<p>The Chua childrens’ childhoods remind me of that old saying that goes something like: When you on are your deathbed, you don’t wish you had spent more time at the office.</p>
<p>Involvement in school work is an interesting discussion point. From the beginnin I was involved with my kid’s school work - supervising, correcting etc. Then in 4th grade my oldest said “I don’t want you looking at my school work” her argument was that if I checked it that didn’t make her responsible for it. She had a very easy teacher that year and I had wanted to push the envelope a bit to develop more skills rather than skate by - two years later we had switched schools and she was begging for all the help she could get, practice tests and quizzes, making flashcards etc. - which my husband and I did until late in the evenings. We switched schools again - still a heavy work load but structured in a way that did not require at home tutoring to master the material. The school emphasized the kid being responsible for their own work - but they also ran a parents night that made the parents take part in a class simulation to understand the teaching method.</p>
<p>School model #3 for us was the charm - I knew what my kids were doing and they knew I cared but they didn’t require the micromanagment that robbed them of the chance to develop their own self management skills. Looking back, I felt a little like Goldilocks “this school is too lax”, “this school is too rigid”, “this school is just right”. I live in an area where school choice is pretty much wide open if a parent is willing to provide transportation, so the scope of my search may be unique; not only is there a vast range of parenting styles in America - we have a vast range of educational options beginning with pre-school.</p>
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I agree with this. My third child is, to put it mildly, lacking in self-motivation. He’s that stereotypical boy with grubby hands and sometimes missing homework. I worship all of my children, but by far the greatest parenting decision I’ve ever made is to involve my son in music. Initially, it was my decision because he was moving to a new school and I knew that the band was the social event on campus and I wanted him to make friends. We let him try several instruments the summer before coming to the school and he settled on the clarinet and they fell in love. He’s now played for five years (he’s 12), sometimes 2 hours a day because of various ensembles he’s chosen to join and picked up the sax two years ago. He generally can be found walking around the house with one of the instruments in his hand creating a soundtrack to his life. You can know that he’s angry, happy, whatever by the sounds coming out of the instruments. When he first started I made him play over his grumbling but when he got familiar with enough notes that he could make music, there was no stopping him. Now he sits on the easy chair in my bedroom every night while I lounge on my bed and read. He works hard, puts a ton of tought into his work and treats his instruments like people. There are times he plays songs that bring tears to my eyes. Currently he’s swinging Duke Ellington on both instruments. I did push and demand when he first started. Now I just listen and enjoy. He’s not the most talkative guy, but it’s amazing what I find out while he’s cleaning the instruments or choosing what to play. For me, the distinction was that he chose his instruments. Actually, he says that they chose him like Harry Potter’s wand. I can’t imagine choosing an instrument for someone.</p>
<p>zoosermom - what a great story!</p>
<p>My best friend in high school starting dating a new young man and asked me my opinion of him. I told her he seemed nice enough, but wasn’t he a little lazy? She replied, “No, not when he’s doing something he WANTS to do.” (What, like smoking pot? I thought.) </p>
<p>Well, is anyone lazy about doing what they want? Where we see laziness and lack of discipline is in doing the required, but perhaps tedious and unpleasant chores or the day in and day out slugging away that’s required to be good at anything. Discipline and hard work aren’t as necessary when something is fun and enjoyable. Can you imagine a parent needing so say “Hey Jason, don’t forget to practice playing your X-Box game today!”</p>
<p>So, good parenting can sometimes entail, as Chua and zoosermom point out, pushing the kid to keep trying until the fun and self-motivation arrive. Ideally, this process has to be completed before age 13 or so. If a child really isn’t inclined to work hard on whatever by that point, to what extent can parents really make him once he’s old enough to lie, be sneaky, leave the house, and threaten to call DYFYS? The kids are almost as big as we by that age, and usually faster. Unless the child is naturally compliant, it’s practially impossible.</p>
<p>zooser, I loved reading about your S and his music!</p>
<p>zoosermom - Would you have let your son choose a non-band instrument? Or was ihis choice limited to band instrument? How old was your son when he chose clarinet? I am guessing Chua’s kids probably started their instruments at an early age 2 or 3. I wouldn’t know what to make of a choice made by a 2-year old. I did coax my kid to choose violin instead of piano. I pointed out that with violin they can play in an orchestra. My kid was 7 and wouldn’t listen to me. Luckily, her school was forming a string encemble when my D was about to start the lesson and she switched to violin. Although violin wasn’t her first choice, she now loves to play violin. For a while she considered becoming a pro. If she chose to play piano, sure I would have let her. But it was and is my opinion that violin is the right instrument for her, her temperament, her perfect pitch, etc. I don’t necessarily fault parents for not giving their kids full choices.</p>
