Young Children Need Basic Concepts to Build Upon

A recent study from the University of Missouri's David Geary, provides some suggestions for better preparing young children for later study in mathematics:

Numbers, counting, and low-level arithmetic are three basic competencies that are vital to later success in math, and students should have these key math skills in first grade in order to be successful in math in fifth grade, according to a long-term study released by psychologists at the University of Missouri (UM).

“Math is critical for success in many fields, and the United States is not doing a great job of teaching math,” David Geary, UM’s Curator’s Professor of Psychological Sciences, who led the research team, said in a statement. “In order to improve basic instruction, we have to know what to instruct.”

Researchers monitored 177 elementary students from 12 different elementary schools from kindergarten to fifth grade, and intend to continue monitoring them through high school. Students who understood the number line and some basic math facts in the beginning of first grade showed faster growth in math skills over the next five years.

“It is important that children understand the meaning of Arabic numerals, that is, the quantities they represent and be able to quickly translate quantities into numerals and numerals into quantities. [The study] also highlights the importance of knowing basic facts and the number line,” Geary said. _eschoolnews

The longitudinal study by the University of Missouri referred to above, which will follow 177 students from kindergarten through high school, may well provide learning specialists and psychologists with much valuable information on how to help students learn math and other important topics. But it is important that the researchers remove as many possible confounders as possible before drawing any conclusions. IQ, SES, EF, and other confounding factors might easily be ignored by some researchers. David Geary is a top psychologist, however, and is not likely to overlook such basic concepts in the planning and data analysis phases.

There are a large number of free online helper sites which provide exposure to these basic math concepts. For example, Visual Math Learning provides a number of basic lessons in the very topics highlighted by the study. Lessons in natural numbers, counting, and a number of lessons in low level arithmetic are all provided free of charge.

The Khan Academy is a most helpful online math learning site which provides lessons from very basic levels to far more advanced areas of math.

Math is a lot more than numbers, counting, and simple arithmetic, of course. The understanding of all sorts of dynamic patterns and relationships in the modern world require some level of math learning. Very young minds can be prepared for many of these advanced concepts merely by exposure -- just as very young minds which are exposed to languages are better prepared to use languages as they mature.

The longitudinal U. Missouri study discussed above will be helpful, but a lot more is needed. Although we have a rough idea of the time frame for developmental windows in the learning of language and the training of executive function, we have far less understanding of the timing of developmental windows for later intuitive understanding of advanced math concepts, or world class musical abilities. It is likely that the best of the best were given early starts, but how early, and what type of start is best? No one knows.

It is important that a civilisation whose future existence of abundant prosperity is dependent upon the skillful use of advanced mathematical concepts, learns to train its young to develop these skills at the most advantageous times.

Lori Gottlieb and the Collapse of the American Empire

The message we send kids with all the choices we give them is that they are entitled to a perfect life—that, as Dan Kindlon, the psychologist from Harvard, puts it, “if they ever feel a twinge of non-euphoria, there should be another option.” Mogel puts it even more bluntly: what parents are creating with all this choice are anxious and entitled kids whom she describes as “handicapped royalty.” _Lori Gottlieb

Pity meek and mild Lori Gottlieb, an intern in family counseling who has made some interesting observations in the course of her work. Gottlieb discussed her observations in a recent piece in the Atlantic. The piece has raised a firestorm of online debate, snark, and condemnation, almost entirely undeserved. The fault in Gottlieb's piece lies not in what she says, but in what she leaves out -- what these disturbing findings imply for the future of the American empire.

...Here I was, seeing the flesh-and-blood results of the kind of parenting that my peers and I were trying to practice with our own kids, precisely so that they wouldn’t end up on a therapist’s couch one day. We were running ourselves ragged in a herculean effort to do right by our kids—yet what seemed like grown-up versions of them were sitting in our offices, saying they felt empty, confused, and anxious. Back in graduate school, the clinical focus had always been on how the lack of parental attunement affects the child. It never occurred to any of us to ask, what if the parents are too attuned? What happens to those kids?

...Dan Kindlon, a child psychologist and lecturer at Harvard, warns against what he calls our “discomfort with discomfort” in his book Too Much of a Good Thing: Raising Children of Character in an Indulgent Age. If kids can’t experience painful feelings, Kindlon told me when I called him not long ago, they won’t develop “psychological immunity.”

“It’s like the way our body’s immune system develops,” he explained. “You have to be exposed to pathogens, or your body won’t know how to respond to an attack. Kids also need exposure to discomfort, failure, and struggle...

...Wendy Mogel is a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles who, after the publication of her book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee a decade ago, became an adviser to schools all over the country. When I talked to her this spring, she said that over the past few years, college deans have reported receiving growing numbers of incoming freshmen they’ve dubbed “teacups” because they’re so fragile that they break down anytime things don’t go their way. “Well-intentioned parents have been metabolizing their anxiety for them their entire childhoods,” Mogel said of these kids, “so they don’t know how to deal with it when they grow up.”

