Has anyone had this kind of upbringing?

[ninwa]

I had that kind of upbringing until about year 8 - that list is accurate to a tee - when my parents kind of went "ceebs" and relaxed a bit. I pretty much went from having every aspect of my daily routine dictated to me to laissez-faire. My grades "plummeted" (in Asian terms - i.e. from A+ average to Bs and B+s) in year 9 and half of year 10 until I could work out how to do things for myself - how to organise my day so I had enough time to do all my homework and piano practice etc.

Hence the title of the thread in the water cooler - this kind of parenting makes me sick for her poor children. It cripples rather than nurtures. There is always a point at which the kids must fend for themselves. I'm just grateful my parents stopped when they did so it only slightly impacted on my VCE. I'm curious to see if anyone on VN actually benefited from this kind of parenting style.

[slothpomba]

It asks me to log in then why i try it doesnt work? (wait actually any idea on this?)
Never mind... i got into it from a quote someone posted.... does anyone else find that kind of thing worrying or is it just me?

[sheepgomoo]

for me, it was only very mild, and leaned more to when i was younger, like in primary school.

now, its more like my parents tell me to get good grades, but they dont mind if i dont. Its just like.. "oh. just do well for your own sake."

[Water]

for me, it was only very mild, and leaned more to when i was younger, like in primary school.

now, its more like my parents tell me to get good grades, but they dont mind if i dont. Its just like.. "oh. just do well for your own sake."

same here ;x, though, I wish they were stricter when I was younger, say 8 - 12 yrs old, and make me study harder or force things into my brain.

[/0]

It was like that when I was learning the piano, when I was younger. Scales, scales and more scales, for hours into the night.

But academically, my parents were never really pushy at all.

[pi]

Not to that extreme thankfully. =)

+1. Only thing there that makes sense there is not getting a grade under A.

Except, for me, make it an A+...

Only for subjects my parents felt were 'important', ie not geo, history (although I liked history a lot in yr10), art, PE, media, eco, bm, LOTE (german and latin).

With all those not to 'care' too much about, it was pretty good! They cared for piano though, and I also game a fair bit. Suppose my parents are pretty lax.   

[Cianyx]

My parents never actually pushed me hard in terms of school. The school did. Even when I did get the results that was expected I still thought that it wasn't worth it.

[burbs]

My older sister did all the hard work so that I didn't have any of these problems. She did the nagging or whatever so that sleepovers etc. could occur. Thank to that I was having sleepovers from yr 1 onwards.

[Gloamglozer]

I had that kind of upbringing until about year 8 - that list is accurate to a tee - when my parents kind of went "ceebs" and relaxed a bit. I pretty much went from having every aspect of my daily routine dictated to me to laissez-faire. My grades "plummeted" (in Asian terms - i.e. from A+ average to Bs and B+s) in year 9 and half of year 10 until I could work out how to do things for myself - how to organise my day so I had enough time to do all my homework and piano practice etc.

Hence the title of the thread in the water cooler - this kind of parenting makes me sick for her poor children. It cripples rather than nurtures. There is always a point at which the kids must fend for themselves. I'm just grateful my parents stopped when they did so it only slightly impacted on my VCE. I'm curious to see if anyone on VN actually benefited from this kind of parenting style.

But do you think growing up in a Western society is what is making you sick?  Do you think if you grew up in let's say China make you change your attitude?

I dunno, just curious.

[Liuy]

Not all Chinese families are like that.

Mine, is pretty lenient.

[ninwa]

But do you think growing up in a Western society is what is making you sick?  Do you think if you grew up in let's say China make you change your attitude?

I dunno, just curious.

Probably. I wouldn't really know any different - I'd assume everyone was going through it. The culture in Chinese schools is so different (extremely academically driven) that I would probably be upset at my parents for not continuing with their previous style, because I would lose my competitive edge over the other students. Especially since university in China is so damn hard to get into.

[Souljette_93]

Not to that extreme thankfully. =)

Yeah exactly, nothing like that at all.

Fortunate to not be in this posistion **dances**

[EvangelionZeta]

Just so that people aren't actually fooled by my joke post before, my upbringing was sort of a compromise of this and...normalcy.  My mother was responsible for me learning piano (which I enjoyed anyway, and whilst she knew that at least half an hour a day was probably necessary and disciplined me accordingly, she never "pushed" me to practice beyond this) as well as horn (which...I never practiced...lol).  She also made me sit a few extension classes in preparation for scholarship exams starting from around grade 4/5, and also had a period where she made me sit down and do one hour "accelerated learning" tests (never in excess though, just on weekends) for maths/english and so forth.

