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ASIAN AMERICAN PARENTING GUIDE

[CONTINUED BELOW]

PARENT-CENTERED PARENTING
    Unfortunately, making yourself look like a good parent comes at a steep price -- and I don't mean the cost of piano lessons, prep schools and college tuition.  I mean the price your kids pay when they come to understand, at around the age of 7, that their parents really want them to be someone else.    "I hear John gets straight As. Why can't you be like John?  Mary always plays with the popular girls.  Why don't you do that?  I wish you'd be more athletic instead of playing those stupid computer games all the time."  In a nutshell, that's the dynamic behind the relationship between "good" parents and their never-good-enough kids -- parents who never forgave themselves for having failed to live up to expectations foisting off the same guilt, inadequacy and debilitating pressures on their own kids.
    Remember when you swore never to do that with your kids? And yet before you know it you find that your relationship with your own child has been poisoned by the same kind of insincerity that fuels the vicious cycle of "good" parenting.
    "Study hard and get good grades."
     "Why?"
    Here's an aspect of the parent-child dialogue too often poisoned by insincerity.
    "So you can go to a top college and become successful and happy."
    "What if I hate studying?"
    "I don't care what you hate.  I want you to study harder and get better grades so you can be happy later on."
    At this point most kids simply clam up and beat a sulking retreat. After all, the parent is bigger and stronger and holds the pursestrings.  The parent feels like he's done his duty by laying down the law.  In fact, all he's done is confirm the suspicions that his interest in his child's happiness is insincere.  The kid doesn't have to be a genius to finish out the dialogue in the sound stage of his own mind.
   "But I thought you said it was for my own happiness and well-being."
   "It is."
   "But I told you -- I hate studying.  It doesn't make me happy."
    "I don't care.  I want you to go and study. I know what's best for you."
    The dialogue always ends on the same note -- a parental assertion of superior wisdom and authority.  The kid is forced to come to grips with the ultimate no-win proposition.  He must study and get good grades even though he hates studying and isn't smart enough even to know what's best for himself.  Yet, in essence, this is precisely the one-sided dialogue between good parents and their hapless kids with regard to every area of life -- school, friends, sports, music, sex, money.  It all boils down to the bald assertion that the parent knows best and the kid must obey or else.
    What makes it galling is the parent's insistence that it's all for the kid's own good. Most parents fool themselves into believing that their kids believe the nonsense.

RESTORING SINCERITY
    Let's see how the dialogue might go if the parent were indeed sincere.
    "Dad, why should I study when I hate it?"
   "Son, there are many reasons.  First, if you got better grades I would feel like a responsible and successful parent.  It would let me brag to the guys at work who are always telling me about their kids' great report cards.  And later, when you're an adult, you might have an easier time getting a job so you won't be a financial burden on me and your mother who, after all, will be nearing retirement.  And, who knows, you might even like being successful."
   "You mean, if I get good grades, it would make life better for you?"
   " Yeah, that's it."
   " Oh. Okay, Dad, I'll see what I can do, though I still hate this math and English bullshit."
   The sincere parent doesn't insult the child's intelligence by trying to force-feed him patent lies ("It's for your own happiness.").  For another, by admitting what parental success means for himself, he elevated the kid's sense of self-worth and importance.  What's more he injected some meaning into at least the outcome of his studies -- helping his parents -- if not into the process itself. Not a bad first step for a parent determined to break the vicious cycle of "good" parenting.
   Before we move into an orderly review of our parenting strategy, let's follow the dialogue a step farther.  If the parent is sincerely interested in his child's welfare and happiness, it may have continued thus:
   "Thanks.  But if you don't mind me asking -- why do you hate math and English so much?"
   Asked with the proper degree of sincere interest, a question is the critical second step in salvaging a relationship from the slippery slope of insincere, self-defeating parent-centered parenting and returning it to the more effective and satisfying child-centered parenting.

PRINCIPLES OF CHILD-CENTERED PARENTING
    As I said earlier, sincerity is simple but most certainly not easy. In a nutshell, here are the key precepts we will be exploring in Part 3:

• Start with absolute honesty -- they can handle it
• Focus on what your child feels, not how you look
• Provide strength, not stress
• Provide choices, not rules
• Teach love, not fear

PART 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |