Week2 - Yuchen Qu

Week2 post
Yuchen Qu
Section A03

  I’m an international student from China. The article “Beyond Tiger Mom Anxiety: Ethnic, Gender and Generational Differences in Asian American College Access and Choices” reminds me those days when my classmate and I were applying to American universities about two more years ago. According to the article, especially the “RESULTS” part, “When asked which individuals’ opinions were most important, survey results affirmed the importance of parental opinions in Asian American college-choice processes.” At that time when he was choosing different schools, considering he loved doing physics researches, he really desired to go to an Engineering college where there are fewer students and he could communicate with professors more frequently. Two days later, when we made final decisions, he cried and told me that his dad disapproved his choice, and enforced him to go to a public university and to choose the computer science major, which he hates the most. He told me, “My dad is going to pay for my tuition. If I don’t follow his idea, he won’t allow me to study abroad anymore.” I felt so astonished and stood there for a while. If he followed his dad’s mind finally, and I bet he wouldn’t pay attention to studying the dreary knowledge.  We were high school students, and we are human beings, we should have the rights to make our own decision and choose what we really would like to do instead of allowing parents to define our future. If we just have the privilege to accept instructions, we are mindless robots instead of human. Asian parents must change their habits as soon as possible, and provide more opportunities for their children to think and make decisions independently, no matter the decisions are right or wrong. 

Question:

If Asian parents continues to make decisions for their children, they may not be able to think about the problems independently and the only way to solve problems is relying on their problems. Is there a better way that children can communicate with their parents, and then they can learn how to figure out things by themselves?

References:

Poon, O. & Byrd, A.  (2013). Beyond Tiger Mom Anxiety: Ethnic, Gender and Generational Differences in Asian American College Access and Choices. Journal of College Admissions, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2017

Kobara E. J., (2015, Sept 21). Strengthen What I Value Enjoy and Love through Altruistic Mentoring and Networking. Retrieved October 1, 2017 from http://www.swiveltime.com/parents/