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Thursday, December 31, 2015

Tiger Parenting; an Option Worth Considering


When we look at today’s youngsters, we can clearly notice a growing problem. The new generation seems not to be focused on education, they lack extra-curricular activities and aesthetic skills, and they don’t have respect for adults and teachers. School violence has become a major issue in majority of our schools. Overall, we feel that our children are becoming a lost generation.

Parents have an immense impact on child. It is the way of parenting that makes a child good or bad, lazy or active, compassionate or violent. As an Asian country, the bond between Sri Lankan parent and their child is greater than western countries. Thus the way which a parent interact with their children is extremely important. In general, Sri Lankan parents have a reputation for being tough and strict. It is harder to find a person who is not subjected to corporal punishment at home or school but are those parenting methods effective? Do they create better children? Many educationists, doctors and teachers now reject the idea of corporal punishment to make the children disciplined.  What needed is a strict parenting concept which is effective and which don’t harm children physically and mentally. 

A concept called tiger parenting may come in handy when dealing with the above dilemma. Tiger Parenting was introduced by Dr. Amy Chua, a Junior Professor of Harvard Law School. Her book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” created a worldwide debate on parenting. She describes her own experience of bringing up her two daughters in a strict manner. Dr Chua was brought up by traditional Chinese parents so that influence helped her to develop a method to guide her children to excellence.

Tiger parenting doesn’t mean that parents need to use caning, whipping or other types of corporal punishments to make the children disciplined. It is a system to make specific targets for children in terms of their academic and social achievements and constantly monitoring and guiding them by whatever means to accomplish them. Tiger parents believe that their children can achieve almost anything with strict control and discipline. They control what their children may read, what TV programs they may watch, who their children be friends with etc. Main point in tiger parenting is the active involvement in child’s academic life by parents.

Dr. Amy Chua’s parenting contradicts liberal western style parenting in which the self esteem of a child is put in front of his/her parent’s ambitions but are they similar to traditional Sri Lankan parenting? Of course Sri Lankan parents may have a vision of their children’s future but do they have a practical approach or a plan to guide the children? Sri Lankan parents may very well be involved in child’s education up until the grade 5 scholarship exam which is named notoriously as “The exam of the parents”. Then gradually parental involvement in child’s education diminishes. When it comes to studying for Advanced Level Examination, students are completely on their own sometimes lost in a competitive battle without a clue about what field they are going to choose in the future. Parents only realize the lack of their guidance when a child got failed in the exam.

It is fair to say that today’s children are unbalanced personalities. Children and their parents only focus on academic performance while completely forgetting that a child should have a competence in academic and aesthetic fields alike. A true super child should be able to make a balance in all the above sections. Preparing the child for future career demands is also important. He or she should be ready for jobs which have not been invented yet. Obviously mathematics and science play a crucial role in the future knowledge based economy so pushing children more and more to mathematics and science related education is a good move. Perfectionism is always administered by a tiger parent. Any grade except straight ‘A’ is not accepted. Rewarding children for just passing an exam makes them lazy. Children should understand that rewards and compliments are very hard to gain but when they do, it reflects the perfection in their hard work.

The ultimate goal of tiger parenting is to shape the child in to a balanced person. While concerning on academic excellence only may cause unnecessary stress on children but pushing children to be involved in sports and aesthetic activities will make a balance. We should give our children what they lack most; discipline and self-control. Being a disciplinarian may not a pleasant experience at first but when the child realize the true meaning of being strict, they will start to respect you. Dr Chua’s daughter Sophia also expressed her gratitude to her mother’s parenting style by an open letter published in the New York Post in January 2011.

Today’s younger generation is inexperienced and easily be misled. It is their parents’ duty to shape their child like steel in a mould and to make a respectable person from them. Most probably it might be a bitter experience at first but when the child immerges as a self-disciplined and balanced person; it will be the pinnacle of strict parenting. Dr Chua’s tiger parenting may not be entirely feasible for Sri Lankan child upbringing but nevertheless it may provide some valuable clues. I strongly recommend all the parents to assess the effectiveness of their parenting style and make the necessary adjustments to it.


Location: Colombo, Sri Lanka

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