...A few months ago, I called up Jean Twenge, a co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic and professor of psychology at San Diego State University, who has written extensively about narcissism and self-esteem. She told me she wasn’t surprised that some of my patients reported having very happy childhoods but felt dissatisfied and lost as adults. When ego-boosting parents exclaim “Great job!” not just the first time a young child puts on his shoes but every single morning he does this, the child learns to feel that everything he does is special. Likewise, if the kid participates in activities where he gets stickers for “good tries,” he never gets negative feedback on his performance.

...This same teacher—who asked not to be identified, for fear of losing her job—says she sees many parents who think they’re setting limits, when actually, they’re just being wishy-washy. “A kid will say, ‘Can we get ice cream on the way home?’ And the parent will say, ‘No, it’s not our day. Ice-cream day is Friday.’ Then the child will push and negotiate, and the parent, who probably thinks negotiating is ‘honoring her child’s opinion,’ will say, ‘Fine, we’ll get ice cream today, but don’t ask me tomorrow, because the answer is no!’” The teacher laughed. “Every year, parents come to me and say, ‘Why won’t my child listen to me? Why won’t she take no for an answer?’ And I say, ‘Your child won’t take no for an answer, because the answer is never no!’”

... _theAtlantic

And so on... An interesting glimpse into the modern state of child-raising in the US from someone on the front lines of family therapy.

If Americans truly are raising generations of fragile, entitled children, who is going to do the hard work that needs to be done? As long as the US economy was doing well, America could import its hard workers and many of its hard thinkers, so as to keep the wheels of commerce and invention moving along. But with the rapid emergence of crisis levels of debt and demography, the US economy may not be able to import so much of its needed human capital -- to compensate for the disastrous failures of its parents and educational system.

Children need to learn practical competence in a wide range of skills. They need to learn to focus on a difficult task, and learn to work hard at it until it is done. Children must not be age-segregated in prison schools for so many of their formative years, kept away from any responsibility or opportunity to explore the real world.

The Roman Empire collapsed over a few centuries for many of the reasons the American empire is threatened: debt, demography, social problems that were swept under the rug, entitled and abusive ruling classes, etc.

American parents have only one or two children, on average, and far too many of them are being raised as "trophy children," pampered perpetually childish pets rather than skilled, competent, and responsible proto-adults. This failure to reproduce -- and failure to competently raise the meagre progeny which they do produce -- is what truly threatens the collapse of the American Experiment (not actually an empire in the Roman sense at all).

Gottlieb was actually rather tentative and modest in her conclusions -- not taking them as far as she perhaps should have. Yet she was widely castigated by the "pampering nannies" of modern academia, journalism, and the blogosphere. The dysfunction can probably not be reversed before catastrophe ensues, at least not in the many strongholds of the destructive philosophy.

It is up to parents who wish to raise competent and functional children to structure an environment around the child which facilitates the acquisition of skills and an ongoing successful adaptation to adult world responsibilities.

Previously published at Al Fin, The Next Level

U. of Gothenburg Substantiates Al Fin Theory of Self Esteem

Current popular psychology books distinguish between self-esteem and self-confidence. It is also believed that it is possible to improve self-esteem without there being a link to how competent people perceive themselves to be in areas they consider important.

This is in stark contrast to the results of a new study carried out by researcher Magnus Lindwall from the University of Gothenburg's Department of Psychology and colleagues from the UK, Turkey and Portugal. _SD

The Al Fin theory of self esteem simply states that a child must acquire competence in order to feel confident. Once the child feels competence-inspired confidence, true self esteem is apt to follow. Promoting self-esteem without competence-based confidence is damaging to a child's mental and emotional growth process.

This theory contradicts a large body of popular psychology work -- which is largely implemented in theories of education and child psychology. The damage that has been done to generations of children who have been misguided and badly raised as a result of these educational and psychological methods, is incalculable.

Now research from the University of Gothenburg confirms Al Fin's theory.

The current study, involving 1,831 university students from the four countries, focuses specifically on self-perception of the body -- for example, how strong or fit the test subjects consider themselves to be and how attractive they believe their bodies to be...

..."In general, our study -- along with plenty of other research in the field -- paints a completely different and more complicated picture of self-esteem than that set out in best-selling popular psychology books," says Lindwall. "These books are often based on a person's own experiences and anecdotes rather than systematic research. Self-esteem is just not as simple as that, otherwise interest in the concept wouldn't be so great." _SD

Of course, Al Fin got his ideas from people such as William James, Maria Montessori, and so on -- in other words, from the giants of early psychology, education, and childhood development. How tragic that politically correct psychology and university schools of education aided by a monolithic system of government education, have conspired to regress and pervert education, child psychology, and child-rearing to the destruction of generations of children.