For the most part, I was free, and even encouraged to explore my interests.  I'd probably have died if I had not been allowed to do school productions (as Romperait sort of alluded to, I spent more time rehearsing in year 12 than studying...), and in particular my mother was (as you'd expect...) happy for me to socialise and play around, even to the extent of encouraging me to see friends in my younger years.  I actually showed this article to my mother, and she pretty much took my stance on it: whilst there's a place for a certain amount of discipline in bringing up children, it shouldn't come at the complete and utter expense of the child's creativity and independence. 

[Zien]

My upbringing was a shadow of this; it was never said outright but implied at childhood. That sort of formed an edge inside my own personality as I grew up. I was never really interested in socialising outside of school. Rather than piano or violin I learnt to play the flute instead, a choice of my own that my parents accepted because a) it was cheaper to purchase and b) they wouldn't allow me to play the piano because of a). Now I look back on it, I regret not having the chance to learn and play the piano.

Other than that, my parents were relaxed about my studies as I grew up. Perhaps they feared I couldn't adapt to the new English-speaking environment as I moved overseas twice when I was 5 and when I was 6. I eventually did cope and, with my relaxed schedule at home, I started to game a lot. Although at first it screwed about with my studies at school  I learnt how to balance one with the other soon enough. I learnt that it was best for me to concentrate hard in class at school to free up my time at home to game. As for homework and assignments, I never really treated it as anything important; same with studying for tests. Not the most healthy lifestyle, but it kind of worked. Even now, I still have the habit of concentrating really hard in school and just unwind at home by doing various stuff, not studying for 5 hours after school or something.

The difference that pulled me from growing up as lazy gamer with no regard for studies to having a working ethic is probably my love of competition. Having a talented, but equally lazy, older brother that generally excelled at his studies without much study save for the few days leading up to the exam really motivates me to do better. I wouldn't say I'm talented at all in comparison so I needed some hard work to catch up. Granted he was always a few steps in the complexity of the content he learnt, this competitiveness seeped into my school life. I had a huge competition with a best mate of mine as we're in the same class with the same subjects, always aiming to beat him. We were in a constant deadlock in our tests/exams etc. in every class we took; I beat him in some and vice-versa. But the competitiveness of mine really gave me the motivation to actually sit down, take out my pencil and paper and just study. If not, I would have just go out of control and do whatever I wanted. If I didn't have this personality then I would have needed the strictness of my asian parents (that never did come..) to kept me checked.



tl;dr: Nah, my upbringing was different with asian parents.

[fuzzylogic]

I think I was an asian parent during my school years!  Yes, that's right, I was my own asian parent.  Although my parents are from the subcontinent and they wanted me to do well, they never really pushed it at all.  When I was in kinder, we had this music show and I came home and announced that i wanted to learn the violin and my parents were hesitant.  Then by the time i was in pre-prep, I had forced them into taking me to violin lessons, and later piano, clarient and saxophone, much to their dismay!  They never forced me to practise, but I was the one who kicked and screamed at the age of five until my parents let me take my violin on holiday to USA with us....I remember having a friend's birthday party when I was six (at maccas LOL), and I was practising piano before it was time to leave.  There was this one passage that didn't work (kind of like in the article) and I just sat there, bashing away trying to get it right, despite my friend's party having started.  My mum tried to tear me away and actually yelled at me to go get ready for my friend's party, but I just sat there and kept practising...and eventually it worked, and i turned up an hour late LOL.  In terms of school; if I ever got below a "good grade", I was the one going nuts and searching for more practice resources and my mum and dad thought it was hilarious, and didn't care...mainly because they knew I felt so horribly about it.  I forced my parents to enrol me at North Shore in year one because one of my friends was doing it ...and I wouldn't go out and play until I'd finished all my North Shore homework...same thing during high school...I think most of the time, my mum was trying to get me to go out to parties instead of getting me to study (that said, I did go to all my friends' parties and I did go out, I did take part in music with copious rehearsals outside of school hours.... but not as much as my parents would have liked haha)
I guess what shocked me the most about that article is the lack of autonomy the children had over their own lives, and I reckon I'm lucky that while my life was to an extent, full of rules and discipline like in the article (albeit not so extreme), they were my rules and my discipline, that I chose to put in place on my life...