<p>A major difference is that you can play a fiddle on a roof; less so, the piano. </p>
<p>That assumes a lot. First, the mom must permit her child onto ladders to get up onto the roof. Second, that Donkey Dad will do the run to the hardware store to purchase and bring home a ladder.</p>
<p>Right! That’s also important.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, there are plenty of distinctions between your story and the many stories of people (really) pushing kids to music. </p>
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<p>You gave it a gentle push but the motivation was to make friends and be part of a social group. The music was solely an instrument in a greater scheme.</p>
<p>You did not pick an instrument that extol INDIVIDUAL accomplishment. Many Asians chose the instruments (and much less often sports) that allow for the individual to shine through solos (Violin or Piano) as opposed to seek teams or ensembles.</p>
<p>"A major difference is that you can play a fiddle on a roof; less so, the piano. </p>
<p>That assumes a lot. First, the mom must permit her child onto ladders to get up onto the roof. Second, that Donkey Dad will do the run to the hardware store to purchase and bring home a ladder. "</p>
<p>“so dear, you like all the leaders at Nativ? (the gap year program in Israel)?”</p>
<p>“yes, but ___ yelled at me/us”</p>
<p>“now was there something you did that caused that?”</p>
<p>“er, we climbed onto the roof”</p>
<p>…and if your child’s school stages “Fiddler on the Roof,” your intrepid violinist can get a role and add a line on the EC resume related to drama! </p>
<p>I’m kidding, folks… :)</p>
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Using “band” was a poor choice of words. What I meant was the music program in his school at the time, which included strings and piano, although not technically band instruments, were part of the “band” program. It’s just casual speech of a non-musical person that I called it all “band” when they’re not technically band instruments, but the goal was to have him make friends and music was where the potential friends were. So the answer is that I would let him choose any instrument that was part of the music program at his school at the time. And I am so completely unmusical as to not know what possible instruments are excluded from that list. He was just turning seven when he picked his instrument. We also fell into private lessons with a very well-regarded teacher who usually teaches graduate level students from the top colleges in NYC and is quite famous locally for his own playing. He clicked with my son and took him on, but he expects hard work. Personally, I couldn’t imagine putting my kid on an instrument at two years old, but the girls did start ballet at around that age, so I must be a hypocrite! I find this thread fascinating. Some of you may remember that I started a thread a few years ago about an incident in my daughter’s life that involved what I now know as “tiger parents” but I was so ignorant of the mindset that I was a bit offended and a bit amused. Got slammed for racism at the time, which I do understand, but the fact was that the entire group, except us, turned out to have been students at the same weekend Mandarin school so it was a cultural issue for that group. But, hey, you live and learn, right?</p>
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<p>This conjurs up the images of Woody Allen trying to play his cello in a marching band. I can’t remember the title. He would play a note sitting down on a stool and get up and move sit down again play the next note while others have marched on.:)</p>
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It’s worse even than that! When my son had to get his first metronome, I thought the teacher was talking about a trip a stadium somewhere. Literally! The boy tries so hard to be patient with me but doesn’t always succeed. He knows how to get me, though, I can’t stay mad at him when he plays “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” He (with my husband’s help) bought me a ruby and diamond treble clef pendant for Christmas and when asked “does your mom appreciate your music?” he answers “yeah, the red one.”</p>
<p>Loved reading Zoosermom on her enjoyment of S’s self-motivated accomplishments on clarinet, with recent addition of saxophone. </p>
<p>Choosing instruments can be its own substory. S-1 began on piano but wanted to add a social instrument in h.s. Since we moved often, he had no middle school entree into band or orchestra instruments through public school. Still, he determined through social networking that the h.s. band was losing a trombonist, so nabbed that spot in sophomore year and registered for h.s. band. Due to the layout of the instruments, we attended concerts for years and never, not once, SAW our child play. It was a running joke that he carried the trombone case to school daily but we’d never see him play, so perhaps he stored things in the case to sell? In college, he co-majored in Music and Theater. Several years later he was cast in a role off-off-broadway for a character who has a 30-second trombone solo. You just never know where these things will lead…</p>
<p>I pushed piano on both my girls. I thought it was a good place to start, and it is the instrument I know how to play, therefore we have a well tuned piano in the house.</p>
<p>The older one loves it, even though she is playing more guitar at this point. The younger one hated it and dropped it within a year. She is now happily playing bass in her middle school orchestra. I would never have chosen this instrument for a petite, little girl. She LOVES it!</p>
<p>Parents have the right and obligation to gently suggest a direction for our children. We do not have the right to force them against their will. I think Chua crossed that line many times.</p>
