ASA 2
Response to: Does “Tiger Parenting” Exist? Parenting Profiles of Chinese Americans and Adolescent Developmental Outcomes
In the article, the authors came to the conclusion that supportive parenting was in general the best style in terms of outcome. This came with the caveat as a future research topic that a child's individual characteristics are probably big factors in the result of parenting as well. This is where I feel that public perception is lacking. Whenever I hear arguments about parenting, perhaps due to personal pride parents tend to talk as if their methods are the ones that are most correct for everybody because it worked for themselves. This, combined with cultural differences, led to the negative perceptions about "tiger parents."
That individual characteristics of children were not taken into account is why I find the results of this paper extremely limited and not useful. You could take out the fact that if most parents use a supportive style, the majority of them would be properly parenting their child. But even then, its really not conclusive. I feel that I am in the minority where "tiger parenting" is preferable. I know this because I was under that style of parenting until I was 10, when my parents had a change of heart in their style. Looking back in my life, up until that point I had always pursued excellence both in and out of school diligently. But once I was allowed to do what I wished I began to settle and only do what was enough to pass by. I relied on the strong foundation that was built up until that point to push me through the end of high school with top grades, but put very little actual effort in. I enjoyed getting a Regents' Scholarship into Davis, but had to be pushed while young to reach this happy result. On the other hand, my brother has visibly put more effort into all of his activities as it is part of his personality. While he received much less of a push from my parents, he also made it into Davis with exactly the same honors that I did. I know that I never would've reached this point had I not had a tiger parenting background.
In short, personal characteristics significantly impact the result of parenting. I think that I am a person that excels with more of a push than other people. I have very little personal interest in most if not all matters. But this also does not apply to everyone else, such as my brother who is extremely self-motivated. Thus, I feel that until factors within children are considered when studies are done about parenting, the studies themselves are pretty much worthless.
A lighter way to look at strict parenting
Q: How can we get the public and educators to understand that individuals have personal needs and thus different kinds of guidance?
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