Chinese parenting

[tiredmum]

Mystery I agree with your point regarding reading. DS1 taught himself at 3 and I taught DS2 at 4 and he had a reading age of 11 within 6 months. It was not always enjoyable, although there were no tears, just huffing. However the moment DS2 could read the world of learning opened up to him. He could read instructions, work the computer and amuse himself. So six months of reading Peter and Jane each day really paid off. It may have seemed pushy but in fact I saw it as the lazy way out for me. Get him to read, ergo stop pestering me!

Both my dd's seemed to just learn to read withour much pressure - just routine reading which they both enjoyed. ~They were both able to read chapter books by the time they were 6 (probably had a read age of 9 or 10) but didnt always do so, prefering to read many short books. I used to help at dd;s school in reception and year 1 with the reading and most children amazingly just seem seemed to pick it up, admitedly some quicker than others but there were only a couple who didnt make a load of progress over those first few years of school.

I do agree that sometimes we need to encourage our child to not give up in the early stages of learning something new. When they are children we can put that into action and should, as when they become teenagers they are far too willful. I remember as a child a friend was made to practice piano rather than play out - we all felt very sorry for him and laughed to ourselves about how unlucky he was. When we were 16 and he was playing in a local band, well we sure didnt laugh then, we thought that was cool. It had taken him years of hard work to get to that level and he says now as an adult teacher of music that he owes it all to his mother for being strict about his piano practice.

[scary mum]

Reading the Times, this mother has abandoned her methods now - I did tell my DD to read the article in the Sunday Times as she accuses me of pushing her too hard ("Really, darling, you've finished all your homework in 20 minutes, do you think you've done it to your best ability? I know you want to see your boyfriend...". "Muuuum, you're always telling me I don't work hard enough, it's not fair").

[KS10]

There are parts of this that I am familiar with, being of Asian (but not Chinese) descent. I lived with my extended family for 6 years (not in this country) and we were ruled with a rod of iron because, with 11 children in the house, nothing else would have worked. We too had to spend a tremendous amount of time on academic work as, twice a year, we would have exams followed by a report stating our percentages for each subject, an average for these subjects and our position within the class. Can't imagine that last one, in particular, going down well here.

I'm not going to be too critical of this lady because I do think she is doing what she thinks is best, which is what most of us do. Having said that, she is obviously tough enough to take the criticism if she is willing to go public with such extreme views. I know I wouldn't have the energy to oversee that level of work and, even if I did, I would be too worried about being labelled a pushy parent to ever carry it out, plus my western OH would unintentionally sabotage my efforts every step of the way.

One final thing: OH always has a smile on his face when he meets a class for the first time and there are several children of Far Eastern descent as he knows the results are going to be very, very pleasing.

[mystery]

KS10, that is a very interesting point about the large family and the "rod of iron" because nothing else would have worked. When I think about large families I know and know of, from very wealthy large families to pretty poor large families I am struck with the difficulty there is in doing what one is supposed to do with an English primary school child after school.

Let's say you "only" had 5 children, and all you had to do was listen to each of them read for 15 minutes each evening after school, and you were not having to work after school. With everything else you had to do, you'd have to be pretty superhuman to do just that alone between the end of school and bedtime, let alone any other extra learning they might need to do well at school.

So unless you've got said children in fantastic schools which cover what is needed with each and every child during the school day, or you've got children who are just naturally brilliant and accurate at everything with no help from home, or you have some other methods than the Western "do what you want when you want to do it" method you're pretty much disadvantaged from minute one if there are more than 2 siblings in the family.

Also, a lot of the work that schools ask parents to help with is so ***** vague. e.g. practise times tables, invent some sentences with the spelling list in and dictate them to your child etc etc. That's fine if you've got the time and one or two children, but what parent could verbally practise timestables effectively with 10 children of different ages, or invent the dictated sentences on a regular basis for more than two children. And even "listen to your child read to you for 15 minutes per night" is problematic if the school does not send back a reading book with sufficient material at the right level in it for the child to read aloud to you for 15 minutes per night.

I'm presuming that in cultures with these rather more serious attitudes to learning than ours, the schools themselves are more dictatorial about what needs to take place regularly at home so that parents are not having to spend time reinventing the wheel themselves and only learning by the second or third child the most effective way of doing it?

