The article about the Chinese “Tiger Mother” (described in the last three posts) reminded me of another issue of key importance for the 55% of my stress illness patients who have survived dysfunctional childhood environments.  Often they struggle to perceive accurately the long-term impact of this experience.  There are a couple of reasons for this, most simply that they have no parallel life to contrast with their own experience.  More subtly, part of surviving a difficult environment involves suppressing your emotional reaction to what is happening.  When this is done repeatedly, in later years it becomes difficult to look back and accurately perceive what took place.

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Continuing the comment from the last post about the article Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.  Another concern I have about the author’s parenting choices is the absence of any perspective on the limitations it places on her own life.  The approach to her daughters is tremendously demanding of time and emotional energy.  Of course she has every right to allocate these resources as she thinks best, but giving a little more time to her career, husband or other interests is not considered.

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Continuing the comment from the last post about Amy Chua’s article in the Wall Street Journal titled Why Chinese Mothers are Superior. To achieve goals the author has for her daughters, she imposes high levels of pressure and coercion.  There is a significant risk that this will result in long term damage to their self-esteem.  This damage is the common denominator in my patients whose symptoms are linked to their childhood experience.

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An article making the rounds of my social network, titled Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, was published January 8, 2011 in the Wall Street Journal.  The subheading is “Can a regimen of no playdates, no TV, no computer games, and hours of music practice create happy kids? And what happens when they fight back?”  The author, Amy Chua, was born soon after her Chinese parents arrived in the U.S.  She is a professor at Yale Law School and the article is excerpted from her forthcoming book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  The article has generated over 2500 comments in three days.

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