Al Fin has been calling for a complete re-working of theories of education and child-rearing for many years -- in part based upon his theory of self esteem. The tragedy is that all of this devastation and destruction of competence could have been prevented. Our societies would be doing far better if that had been so.

A Slipping Away of Competence and Human Capital Over Time?

...in a hard place, independence and self-reliance were the most sovereign of virtues and looked upon as the elements of character that made a man or a woman “worthwhile.” _Rex Murphy

NationalPost
In the National Post article quoted here, Rex Murphy is looking back at a recent bygone era of practical competence and self-reliance. Modern people in the year 2011 perceive their advanced technologies and lives of relative ease as signs of superiority. And yet, what is lost when generations of children are raised so as to be unable to lift a finger to provide practical sustenance for themselves or those they care about?

We know what is gained in terms of productivity, when specialisation of labour is practised. But when children spend most of their formative years -- outside of their school indoctrinations into political correctness and groupthink -- playing video games, watching cartoons and movies, texting friends . . . what will they do in a large-scale catastrophe to provide for personal and group survival?

...when I look to the Newfoundland of 50 years ago, look to it as my native province really was, not as I now retrospectively would like it to have been, I see in that hardscrabble time and place certain features of character and life that present a worth and depth all too rarely encountered today. Furthermore, I think most present day Newfoundlanders would agree with me — they were a better crowd then, those Newfoundlanders on the edge of our memories from a couple of generations back. They were a modest, hardworking, uncomplaining and above all a self-reliant people...

...The people of old did not advertise their diligence, industry, their life-long persistence at the hard, hard business of getting food and shelter for their families, and of making do with what they had. This was a time before the Oprah gene of emotional incontinence and reckless, exhibitionary self-worship so tormented our species. Newfoundlanders had the grand old gift of shutting-up about what they endured, why they endured it, and how much it cost them to endure it...

...They were tough, and in addition they were incredibly, ferociously self-reliant. Self-reliance was a foundation rock of their entire character. Be careful that you never accidently cast a doubt or a slur on a man or woman’s ability — and total determination — to be utterly free of any dependence on anyone else whatsoever.

I remember one old man who after a life of being on the water decided to build a long-liner all by himself. Cut the timbers, hauled the wood, planed, hammered and sawed away for the whole of two full winters: no neighbours to help, just him and a few tools. At the end to look across the road and see the magnitude of what, solitarily, he had built, the grace and finish of it, too — was to marvel that one man had so much within his own capacity and determination. I know he was proud that he, “just a fisherman” had so much skill. He was proud of his craft. But he was more proud that he could engineer this whole project all by his own 70-year-old self. He needed no one. Had to ask help of no one. Took money nor grant from no one. This was his boat....

...That self-sufficiency and the intensity of the commitment to it was the real hallmark of the Newfoundland character. It showed itself not just in large projects — such as building a boat — but in the lesser gestures of everyday as well...For many people, especially in the outports, this meant keeping a few farm animals and growing in a back garden of potatoes, cabbage and turnip. Together with fish and game, they had their own food supply. _RexMurphy-NationalPost

Murphy talks about self-reliance in Newfoundland, but the same ethic was practised across the rural areas of North America -- from seacoasts to mountains to the great plains. People were self-reliant because they had to be, and had been required to be so for as long as they could remember.

Modern people have largely forgotten any world except one where one supplies any need -- service or substance -- through a monetary (typically credit card) purchase. It is not so hard to imagine situations where the modern infrastructure of universal supply and demand might break down. A broader competence would come in handy in such situations. Another situation requiring self-reliant and resourceful competencies will be the opening of new frontiers in space and on/beneath the oceans.

A smarter society -- smarter than the currently deepening Idiocracy -- would raise its children with such possibilities in mind.

Amy Chua: "I Am Not a Witch, er, Monster"

Not a witch, er, monster, Amy? Legions of angry western mothers and children of a Tiger mother upbringing say that you are a monster. Some have even threatened your life.

Time magazine decided to get to the root of the issue by visiting Amy Chua in her gargoyle-adorned New Haven mock-Tudor mansion. Amy tries to set the record straight:

The first thing Chua wants you to know is that she is not a monster. "Everything I do as a mother builds on a foundation of love and compassion," she says. Love and compassion, plus punishingly high expectations: this is how Chua herself was raised. Though her parents are ethnically Chinese, they lived for many years in the Philippines and immigrated to America two years before Chua was born. Chua and her three younger sisters were required to speak Chinese at home; for each word of English they uttered, they received a whack with a pair of chopsticks. On the girls' report cards, only A's were acceptable. When Chua took her father to an awards assembly at which she received second prize, he was furious. "Never, ever disgrace me like that again," he told her.