Although the article looks horrific to Western readers, one has to remember that children view things according to norms. If you've always done an hour's homework after school and your peers always have done so too, it's the second hour that is going to make you miserable. Whereas if you have been brought up on none or five minutes, it's the second five minutes that is going to make you miserable.

To know whether the method is bad or not, one would have to look at learning outcomes during higher education. Does this method produce better or worse independent learners at university, students who have more of a love or less of a love of their subject, students who are more or less motivated to study, original or less original thinkers etc?

[Cranleigh]

I read the article with interest.

I have to admit that for a long time I believed that Asian children I know must be genetically more intelligent, and many I think view them as such. I then realised how much work was expected and the children put in. Don't mean to stereotype and speaking from my own experience here.

My Asian friends tell me that intelligent children can be 'made' as well as born. I think that in the UK we seem to subscribe to the fixed nature of IQ, believe that ability has a ceiling and IQ is a prison sentence. How many truly believe that children can get smarter? We like to decide at 7 that some don't look like they are capable of passing the 11 plus for example and begin to give work that differentiates accordingly leading perhaps to some self fulfilling prophecy. I am not saying that every child should be pushed within an inch of its life, or can be super academic, but it's surprising how far practice, a growth mindset and hard work will take you.

Of course in parts of Asia decisions are made about academic potential earlier than 11, I wonder if this partly contributes to the push for children to excel so early?

Has anyone read Bounce by Matthew Syed? Some interesting themes discussed. He looked at a large group of violin players, what separated the 'good' from amazingly gifted was simply hours of practice. Also allegedly the Williams parents decided that Serena and Venus would be tennis champions before they were born and put a great deal of plans in place accordingly.

[KS10]

I forgot to add that I don't remember being read to as a small child, although my mum may have done so, but after the age of 8 it certainly didn't happen. We had tutors for a couple of Asian languages, English (the tutor spoke no English and my English was definitely better than hers ), Arabic and possibly maths but, if my memory serves me well, the work done for English and maths was limited to memorising times tables and spellings. What I gained most of all from all of this was the ability to memorise and prepare well for exams.

I also wanted to say that having academic ability is great but so is the ability to rewire a house, fix a car and sort out the pipe damaged during the cold spell which caused a minor flood in our garden. For a few days we thought it was a blocked drain but couldn't figure out where the blockage was. I had a few sleepless nights thinking the neighbours would be banging on our door complaining.

We most certainly mollycoddle our kids more and are guilty of making excuses when our DC don't perform as well as they could; equally, we can't all be leaders and it takes people with different qualities to make our society function. Can you imagine doctors but no nurses, company directors but no secretaries and, dare I say it, teachers but no learning support assistants?

[Yurgen]

Hmm, I thought the Chinese were supposed to be good at maths...

If there are 30 kids in a class, and all of them have "Chinese mothers" determined that they will bully, and humiliate their children if they are any less than No 1, doesn't that make 29 children that are going to grow up knowing nothing but bullying and humiliation? And not ever even feel like a "success" at the end of it?

I've seen some of this kind of Asian parenting first hand. As a musician and music teacher, I've certainly seen the highly driven Asian child pianism phenomenon.

It's always struck me as rather bizarre though. Why do they all learn classical piano, which is probably the area of music MOST difficult - actually virtually impossible - to make a living at? And after that, for the ones for whom four hours a day practising isn't enough, the violin which is probably the next most difficult?

Where are the Asian trumpeters, classical oboists and session saxophonists? If these kids and their parents put half the time and effort into learning an actual useful musical skill, and some kind of transferable musical awareness, that they do into memorising Chopin studies like a machine, they'd be running the music industry. But instead, you look at any early-years program in a specialist music school and you see a striking proportion of Asian faces - but you look at any symphony orchestra, west end musical or gigging rock band and you see no more than the population average.

I certainly found it bizarre but also sadly familiar, when the lady in that article said that one thing their children were not allowed to do was "play any instrument other than the piano or violin". WHY? If one of them showed real musical promise, and came home fired up saying they really WANT to play the french horn or bassoon - just to name two instruments that there is actually some demand for - wouldn't it make sense to actually do something with that? (I thought the Chinese were supposed to be good at business acumen, too). Where on earth did the sanctity of the piano and violin come from anyway?

