Saturday, July 28, 2007

Raising Children in Different Cultures

One of things I have discovered is that raising children in different cultures is often shaped by social expectations and family background. When I was a child, parents in the US tended to use an authoritarian style where they led the family like a military leader and lectured ("my way or the highway") and often punished physically. With my own father, he gave us a look, and we knew we had to obey. No questioning. I really respected my father, so I tended to obey.

Now, I tend to take more of a counselor method, trying to validate and listen to my kids as they try to solve their problems. However, I teach my kids to be accountable for their actions. If they make a choice, there is always a consequence, and they can't choose the consequence. I don't pamper my kids, and I have told them early in their life that they should plan to a good part of their college education because I want them to learn how to manage their lives better.

So, what are your thoughts on the topic? What kinds of parenting methods do parents use in your own culture, whether they are effective or not? Share your ideas.

Randall

4 comments:

  1. i m abser. i m not very good in english language. but i try to explain my idea. wheather i make misstake, pls take it as a correct!
    I m from Bangladesh. in our culture, parenting method is not good. Parents always try to pamper them. as a result, they become lazy. but one thing i notice that child are very talent. they can understand what i say and what i m trying to understood him. in bangladesh parents only expect their exam result. they dont take any care of their mental growth. they dont tend them to avoid western culture. though i dont hate western culture. but if we follow western culture, we must lose our own culture. not only that, they also dont tend them to be selfrelient. after age 18 they get adult. but this adult is only in words not in works. in this age they take help from their father. though i m also taking this help. but i dont like to take. wat can i do? he didn't teach me to be a selfrelient.

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  2. Hi, I'm from Argentina.
    I think it could be problematic to have an opinion about the children growthing when that's happened in other country. The difference between cultures are more than we can see.
    In my opinion, always the limits must to exists, but if you don't care about your child you're fried.
    How will you educate your son/daughter just by the aplication of limits? How can they understand you if you don't understand them?
    regards,
    J.
    Arg.

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  3. Im a Pakistani and the mentality of our parents in raising up their children is that they take their offsprings as their immediate as well as ultimate assets. They count more on their sons as compared to their daughters because from the day one when the daughter is borned it is assured that she has to go to any body else's house.
    Sons have to be the partner of the parents either their businesses or running the house financially and girls are taught not to be very frank with the strangers .I believe in my country the way in which our parents brought us up in our society sounds a bit orthodox and not much liberal but this is the way in which we can save our culture and traditions.

    Now adays the society is going to astray and their is disseminated chaos and anarchy every kid is rebelling against their parents but only those kids stand sturdy who follow their parents instructions strictly and carefuly and no doubt that those kids are much better flourished than the one who always retaliate against their parents.

    So i believe that no doubt in my country the society is a bit conservative and orthodox but it helps in raising a good cultured,respecting and a responsible son or a daughter

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  4. I was born in the 70’s in a typically large family in poverty in China. My father was an only worker in my family with 19Yuan (about 2.5$) monthly income as a teacher. Obviously, the 19 Yuan could not able to feed seven family members for a month! To make more extra money, my father worked day and night. There is an old Chinese saying: kids from poor family will have to be breadwinners earlier. It means that the people from family in poverty would usually know more things and take on much responsibility than other ones in same age. With the excessive living burden, my parents were unable to supervise us-five children all the time, that is, we had own decisions what we should do and my parents usually gave us some advice and respected our ideas. Years late, we grew up not only with physically and mentally health, but also made our careers successful. My old brother becomes a journalist; my two old sisters’ are special-grade teachers; my oldest sister studied abroad; and I studied at a very famous music university in the world of the music city-Wien. We owe our success to my parents who gave us enough free right.

    Now I am a three-year-child mother and I often remember what my parents taught me and how I am raised up. What is different from us is my kid lives in a well-to-do family and her parents are well educated. I take some of the same ways from my parents who taught me to teach my kid. For example, I let my little girl know what is right and wrong, but I never spoil her at anytime. After her learned to walk, the first thing that she did is picking the littler to trash can and ordering her toys and stuff in the right place. She enjoys doing such things as well. When she was two years old, she persisted in wearing clothing by herself, although she always puts on her shoes in wrong feet. Moreover, usually, I don’t push her to do something she does not like and she has her own ideas. One day, my three-year-old little girl told me that she wanted to learn dance. To our surprise, she learned so seriously and never said that she was tired by constant dance for two hours! She always is curious new things and wants learning anything.

    Teaching children is not as easy as people think. I do my best to teach and supervise my kid to raise her a healthy adult.
    Randall, Thanks for your time to read it!
    HD-YAN from New Mexico

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Thanks for posting a comment. I appreciate your interesting in sharing your ideas.

Best,

Randall

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