...Some react to an exceedingly strict household by becoming permissive parents, but not Chua. When she had children of her own, she resolved to raise them the same way. "I see my upbringing as a great success story," she says. "By disciplining me, my parents inculcated self-discipline. And by restricting my choices as a child, they gave me so many choices in my life as an adult. Because of what they did then, I get to do the work I love now." Chua's path to her profession was not a straight one — she tried out the premed track and a major in economics before settling on law school — but it was made possible, she says, by the work ethic her parents instilled.

All the same, Chua recognizes that her parents' attitudes were shaped by experiences very different from her own. Her mother and father endured severe hardship under the Japanese occupation of the Philippines; later they had to make their way in a new country and a new language. For them, security and stability were paramount. "They didn't think about children's happiness," Chua says. "They thought about preparing us for the future." But Chua says her children's happiness is her primary goal; her intense focus on achievement is simply, she says, "the vehicle" to help them find, as she has, genuine fulfillment in a life's work.

...From the beginning, Chua's second daughter was nothing like her obedient sister. As a fetus, she kicked — hard. As an infant, she screamed for hours every night. And as a budding teenager she refused to get with her mother's academic and extracurricular program. In particular, the two fought epic battles over violin practice: " 'all-out nuclear warfare' doesn't quite capture it," Chua writes. Finally, after a screaming, glass-smashing, very public showdown, the tiger mother admitted defeat: "Lulu," she said, "you win. It's over. We're giving up the violin." Not long after, Chua typed the first words of her memoir — not as an exercise in maternal bravado but as an earnest attempt to understand her daughters, her parents and herself.

That was a year and a half ago. Today, Chua has worked out some surprising compromises with her children. Sophia can go out on dates and must practice the piano for an hour and a half each day instead of as many as six hours. Lulu is allowed to pursue her passion for tennis. (Her mother's daughter, she's become quite good at the sport, making the high school varsity team — "the only junior high school kid to do so," as Chua can't help pointing out.) And Chua says she doesn't want to script her children's futures. "I really don't have any particular career path in mind for Sophia and Lulu, as long as they feel passionate about it and give it their best." As her girls prepare to launch themselves into their own lives — Sophia goes off to college next fall — Chua says she wouldn't change much about the way she raised them. Perhaps more surprising, her daughters say they intend to be strict parents one day too — though they plan to permit more time with friends, even the occasional sleepover. _more at Time

Each child is different. The children of different cultures are often different from children of other cultures. East Asian infants, for example, are typically far more compliant from the time of birth (and before) than European or African infants. This relative lack of defiance by very young East Asian children toward their parents has a great deal to do with how much influence parents can have on their children. More defiant and independent children of European and African parents allow their guardians much less leeway in the moulding of their lives' shapes.

Chua's children are half European Jew and half Chinese, which allows for some interesting sorting of the genes which influence behaviour. Lulu being very different from Sophia -- and more like a European child in terms of independence and defiance -- should not be a big surprise to observers of behavioural genetics. Sexual reproduction is something of a crap shoot. Viva la diversity.

As far as westerners' defensive reactions to Chua's book, it is past time for western parents to dispassionately examine the results of hyper-lenient, over-pampering, and neglectful childraising practises. Children cannot raise themselves nor provide themselves with needed competencies on their own. Particularly in the earlier years, parents need to sacrifice some of their own leisure time -- and perhaps some potential income -- in order to instill competencies and earned confidence into the child.

The Tiger Mother way is not appropriate for every child. Even Amy Chua modified her approach over time -- as anyone who had read her book would have known. But the neglectful and over-sheltering approach of the modern PC western world is a travesty that needs to be called out -- over and over again.

Tiger Mothers Never Retreat, They Lure You In

In the week since The Wall Street Journal published an excerpt of the new book by Amy Chua, a Yale law professor, under the headline “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” Ms. Chua has received death threats, she says, and “hundreds, hundreds” of e-mails...many called Ms. Chua a “monster” or “nuts”... _NYTimes

NYTimes
There may well have been days, recently, when Amy Chua wonders if people are mistaking her for Sarah Palin -- with all the death threats and personal animosity being thrown her way. When bold and independent women in public life occasionally dare to let down their guard, they are sometimes punished for it.

“It’s been a little surprising, and a little bit intense, definitely,” Ms. Chua said in a phone interview on Thursday, between what she called a “24/7” effort to “clarify some misunderstandings.” Her narration, she said, was meant to be ironic and self-mocking — “I find it very funny, almost obtuse.”

...Her real crime, she said, may have been telling the truth. “I sort of feel like people are not that honest about their own parenting,” she said. “Take any teenage household, tell me there is not yelling and conflict.”

Ms. Chua is one half of the kind of Asian-Jewish academic power couple that, as she notes, populates many university towns. Her husband is Jed Rubenfeld, also a Yale law professor, and the author of two successful mystery novels. Ms. Chua, herself the author of two previous books, was reported to have received an advance in the high six figures for “Tiger Mother.”