It seems to be about some kind of badge of being middle class and educated. It's very antiquated and rather quaint really - like the way young Victorian ladies had to be able to play the piano in the drawing room after dinner to attract a husband. Colonialism must have transplanted this idea all around Asia, but noone has thought to tell them since that the west has moved on a bit. Because it's now "the rule" and everybody else does it, it's what you must do and not question. Very strange.

And because it's all about forced, mechanical rote learning with little or no attention to the student as a person, none of it is transferable or plants any seeds of musical potential that might go somewhere else. None of these kids end up picking up a guitar and writing fantastic songs when they're teenagers, they just dutifully learn their scales for as long as their parents make them.

I think what I find most bizarre about the Asian families like this that I've observed (not just in music I mean, but generally) is the idea of the child as some kind of computer with no data in it yet, that you come along and objectively "program". There seems to be no concept at all about native curiosity, joy, quirkiness or creativity. And from what I'm told by people who have taught in Korea and Singapore, this feeds right up to university level where further, more complicated "programming" is the only thing the students themselves understand about so-called "education".

I think this is a horrible way to think of education and society. I do actually push my kids fairly hard and support a lot of what they do, by English standards. But my greatest pride is not that my DC passed his 11+ or came first at his school in maths, it's that he will sit alone at night reading all kinds of books because he wants to, and then come out with all kinds of his own interesting perceptions about them.

[mystery]

I did pose myself the "how does everyone come top" question when I was reading the article, but dismissed it as a bit of poetic licence. I assumed, maybe wrongly, that the parents are looking for high grades e.g. all A+, not expecting everyone to be top. But maybe she is speaking for a certain kind of Chinese parent, not all, but trying to make the point that this approach is culturally acceptable in China but not here.

The piano and violin thing made me laugh too. As did Desert Island Discs a few months ago when it had Fanny Waterman, great Yorkshire piano teacher and one of the founders of the Leeds International Pianoforte competition on it. She is clearly not Chinese, but was also clearly, born on the wrong side of the globe.

She said that she chooses her children by the parents, ones from the Far East being by far the best as by 5 or so the child has mastered the basics, practices hard, and is not likely to miss a piano lesson for other out of school activities like being selected to swim in a gala etc. When asked if this approach would produce a well-rounded child, she answered that what could be a more well-rounded activity than playing the piano. It uses all the senses and provides openings locally, nationally, and internationally, at whatever level you play.

Asked about her children, she produced a humorously disparaging answer about them playing some other instrument (their idea of learning the piano was to sit down and play concertos and they didn't want to practice five finger exercises) and having got into the National Youth Orchestra. Asked about her grandchildren - they started learning the piano, but didn't get very far, poor dears, because there aren't any of the right type of teachers in London.

Your observations on what sort of student this produces at 18 onwards is interesting. But then if you speak to people involved in higher education these days you get a pretty dim view of today's student from a more laissez-faire Western approach to learning ......... things along the line of they can't write essays, explore ideas, work independently etc etc.

[um]

KS10 - 11 children !

I had actually thought that the 'Chinese parenting' technique could only work with families who have 1 or 2 children - any more and the level of intensity is impossible to sustain. And Chinese families obviously very rarely have more than 2 children.
There's also the feeling, particularly with an only child, all hopes rest on them alone. And in China, that child will often be the only grandchild too - so lots of pressure! My in laws have 16 grandchildren and are not even sure how old each one is!
With a large family, it also seems to be easier to accept that every child can't be good at everything.

With a family of 5 children, I find that, contrary to ruling with a rod of iron, there is less discipline in the house because I am simply outnumbered. Even bedtime starts to resemble 'whack a mole' (not literally, of course ) as one child after the other pops up out of bed. My ability to help with homework/supervise learning/nag them is also greatly impeded by having two toddlers to deal with. Any attempt to sit on a table with them and go over some work ends in an 18 month old walking along the table chewing paper up/stealing the pencils and a 3 year old pulling the chair over...

[mystery]

Ha ha, whack a mole sounds like a great bedtime game - as long you don't turn them into guacamole.