Tiger mothers (or Asian parenting)

Does it really matter how strict your upbringing has been? Are you more likely to succeed if your parents pushed you just a little bit too hard when you were a child? We all know of the stereotype that Asian parents are the strictest, and most of think it's generally true. We've seen on TV and in the new papers how Asian children are pressured to excel in school and athletics. But we can't really see that Asian children, or grown ups for that matter, are superior to any other human race.

When we watch the Olympics, we don't see any more Asian faces than European, African or American. Neither have we seen that Asians are way more intelligent than anyone else. I'm not saying they're any dumber either. It's just that pressuring the children so they can be the smartest, the fastest or the best musician isn't proving to be beneficial. What it affects the most is the child-parent relationship, which only hurts from this. Most children won't be world famous or win a Nobel Price, and what you're left with is a damaged family.

So where do I want to go with this? I think there's a fine line between pushing a child too hard and preparing it for reality. There's no universal truth for how to raise your kids, but when the disadvantages are larger than the benefits, maybe you're doing something wrong. 

Baby Models

This is a video clip from an American show called "Toddlers and tiaras". I think this is a great example of helicopter parents. And though the video is hilarious, it's also very serious.

We're seeing more and more TV shows about the same things. Parents, mostly moms, who badly want their children to become models. It doesn't matter if it's 10 years too soon. In the video it might seem that the kid wants to be a pageant queen, but if you think about it her mom has probably made her want it. When you're that young it's hard to question your parents, especially if they're giving you so much attention.

We've seen in all sorts of media that our society is becoming more and more superficial, as if it hasn't been before. That it's finding its way to younger and younger people is not to blame on the children, but on their parents.

What do you think? Is it okay to enter your child in a pageant? And do the children actually like it?

Athlete Parents

Lately the Stockholm based newspaper DN has been publishing a series of articles about girls who have been pushed too hard in gymnastics. It's been a growing problem in Sweden that both parents and coaches push kids too hard in whatever sport they're doing. So far that they don't enjoy it any more.

I think this is pointless. If the motif for pushing the kids is that they'll make great athletes, it doesn't hold up in the end. Children want parents who cheer for them, not who get mad at them if they don't perform. After a certain point, they're going to lose interest in the activity.

I think it's wrong by parents and coaches to complain about the child's performance in a way that it seems they've only done something wrong, but at the same time these people can help if the child wants to get better at what they're doing. Of course that's a coach's job: to give the child the tools to get better at something they think is fun. But that's where the line goes. It has to be what the child wants, not what the parents want. Sometimes it's easy to forget why we do a sport, and that's when we have to think who it actually is for.

Here's an article adressing the issue from January 2012.

Please tell me what you think about this in the comments!

Helicopter parents

You're probably wondering what a helicopter parent is. The expression was coined in the book Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility by Foster W. Cline, M.D. and Jim Fay. It means that the parent is constantly hovering over its child, seeing to its smallest needs. They are never hard to reach, no matter what the child wants. In Scandinavia the term curling parent has the same meaning. The parents are constantly sweeping away their child's problems, never making them have to deal with anything.

I've chosen the name Helicopter Parents for my blog because it's the closest thing I can find to a word that describes the problem I want to discuss. Parents are trying to help their children, but are at the same time hurting them by not teaching them how to deal with problems. Another related topic that I'm going to discuss is parents who live through their children. In school, sports or job, there are cases where parents are pushing their kids too hard. It's hard to know what motivates the parents, or how the children feel about it. This is what I'll be talking about here for the next few weeks.