...“I’ve been forced to answer questions about a book I didn’t write,” she said. “It’s not saying what people should do, it’s saying, ‘Here’s what I did, and boy did I learn a lesson.’ ” All this is captured, she said, in the book’s three-paragraph subtitle, which concludes with the words, “and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.”

...She was determined to raise her daughters the way she and her three sisters had been raised — which, she said, left them adoring their parents. By her account, her elder daughter, Sophia, complied, excelled and played piano at Carnegie Hall. But the younger, Lulu, rebelled. At the turning point of the memoir, Lulu, then 13, begins smashing glasses in a Moscow restaurant and yelling at her mother, “I HATE my life, I HATE you.”

Ms. Chua’s husband appears only peripherally in “Tiger Mother” — though there is one battle in which she lashes out at him after he worries that she is pushing their daughters to the point that there is “no breathing room” in their home.

“All you do is think about writing your own books and your own future,” she says to him. “What dreams do you have for Sophia or for Lulu? Do you ever think about that? What dreams do you have for Coco?” He bursts out laughing — Coco is their dog.

She concludes, “I didn’t understand what was so funny, but I was glad our fight was over.” _NYT

Yes. I, too, wonder what dreams Jed has for Coco. ;-) Honestly, if readers are unable to detect the irony and self-deprecating humour in Chua's writing, perhaps they should stick to comic books and romances.

East Asians are not the only ones who raise their children in a very strict manner. It is quite likely that most children of strict and disciplined upbringings turned out quite well -- as long as love was prominently displayed in the home as well. Children need discipline and boundaries. But the discipline should become internalised and the boundaries should be expandable with increasing maturity.

Modern western parents are negligent, as a rule, in terms of instilling practical competencies in their children. Criminally so, in many cases. And yet it may be possible for badly raised children to salvage something of their lives, in spite of their parents' neglect or over-pampering. We hope so.

Chua's book -- and the outrage it has caused -- has certainly been a revelation. Not an altogether reassuring one. Or, perhaps, more of a reminder than a revelation. Sometimes one likes to forget how screwed up his culture has become.

Amy Chua: More on Chinese Parenting, Discipline, Self-Esteem

Macleans
Amy Chua's assault against negligent western methods of child-raising has not gone unanswered. Thousands of indignant parents, educators, theorists, and sages-in-their-own-minds have gone to their keyboards to raise objections to Chinese mothering a la Chua. And yet almost none of them address the salient issue: children require competence in order to achieve true self esteem and lifelong achievement. Competence is not acquired without discipline.

Chua's approach is not ideal for every child. That should go without needing to be said. Look for the underlying essence in Chua's arguments. Don't get sidetracked by irrelevant particulars which may not apply to your own situation, or your culture.

Also notice how Chua's parenting approach changed with experience, as every parent's approach should do.

Q: So, are you ready to be pilloried as the ultimate tough-love mum who threatened to burn your daughter’s stuffed animals if she didn’t perform piano practice perfectly?
A: I’m not sure. I did not write this book as a parenting book; and it’s not about promoting the Chinese parenting model, although some people will take it that way. I was raised by extremely strict, extremely loving Chinese immigrant parents whom I adore and feel I owe everything to them. By instilling a work ethic and self-discipline my parents allowed me to have choices as an adult and be who I wanted to be. I tried to raise my daughters the same way. With my first, Sophia, things went smoothly, but then Louisa [Lulu] came along and I got my comeuppance. At 13, she rebelled. I wrote the book seeking catharsis.

Q: You were an obsessive taskmaster, demanding your girls be top of their class, be fluent in Mandarin, practise classical music for hours every day and do chores. You also banned TV, computers, play dates and sleepovers.
A: I didn’t want my kids to fall into a familiar pattern as the granddaughters of immigrants. I was fighting the tendency for them to be entitled and consumerist.


Q: In the book you write “I’m using the term ‘Chinese mother’ loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too.” So why call it “Chinese parenting”?
A: It’s Chinese people of a certain demographic, along with other immigrants. And there are patterns; it’s not just stereotypes. I also say Western parents come in all varieties. I have Western friends who are very strict. But I think the current dominant Western parenting approach is much more protective, much more permissive. Western parents are shocked by some of the things that Chinese parents say and do, it seems so harsh. But a lot of immigrant parents are horrified by many aspects of Western parenting: how quickly they let children grow up, how much time they let them waste, and how poorly they prepare them for the future.

Q: You insisted your girls also have hobbies so they wouldn’t become “weird Asian automatons.” So you chose classical music. You didn’t want them doing crafts which “go nowhere” or playing drums which “lead to drugs.”
A: For me classical music symbolized refinement and hard work and delicacy, and a certain depth. Both the piano and the violin are capable of producing such beauty, something more meaningful than watching TV or doing Facebook for 10 hours.

