authors hypothesized that interdependence concerns and parental relations may explain elevated maladaptive perfectionism and associated depressive symptoms in a sample of 140 Asian American college students. Survey findings revealed that interdependence, maladaptive perfectionism, and parent-driven perfectionism were associated with depressive symptoms. Regression analyses revealed that interdependence moderated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depressive symptoms such that highly interdependent Asian American students appeared more vulnerable to depression when demonstrating perfectionistic tendencies. Parental support buffered subjects from distress associated with parent-driven perfectionism. Processes of heightened cultural vulnerability and sensitization to maladaptive perfectionism are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)</p>

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<p>Popcorn, anyone? I see that “King Kong vs. Godzilla” has just started. :wink: :D</p>

<p>Good heavens, I just realized that my children might not have ever seen a Godzilla movie. I fear that I’ve failed in one of my basic parental responsibilities. To my credit, they have seen “Voyage Into Space”, a movie-length compilation of episodes of the classic Johnny Sokko and his Giant Robot series.</p>

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<p>I’ve yet to meet an Indian eventhough I’ve met a lots of Bengali’s, Gujrati’s, Punjabi’s, Tamilians, Telgu’s etc.</p>

<p>India for that sake is not homogeneous at all.</p>

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<p>LOL, bovertine!!!</p>

<p>Ahhhh, I think I see what has your nickers in a twist, IP. The word “rate”. The issue is the percent of deaths attributable to different causes, not the number across the entire population of living and now non-living people within any age group. What is more alarming, especially within a small overall population, is that 21% of deaths (college/grad school aged asian males) is attributable to suicide. </p>

<p>It would be interesting to see SES, education, acces to healthcare, etc, covaried with the overall suicide numbers collapsed across all age groups. My guess is this these are significant factors.</p>

<p>Slithey- looks more like Moe vs Curley to me :)</p>

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<p>Before we resume the entertainment… </p>

<p>Here is a mighty important article about Adolescent Stress with no cultural content whatsoever. </p>

<p>Trends in Neurosciences
Volume 31, Issue 4, April 2008, Pages 183-191</p>

<p>Stress, sensitive periods and maturational events in adolescent depression</p>

<p>Susan L. Andersena, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Martin H. Teicher</p>

<p>Department of Psychiatry, McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 115 Mill Street, Belmont, MA 02478, USA</p>

<p>Available online 10 March 2008.</p>

<p>In this paper, we provide an overview of how the maturation of specific brain regions and stress exposure during windows of vulnerability initiate a series of events that render adolescents exceptionally susceptible to the development of depression. This stress-incubation/corticolimbic development cascade provides a means of understanding why depression emerges with such force and frequency in adolescence. The development of the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, amygdala and ventral striatum is described from a translational perspective as they relate to stress exposure, onset, pathogenesis and gender differences in depression. Adolescent depression is a serious recurrent brain-based disorder. Understanding the genesis and neurobiological basis is important in the development of more effective intervention strategies to treat or prevent the disorder.</p>