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Community Corner

'Tiger Mom' Style Not One Size Fits All

A local expert says Amy Chua's much publicized book on the superiority of Chinese mothers misses the mark.

The concept of the “tiger mom,” the ruthless and unrelenting parenting style documented in Amy Chua’s book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” has generated buzz throughout the country.

The book, which hit bookstores last month, documents Yale professor Chua’s unapologetic account of raising her children “the Chinese way” as opposed to the more Western style she says is ruining our children.

In a day and age where many American children have sports practices several nights a week plus homework and other scheduled activities, the tiger mom attitude doesn’t seem so far off.  At the same time, the U.S. education system is continually criticized for not being as rigorous as its international counterparts, and American parents are often accused of not being strict enough to ensure academic success.

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But in reality, according to experts in adolescent psychiatry, is that a more moderate approach might be better for your child than being a tiger mother or being too lax.

“From my perspective, extreme parenting tends not to be effective,” said Dr. David Schreiber, medical director for the child and adolescent psychiatry mood and anxiety disorder program at NorthShore University HealthSystem.”It could be problematic no matter what hemisphere you’re in.”

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Both Western and Eastern cultures seems to be trying to take a little bit from both cultures of parenting, he said.

The trick, according to Schreiber, isn’t about fitting a child to a parenting style, but rather, fitting your parenting style to match your child’s needs.

“You have kids that do very well with a full-day schedule,” said Schreiber. On the other hand, some children benefit from a looser structure. “

A rigid structure that places major emphasis on work and success without allowing for much creativity or downtime can be quite harmful for some children, in fact.

“Some kids (brought up this way) feel more stressed and anxious,” he said. “We see more stressed-out kids these days because there’s so much more scheduling,”

At the same time, medical and psychological experts are also seeing an increase in prescription drug abuse among young people, which in many cases correlates with the increased levels of stress and anxiety today’s children are experiencing.

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse’s December 2010 statistics, nearly 1 in 12 high school seniors reported nonmedical use of Vicodin and 1 in 20 reported abusing OxyContin. In 2008, 1.9 million people ages 12 to 17 abused prescription drugs with 1.6 of them abusing prescription pain medicine, and each day an average of 2,000 teenagers use a prescription drug without a doctor’s guidance for the first time.

“We’re focusing too much on success, and I think we’re missing the point that failure is important too,” said Schreiber. “We need to let our kids experience a taste of failure.”

Experiencing failure, whether academic or another type, appears to be particularly important in shaping the college experience.

 “We see a lot of students going off to college and it’s the first time they’re ever had to really manage their own independence,” he said.

Highly competitive colleges such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Ivy Leagues have higher suicide rates among students, and a high Asian population, he added.

The bottom line, he said, is that the tiger mother style of parenting isn’t necessarily more successful.

“You can’t take her experience as a one-for- all approach,” he said of Chua. 

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