Q: You believe rote repetition is undervalued in North America.
A: Yes, and this is where my book is really against stereotypes. I hear people saying, “Oh, Asians are born good at math, or good at music.” That’s ridiculous. So much of it is just hard work. When Lulu was 10, she had done poorly on a math test, and said, “I’m bad at math, and I don’t like math.” Some Western parents might have deferred to that and said: “That’s just her . . . she doesn’t like math.” But I made all these practice tests, and we drilled them and on the next test Lulu did very well and some of her friends called her a math whiz, and now math is one of her favourite subjects.

Q: As you present it, the Chinese approach engenders more self-esteem because it focuses on mastery and accomplishment.
A: Yes. The techniques may sound harsh, but the Chinese parent is saying: “I believe in you so much that I know you can be excellent, and I’m going to be in the trenches with you for however long it takes and I’m not going to let you give up.” Now, eventually if your child says, “I don’t like math, I want to be a poet,” you have to let them.

Q: You also point out that in assuming their children are strong, Chinese parents often appear brutally critical.
A: It’s really important to put things in cultural context. When I won second place in a history contest once my father said, “Never, ever disgrace me like that again.” When I tell my Western friends they think, “What a horrible man!” But that’s not how I took it at all. For me, what he was saying is, “I know you could do better. I believe in you.” But I do understand why Westerners react the way they do, because not knowing my family, these things sound harsh.

Q: You were a closet Chinese mother; in public you’d say things like, “Good try, buddy.”
A: That’s another reason I published the book. After I wrote it, I showed it to my sisters and some Chinese friends and they totally related to it and thought it was hysterical. But they all said, “You can’t publish this! You’ll be attacked!” And I thought, “Why?” I certainly learned a lot from what I call the Western model. That’s how the book ends: I become more of a Western parent than I thought possible. I loosened up. Sophia has a boyfriend. Lulu did just get a sleepover. They still aren’t allowed to watch TV, but they can use Facebook, with limits. Where I did not give one inch is academically. I’m still the tiger mom on that front. There is a strong theme in favour of rebellion in the book. I identify with Lulu. Even though I was the obedient Chinese child, I disobeyed my father too. I married a white Jewish guy and now my father adores my husband. And writing this book is a completely non-Chinese thing to do, it’s a rebellious, very Western thing.


Q: Discussing ethnic differences has become a taboo, yet it’s your favourite topic to write about. Why?
A: The world right now is one in which there are definite cultural and ethnic differences. I heard the way my parents talk at home, and I know the way my colleagues talk at Yale law school, and it’s night and day. I’m against stereotypes, but I think not being able to talk about ethnicity or cultural patterns is worse. I was also trying to puncture a stereotype— there are all of these books portraying Asian mothers as callous people who don’t care about their children’s interests. My book is the opposite: it’s a heartfelt memoir about me as a Chinese parent trying do the best for my children because I love them.

Q: Given the focus of your previous books, I wonder whether you see parents as having a larger social responsibility to raise self-reliant, productive citizens.
A: I’ve taught students of all backgrounds for 18 years, and it’s not my experience that kids raised in permissive families are happier than kids raised in strict families—it might be the opposite. We have some serious issues in the West—very high rates of teenage depression and falling behind in terms of education. So it’s going to be hard for our kids to compete and to get jobs when they’re adults, and not being able to get a job is not a recipe for feeling fulfilled with their lives.

Q: Your daughters were raised in the Jewish faith. What’s your husband’s child-raising role?
A: My husband was raised in a liberal family. He adores his parents, but wished somebody had forced him to learn an instrument and speak a second language. And because I was willing to put in the time, he supported me. But from day one he insisted we take family bike rides and go to Yankee games, all things that I thought were a waste of time, but they helped bring balance to the family. _Macleans

Charles Murray on Amy Chua's Style of Tiger Mother Parenting

Charles Murray has two daughters by his first wife -- a Thai Buddhist woman, whom he met when she instructed him in the Thai language, in preparation for Peace Corps work in Thailand. Apparently, Murray's wife used a very similar child-raising approach to Chua's Tiger Mother approach.

...the mother of my first two children was half Thai and all Chinese, and it was all so familiar. The subject heading of the email attaching the Chua article to my elder two daughters was “Bring back memories?”

My own archetypal memory is when my eldest daughter, then perhaps eight years old, came home with her first Maryland standardized test scores, showing that she was at the 99th percentile in reading and the 93rd percentile in math. Her mother’s first words—the very first—were “What’s wrong with the math?”

Both children turned out great and love their mother dearly. _CharlesMurray

Asian - American children tend to do well in North American school systems, and in general achieve significantly higher than other ethnic groups. There are genetic reasons for the differences, but it is quite likely that parenting also plays a part in higher achievement.

...large numbers of talented children everywhere would profit from Chua’s approach, and instead are frittering away their gifts—they’re nice kids, not brats, but they are also self-indulgent and inclined to make excuses for themselves. There are also large numbers of children who are not especially talented, but would do a lot better in school if their parents applied the same intense home supplements to their classroom work.

But genes play a big role in whether you can demand that your child get an A in advanced calculus or make first seat in the violin section of the orchestra. With that in mind, let’s contemplate the genes being fed into those Chua children who are doing so well....

....Guess what. Amy Chua has really smart kids. They would be really smart if she had put them up for adoption at birth with the squishiest postmodern parents. They would not have turned out exactly the same under their softer tutelage, but they would probably be getting into Harvard and Princeton as well. Similarly, if Amy Chua had adopted two children at birth who turned out to have measured childhood IQs at the 20th percentile, she would have struggled to get them through high school, no matter how fiercely she battled for them.

Accepting both truths—parenting does matter, but genes constrain possibilities—seems peculiarly hard for some parents and almost every policy maker to accept. _Charles Murray

It is fortunate for Chua that she did not make a point of differences in average Northeast Asian IQ compared to most Europeans, Asians, Africans, and other indigenous groups. She is apparently persona non grata to millions of people across the western world already -- for daring to question western parenting! Imagine if she had questioned western genetic potential!

Children need competence in many adult skills -- for their own self-confidence and to enlarge their future options in life. Modern western parents are neglecting these needs of their children. Why blame Chua for that?

Amy Chua's Tiger Mother Parenting 2, With Photographs

Amy Chua in WSJ
In photographs, Amy Chua's daughters appear happy and confident. If you read Amy Chua's article in the Wall Street Journal, you will find that the apparent confidence and self esteem did not come easily. It required much work and much time devoted to achieving competence. Remember Al Fin's cardinal rule of child-raising? First competence, then self-esteem naturally follows.

...even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.

... In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams. _WSJ

...nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

...Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

...Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style.

Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.

Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.

"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.

"You can't make me."

"Oh yes, I can."

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

"You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."

"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.

Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.

Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.

"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."

Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

_WSJ

The point is not that every parent should raise her child like a Chinese Tiger Mother. The point is that "conventional wisdom" in parenting is not only not-wise, it is full of shit. Self esteem is a desirable result of competence, not an end in itself. Modern western societies are raising incompetent lifelong adolescents -- but they have great self-esteem. At least until they catch on to how they've been shortchanged.

Not every child is the same. Some will respond better to coercion than others. Some will find their strength early and follow it eagerly, with minimal encouragement. But some structure is almost certainly necessary in the early, formative years. Some skills almost always have to be drilled repeatedly, at first.

Amy Chua: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Al Fin: Amy Chua's Tiger Mother Parenting Part 1

Amy Chua's Tiger Mother Parenting Curriculum

Amy Chua is a Yale Law professor and celebrated author of World on Fire and Day of Empire. More recently, Amy has written Battle Hym of the Tiger Mother, a look at her attempt to raise her American children by traditional Chinese methods.

Chua was raised by Chinese parents in the US -- her father Leon Chua is a UC Berkeley professor of Electrical Engineering and originator of many important concepts in non-linear electronics. Leon was raised in Manila, a member of an elite Chinese Filipino family. He rebelled against the traditional Chinese family business and tradition, in order to come to America and make his own way.

Amy Chua is married to a Jewish Yale Law professor -- not a traditional Chinese choice -- but appears intent on raising her daughters in the traditional Chinese manner. Here is a description of Chua's book:

All decent parents want to do what's best for their children. What Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother reveals is that the Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that. Western parents try to respect their children's individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions and providing a nurturing environment. The Chinese believe that the best way to protect your children is by preparing them for the future and arming them with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother chronicles Chua's iron-willed decision to raise her daughters, Sophia and Lulu, her way-the Chinese way-and the remarkable results her choice inspires.

Here are some things Amy Chua would never allow her daughters to do:

• have a playdate

• be in a school play

• complain about not being in a school play

• not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama

• play any instrument other than the piano or violin

• not play the piano or violin

The truth is Lulu and Sophia would never have had time for a playdate. They were too busy practicing their instruments (two to three hours a day and double sessions on the weekend) and perfecting their Mandarin.

Of course no one is perfect, including Chua herself. Witness this scene:

"According to Sophia, here are three things I actually said to her at the piano as I supervised her practicing:

1. Oh my God, you're just getting worse and worse.

2. I'm going to count to three, then I want musicality.

3. If the next time's not PERFECT, I'm going to take all your stuffed animals and burn them!"

But Chua demands as much of herself as she does of her daughters. And in her sacrifices-the exacting attention spent studying her daughters' performances, the office hours lost shuttling the girls to lessons-the depth of her love for her children becomes clear. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an eye-opening exploration of the differences in Eastern and Western parenting- and the lessons parents and children everywhere teach one another. _GoogleBooks

This brief description is likely to apply to many East Asian traditions of child-raising, not only the Phillipines Chinese branch as represented by the Chua family. As you can see, it is a highly disciplined approach, oriented toward extracting the maximum possible achievement out of the child, in the areas that are emphasised.