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Ha!!! How cool is that?</p>
<p>^Very. It comes back to the serious themes of this thread, too. As a school parent I was always excited to see my truly talented actor S cast in a “lead role.” Then, as he ventured into college, the college Theater faculty developed in him an appreciation that theater is an ensemble endeavor. </p>
<p>Now in NYC he tells me he’d rather take a smaller role in a very strong production than be cast as lead in a weaker show. </p>
<p>The parental acceptance - to appreciate a child’s enjoyment of being Part of an Excellent Group, rather than lead role or soloist, is its own arc. Of course it’s exciting to see one’s child alone on stage, but also let’s realize their joy in being part of ensemble, chamber, large orchestra groups as well.</p>
<p>@patc-</p>
<p>You are dead on, the kind of helicopter parenting tends to come from upper middle class people. This isn’t just supposition, there have been studies done to test the hypothesis, for example, of if in fact a kid who is gifted will turn out well despite background…and what they found out was that isn’t true.</p>
<p>What they found was that in people from working class backgrounds (and please remember, this is a study, and they are talking tendencies here) that parents in that kind of background are kind of anti the ‘pushy parenting’ we are talking about, in that the basic atttitude tends to be ‘if the kid wants to do something, they will ask to do it’ and from there they kind of assume that it will just happen. It is interesting, though I grew up solid middle class (my dad was an engineer), he had grown up blue collar and that was both my parent’s attitude about things. The problem with that is kids often won’t ask, they get afraid to ask and often don’t even think about what is out there. So for example, while i played an instrument in school, I never even bothered to ask about private lessons, which probably would have benefitted myself, and I never really belonged to activities and such. When I talked to my dad later about it, he said “you could of asked”, it simply didn’t dawn on him that kids aren’t little adults. </p>
<p>Think of this scenario from a child’s eyes: Children tend to know pretty early about issues like family economics, they pick up the vibe from parents that money is a concern, etc. Imagine the kid gets interested in playing an instrument, but knows the cost of it, it can make them hesitate to ask, assuming they know what the answer is. Suppose, though, the parent says to them “hey, would you like to try playing an instrument”…by a parent suggesting things, it breaks barriers like that (and other things), plus it opens them up to things they would never do. In a sense, the kind of pushy parents we are talking about do that, only it is imperative, not asking. Likewise, with supporting kids decisions, there generally isn’t the level of support, the assumption is that is with the schools or whatever. </p>
<p>With solid middle class, upper middle class, families, the assumptions are different according to the study I recall. Of course some go overboard, but in those groups the assumption is to encourage the kids and support them in doing things, or even prod them to do it. Whether it is sports, or activities, or music or a choral group or whatever, you don’t know what a kid wants to do until they try it. </p>
<p>That was the factor they found as the X factor. Obviously, economics can play a role in this, someone with more modest means cannot provide everything a working class family might (like, for example a parent free to drive kids around if both work). But the study said even taking that into account, it was a class based reaction.</p>
<p>@hunt-
I love the term donkey dad, that is a classic! That is absolutely perfect! Someone who heard our child was making this big deal about how we did so well with him, etc, and all we could say was that was all him, all we did was schlep him around, pay for things, patch the wall after they got frustrated when something wasn’t right, scrambled around on a sunday to find the piano accompaniment for a solo concerto because they forgot it at home and they had a run through in 1/2 hour, you name it <em>lol</em>.</p>
<p>What this highlights, in all seriousness, is support, something some parents do take for granted, whether it is driving the kids around, suggesting things to try, or making sure they are doing their homework and such.</p>
<p>The problem with Ms. Chua’s methods and others like them is that while they in fact support their kids, they go well beyond it and decide what they will do, how they will do it, and push them into it, whether or not they want to do it, and that to me is not optimal, as total hands off is. Yes, this kind of approach achieves ‘results’ but compared to what? They are using some standard the parent decided was the right one, but does that really play out? More importantly, how does it play out compared to what might have been? If they force the kid into math/science, focus everything on getting into the right high level program in something they approve of, and then get a job as an IB, Lawyer, banker or doctor or whatever, is that success what the kid could have done? Could they have gone into research (not very lucrative) and created the thing that cures cancer, could they have written the next great classic novel, could they have created a new way to educate kids? </p>
<p>What is interesting is that this flies in the face of something that has been promoted as “Eastern Philosophy”, I generally hear it ascribed to buddhism, that the journey is more valuable a lot of the time then the destination. With the “pushy” parent like Ms. Chua, they have decided both the destination and the path, and as someone else said, who knows what lay on the path not chosen?</p>