What Do You Think of Amy Chua’s Way of Raising Her Children free essay sample

The ways parents to raise their children are greatly affected by their experiences and culture they are exposed to. Chinese-American mother, Amy Chua, under the influence of strict parenting in her childhood, used the same way to teach her children. There are rules and regulations for their children to follow, such as not being allowed to learn music instruments except piano and violin with no excuse to say no. The reason that the issue has become a controversy is that the parenting method which she is proposing is totally against the common value of Americans which is the importance of personal freedom. Americans believe that everyone has the same right to express their feeling and freedom to choose their future and interests, even children. In my point of view, the way of Amy Chua raising her children does nothing on improving children’s personal development which lay the foundations of one’s personality and future growth. We will write a custom essay sample on What Do You Think of Amy Chua’s Way of Raising Her Children? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page There are reasons as follows. To begin with, tough parenting hinders the individuality of children. They are gradually used to following parents’ commands, thus, they no longer have the ability to think, leading to lack of creativity. Nowadays, many academic subjects require students having creativity, such as, visual arts and literature, how can the parents hope their children having good results without creativity? However, children under tough parenting will not be given chances to develop their potential. For example, Amy Chua didn’t allow her children to join the school play, which prevents them from displaying their interest in drama. Furthermore, harsh parenting leads to ultimate conflicts between parents and children. Following strict rules and regulation day to day, children are living under stress. For example, Amy Chua’s children have to keep on doing exercises without a break, which is too demanding for children’s ability, even an adult cannot keep on working all day long. Children will probably rebel against parents’ instruction by behaving badly, while their parents non-stop intensively their control on children. As a result, vicious circle will be created. Growing up in such a disharmony family, children can’t well develop their potential and they may even become autistic as they think themselves are not being understood, which hinder their personal development. Lastly, children’s motivations of doing best are being wrongly interpreted. Under tough parenting, children try to attain what their parents want instead of their own ambitions. For example, Amy Chua’s children are told that the only grade they can get is â€Å"A†. In other words, the reason for work hard is not themselves but to fulfill their parents’ requirement. It may create a short term return of achievements. However, what if one day they grow up and no longer can rely on parents? They will probably lose themselves causes they never think of their own objectives. To conclude, tough parenting is bad for children’s personal development because of the reasons raised and it will probably affect the future growth of children. Though Amy Chua claims that her parenting method represents â€Å"Chinese parenting†, I don’t think she is clear about the traditional Chinese idea of raising children. Chinese culture and Western culture are different as one is collectivistic while another is individualistic respectively. Chinese parenting concerns about children’s achievements both on academic and other categories because how they perform affects the reputation of their families. On the other hand, Western parenting rather prefers nurturing children by following their feelings and emotions. It is undeniable that some of the rules Amy Chua created are similar with the Chinese parenting. For example, both of them require high academic results. However, their purposes are different. Amy Chua aims at nurturing her children in her way while Chinese parenting focuses on whether people will appreciate their children’s achievement. Also, It is no such thing that a parenting method is superior to another one, because children are unique and different, there should not be any standard to foster a child, instead, we should base on children’s own ability to educate them.