If you look at other alternative parenting methods or alternative educational curricula which achieve above-the-ordinary results, you will likely find a similar undercurrent of high expectation and a guiding away from popular methods of time-wasting and peer dysfunction that leads a lot of affluent children into a rudderless adolescence and adulthood.

Amy Chua directed her children toward music -- specifically piano and violin. Does anyone doubt that Chua's daughters are likely to be highly proficient in these instruments, and probably other areas of interest? World-class mastery is another matter, and for that the child herself would need to have the fire inside her. But proficiency is very likely in the context of the Chua household as described.

Who would deserve the credit for high achievement by the girls? Chua's disciplined approach? Chinese tradition? The genetic giftedness bestowed on daughters of a Chinese law professor mother and a Jewish law professor father? Inherited drive and executive function?

Wait and see how things turn out first. Parenthetically, I wonder how often it happens that high-achieving East Asians marry and have children with high-achieving Jewish partners? This natural experimental joining of the genes of the two highest IQ test-scoring demographic populations known should provide researchers in the field of human intelligence with some genetic fodder, as gene sequencing and bioinformatics becomes cheaper and more sophisticated. Certainly the gene alleles which combined to give Ashkenazi Jews an average IQ of 110-115 are not likely to be the same exact gene variants which combined to give East Asians average IQs of 105-110. What will the combination yield?

Certainly Amy Chua herself, in World on Fire -- which looked at market dominant minorities around the world -- studiously avoided any discussion of differences in IQ between population groups. And yet, when choosing a mate for herself, there is no question that she took that quality into consideration. Still, for a good Chinese girl to marry outside the Han group suggests a bit of rebelliousness, which is a good sign in an intelligent, accomplished adult.

Children crave guidance, which is all too often denied them by parents whose time demands may stretch them to the breaking point. Child-raising trends in general are not encouraging, but there are rare foci of rationality, which may provide something of a nucleus for re-building afterward.

More about Amy Chua's background from Day of Empire's preface:

We were required to speak Chinese at home—the punishment was one whack of the chopsticks for every English word accidentally ut­tered. We drilled math and piano every afternoon, and we were never allowed to sleep over at our friends' houses. Every evening when my father came home from work, I took off his shoes and brought him his slippers. Our report cards had to be perfect; while our friends were rewarded for Bs, for us getting an A-minus was unthinkable.

More on Gever Tulley's Tinkering School

Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to demonstrate the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges and even a rollercoaster!

About Gever Tulley

The founder of the Tinkering School, Gever Tulley likes to build things with kids. _SimoleonSense

Childhood is all about learning how to live a life of ever present danger. Any child who grows to adulthood without learning such lessons is a lifelong burden to everyone around him.

Don't forget The Dangerous Book for Boys

Bringing Up Children Who Can Deal With Risk

Things children should be encouraged to do:

1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocket knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA
6. Drive a car

_Gever Tulley_quoted in openeducation.net
Tulley's TED Talk:

Modern society makes a fetish of safety and security. We can see many examples of how the compulsion for security is destroying the economies of western societies -- take public sector union pensions and benefits as an example of the unsustainability of hyper risk-aversion in adults. Tenure for public school teachers and college professors (higher education bubble) are other examples of the destructiveness and counter-productiveness of excessive clinging to security.

Raising children according to the risk-aversive mindset of modern western societies, is to raise children who will feel more comfortable staying home with their parents, rather than going out and making a life for himself. Such children are taught to be afraid of everything around them, and learn risk-aversion from their parents, teachers, and society at large.

But children must learn to take risks, because they are growing up in a world full of risk. They must learn to deal with hazards safely while still children, or they will turn to excessive risks such as drugs, drinking and driving, etc. or turn to excessive caution as a permanent attitude.

Training generations of children who are afraid to take risks, creates a huge risk all in itself. A risk-averse society will focus intently upon minimal and pseudo-risks which are close at hand, while ignoring much greater risks which may be developing just out of sight (or mind). The combination of risk aversion with political correctness multiplies the genuine risk by orders of magnitude -- because people are forbidden to discuss very real risks -- which are officially said not to exist, by the PC police.

And so after a few generations of risk averse children are raised to be afraid of their own shadows, but blind to real risks, your society is ripe for the fall. Most modern western children may very well fall within this category by now.

If so, wise persons will want to know where children are still being raised to take responsibility and to rationally deal with risks. Just in case they may someday wish to re-locate themselves to a place with a more robust and less unstable societal infrastructure.

Becoming a risk-taker

Tinkering School

50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Children Do