Robin Banksy is rather famous for often saying things that others would be hesitant to vocalize, in consideration of the foregoing, he once said, “A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.” With that in mind, I contend that Amy Chua’s perspective of what constitutes as ‘successful’ parenting, which she believes is “academic achievement” (Chua 2), is actually ultimately the exact opposite. In fact, her idea of ‘successful’ parenting is a detrimental combination of child abuse, operant conditioning, and social isolation.
First of all, Amy Chua blatantly condones and practices verbal and/or emotional child abuse as well as negligence as a method of effective parenting. Child abuse can be defined as a
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Operant conditioning is a term B.F. Skinner coined and is an approach that explains behaviour by examining actions and their consequences. Essentially, when someone is faced with actions that will reward them, they tend to be more likely to do it; however, if the action proves to punish them, then they are less likely to do it. Also, I use the term ‘train’ loosely because in this sense it means training a person to learn or adapt a particular behaviour. Chua emphasizes that children don’t understand that they must be good at something to enjoy it (Chua 2) and that it is important to ignore the things they like to do or learn; instead, the key to raising a child right is to impose the needs and wants of the parents upon the child. Regardless, of what the child may think or any possible resistance. Interestingly, she gives the impression that when a parent doesn’t force their child to act or become like their ideal child, then they’re giving up. I argue that the parents who stop pushing when their child becomes emotionally distressed and basically says “no” is worth respecting. It doesn’t mean they’re giving up, but rather that they know when to stop because they can always try again. Unfortunately, she seems to think that raising your children to seek praise and approval through excellence in school and music is the key to confidence. Amy Chua is teaching her …show more content…
Western parents are those who have adapted the Western European and/or North American culture and lifestyle. Engaging in common childhood activities such as sleepovers, play dates, extracurricular activities, watching cartoons, and hanging out with friends can be considered childhood norms. Personally, I believe that academic success is finding enjoyment in learning and exploring different areas of study. As well as, engaging in opportunities to grow, gradually strengthening one’s weaknesses, and learning how to manage the world around them while simultaneously living life happily and completely. Amy Chua starts off her essay by listing multiple activities that her children are not allowed to engage in. Many of those activities are classified as childhood norms and usually essential to a child’s development. Most of the activities have more benefits to children than not. For instance, some of the activities she prohibits are all forms of social interaction that have been shown to further develop the social skills of several children. She doesn’t even give her children the chance to choose their own extracurricular activities and that further removes their freedom to express themselves by doing something that they want. In
Some parents put their children up on a pedestal, and treat them as if they are the most prized creatures on the Earth. Parents think that they raise their children right, but Gottlieb makes a valid point when she states, “As a parent, I wanted to do things right. But what does ‘right’ mean?” I like how Gottlieb uses the story of the child tripping over a rock. When the kid falls, some parents would come to the rescue, and cuddle the child before they even start to cry. Even though they mean well, I feel like these parents are not even thinking of how a scenario as simple as this can affect their children later in life. This example reflects that even the overprotective and “good” parents end up having children that are lost and unhappy because they did not show any discipline and organization. Dan Kindlon, a children’s psychologist that Gottlieb mentioned, explained, “There’s a difference between being loved and being constantly monitored.” This made me think of a friend whom goes to West Georgia who I will call Ella. She grew up with the constant surveillance of her
Amy Tan shows that Ni kan resents her mother's decisions and resists her control. After many failed tests in knowledge and skills, Ni kan asserts to herself, "I won't let her change me. . ." (Tan 492). This clearly shows a child resisting parental domination and control. The piano lessons evokes a response of "...I felt like I was being sent to hell" (Tan 493).
Operant conditioning is changing behavior through the use of reinforcement after the desired action is given; a behavior that is rewarded positively is more likely to continue and a behavior that is rewarded negatively would likely stop occurring (Santrock,2014). In addition to reinforcement, Skinner also talks about punishment. Reinforcement increases the probability an action or behavior will be repeated, while punishment is intended to decrease a behavior (McLeod, 2015). When Laurie was younger, she thought she was being sent to school every day to socialize with her friends and that learning was a secondary, unintentional happenstance. In third grade, compared to the other students in her class, she was falling short in reading and math.
In the first few paragraphs, author attracts the attention of the reader and explains the main point of the article. The author begins the article saying that she “Pity[s] today’s parents who want to do the right thing.” The sentence attracts the audience to continue reading the article because the sentence sparks curiosity in why the author pities today’s parents. The article continues, “They [parents] buy child-rearing books, explore over psychology articles, play Mozart in nurseries festooned with alphabet cards and the periodic table.” Parker shows good persuasive technique by describing an exaggerated scenario of what parents are doing these days to try to develop their child’s mind.
Although our school system is in need of change, the film did not consider the part parental involvement plays in education, a drawback of the film. Education spending in our country has more than doubled in recent decades, but children in most states have proficiency rates of only 20 or 30 percent in math and reading (Weber 6). One must wonder if, with all of this extra spending and consistently low test scores, the problem goes beyond the school system and into American families. After all, even with small class sizes, the amount of one-on-one attention is limited for each student. Isn’t it up to parents to push their children to succeed? Amy Chua, author of the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother uses an almost militant form of parenting which – though highly controversial – demands nothing short of excellence from her children. While other children were allowed to ride their bikes or play video games with their friends, Chua demanded that her seven-year-old daughter practice t...
“Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior” (Cherry). Positive reinforcement which is praising a person for doing something good verses negative reinforcement which is an unpleasant remark a punishment. B.F. Skinner did an experiment on a rat, the rat was taught to push two buttons, one to receive food and the other was a light electric shock. The rat tried both buttons and realized which button was good and which one was bad. This experiment goes to show that upon the rewards and punishment system one can learn their rights from their wrongs through a series of lessons. Kincaid and Hemingway both use operant conditioning to show human behavior under stimulus control.
A child will never learn anything unless they get the experiences themselves first. Parents shouldn’t be involved until their child needs them to be. Solving a problem on their own for children is way slower but they learn better than having to be taught, especially if the parent is going to be yelling at their children. Betsy Shaw writes about a blog she read about a mom not having her children as a priority in her life. “Mom tells modern world to toughen up and get real,” quotes the mom Stephanie Mets when she talked about how her children learning in and out of school. Met’s writes about how parents who protect their children from disappointment are failing them from learning how to fix and reflect on what the mistake they did was. They are going to get hurt for simply not being able to face up to their problems is what she is writing about. Met’s son talked about being a yellow action figures whom he had for 2 years with him to show and tell. The yellow action figure had a hard hat and a drill. He thought about if after showing her and decide the teacher might of thought the drill is a gun and didn’t want any trouble so he switched it. Analyzing a situation all on his own without her help. That what Met’s blogged about to get parents now to know. Getting kids to learn on their own is better than having anyone else try to fix it for them. A parent will never ever be with their
... progresses on the way to becoming a physically, mentally and emotionally healthy individual. A parent who hides in the nice, safe playpen does nothing to aid in the child’s progress or success and does nothing to assist in the child’s physical, cognitive or emotional development. A parent who chooses the playpen actually hinders the child’s chance of achieving a healthy life and in developing to his or her full potential. “There are two things we should give our children; one is roots, and the other is wings.” – Hodding Carter. A parent who is able to follow the advice of Hodding Carter and is able to develop a child’s foundation as well as provide the chance for the child to grow and develop his or her potential is a parent who has done all that is possible to aid the child in the attempt to successfully navigate through the process of becoming a healthy adult.
Operant conditioning is a type of learning where a person is taught that specific actions are related to specific consequences. The main goal of using this type of conditioning is to encourage the individual to change his or her behavior in some way. Specifically, the individual can be encouraged to perform a desired behavior more often through use of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, and he or she can also be encouraged to perform an undesired behavior less often through use of positive punishment and negative punishment. Positive reinforcement is basically a type of operant conditioning in which an addition or reward is given to the individual when he or she has displayed the desired behavior, and as a result, the behavior
This article was interesting to read. This article makes me think about all of my siblings who I have seen grown up around me and I can relate the article to their life. One adolescent that comes in mind is someone who would have parents that would try to get involve in school work and other activities. The only problem was that the school climate and the friends that surrounded this adolescent didn’t help at all. This led to a lot of conduct problems like running away from home, smoking, and coming home after
Operant conditioning is a kind of conditioning, which examines how often a behavior will or occur depending on the effects of the behavior (King, 2016, pg. ). The words positive and negative are used to apply more significance to the words reinforcement or punishment. Positive is adding to the stimulus, while negative is removing from the stimulus (King, 2016). For instance, with positive reinforcement, there is the addition of a factor to increase the number of times that the behavior occurs (King, 2016). An example of positive reinforcement is when a child is given an allowance for completing their household chores. The positive reinforcement is the allowance which helps to increase the behavior of doing chores at home. In contrast with negative
In How Children Succeed, Paul Tough attempts to unravel what he identifies to be, “some of the most pervasive mysteries of life: Who succeeds and who fails? Why do some children thrive while others lose their way? And what can any of us do to steer an individual child – or a whole generation of children – away from failure and toward success?” (Tough, 2012). Children are born into environments of varying circumstances, good and bad, influencing their development. Through direct encounters with researchers, educators and children of different environments, Paul Tough approaches his questions by ex...
Brooks appears to agree with the way Chua pushes her daughters to excel, but finds Chua overly shelters them from necessary, everyday life skills. Brooks states “She’s protecting them from the most intellectually demanding actives because she doesn’t understand what’s cognitively difficult and what isn’t” (Brooks). In other words, Brooks believes that Chua shelters them too much from interacting with other children their age and believes that this will present challenges later on in
Operant conditioning is a system of learning that transpires through punishment and rewards for behaviors (Kalat, 2011). Through this, a connection linking a behavior and a consequence is made. For instance a kid could be told that she will not get recess privileges if she talks in class. This possibility of being punished leads to decrease in disruptive behaviors from her. The major components of operant condition are punishment and reinforcement (Kalat, 2011).
In contrast to classical conditioning, operant conditioning, discovered by B.F Skinner, is a learning process that involves either an increase or decrease in some behavior as a result of consequences (Amabile, 1985). Operant conditioning attempts to elicit new behavior through use of reinforcers and punishments.