Tiger Parenting, Asian-Heritage Families, and Child/Adolescent Well-Being

INTRODUCTION

Deconstructing the Myth of the “Tiger Mother”: An Introduction to theSpecial Issue on Tiger Parenting, Asian-Heritage Families, and

Child/Adolescent Well-Being

Linda P. JuangUniversity of California at Santa Barbara

Desiree Baolin QinMichigan State University

Irene J. K. ParkUniversity of Notre Dame

Amy Chua’s memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011, New York, NY, Penguin Books) drew atremendous amount of media attention that thrust Asian American parents into the limelight. In this specialissue, leading scholars studying parenting in Asian-heritage families use Chua’s notion of the tiger mother asa launching pad to examine aspects of parenting that may be unique to Asian-heritage (encompassing bothAsian American and native Asian) families. The goals of this special issue are to examine the prevalence andimpact of tiger parenting and to unpack the complexity of Asian-heritage parenting and its relation to child andadolescent well-being. Collectively, the articles in the special issue offer a more nuanced and accurateperspective on Asian-heritage parenting by taking readers beyond the myth of the tiger mother and dispellingsome of the stereotypical, monolithic notions of parenting within Asian-heritage families.

Keywords: Asian American parenting, tiger mother, child and adolescent well-being

Amy Chua’s (2011) memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Motherdescribes in detail her endeavors to push her two daughters tosucceed and, in the process, deny them a social life, sleepovers,and play dates. Chua’s depictions and the ensuing media attentionthrust Asian American parents into the limelight, their parentingdebated and contested throughout the media and on social networksites. In these discussions, many are curious about the real-lifeexperiences of Asian American children. In particular, do mostAsian American children have tiger mothers like Chua? Is tigerparenting a unique practice in Chinese or Chinese American com-munities, or is tiger parenting common in other Asian ethnicgroups as well? And, lastly, how does tiger parenting relate tochildren’s development?

To date, there has not been a concerted effort by scholars ofparenting in Asian American families to address the importantquestions raised by Chua’s book and the heated debates on theexistence and impact of tiger parenting. In guest editing this

special issue, we hope to contribute to the tiger mom debate bybringing together scholarly work addressing questions such as,What defines tiger parenting? How common is this type of par-enting? What implications does tiger parenting have for child andadolescent development and well-being? Contributors were askedto use Chua’s notion of tiger parenting as a launching pad toexamine culture-specific aspects of parenting that may be uniqueto Asian-heritage (encompassing both Asian American and nativeAsian) families. The goals of this special issue, then, were (a) toexamine the prevalence and impact of tiger parenting and (b) tounpack the complexity of Asian-heritage parenting through exam-ining the rationale, practices, and influences of culturally-specificaspects of parenting on child development and well-being.

The new Pew Research Center (2012) nationwide survey showsthat Asians have surpassed Latinos as the main source of immi-grants in the United States. The number of Asian American fam-ilies has also increased substantially in recent years (Passel, 2011).In the field of psychology, attention to Asian American parentinghas grown since Ruth Chao’s (1994) groundbreaking publicationin Child Development on Chinese American parenting. Amy Ch-ua’s book brought further public media and scholarly attention toAsian American parenting. We believe this special issue makes asignificant and timely contribution to our understanding of parent-ing in Asian-heritage families by systematically examining gaps inexisting literature; documenting the prevalence and influence oftiger parenting; and highlighting innovative areas, methods, andapproaches to gain a more nuanced and culturally embeddedunderstanding of Asian-heritage parenting.

Linda P. Juang, Psychological and Brain Sciences Department, Univer-sity of California at Santa Barbara; Desiree Baolin Qin, Human Develop-ment and Family Studies, Michigan State University; Irene J. K. Park,Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to LindaP. Juang, Psychological and Brain Sciences Department, University ofCalifornia at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. E-mail:[email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1–6 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0032136

1

Tiger Parenting and Gaps in the Literature

According to Chua, tiger mothers are mothers of Chinese (orother ethnic) origin who are highly controlling and authoritarian,denying their children free time, play dates, and extracurricularactivities in order to drive them to high levels of success at anycost, in sharp contrast to the softer and more forgiving Westernparenting style. More specifically, tiger parents can order their kidsto get As, are not concerned about their children’s self-esteem,“assume strength not fragility” (Chua, 2011, p. 52), “believe thattheir kids owe them everything” (Chua, 2011, p. 53), and “believethat they know what is best for their children and therefore over-ride all of their children’s own desires and preferences” (Chua,2011, p. 53). This stereotypical and caricature-like image seems toconfirm the worst fears about Asian parenting—that it is exces-sively controlling, harsh, and demanding unquestioning obediencewith little to no concern for the child’s needs, wishes, or emotionalwell-being. Importantly, we note that this is Chua’s definition oftiger parenting and that the authors of this special issue haveoperationally defined tiger parenting in somewhat different ways.Indeed, the precise definition and meaning of tiger parenting isdebatable and seems to vary across contexts and reporters. This isin part due to the origin of the concept as depicted by Chua’s book,which was based on one parent’s memoir instead of empiricalresearch.

In the scholarly literature, researchers have examined elementsof tiger parenting in Asian-heritage families. The majority ofstudies have employed quantitative methods drawing on cross-sectional data, used European American parents as a comparisongroup, and applied Baumrind’s (1966) typology of authoritarian,authoritative, permissive, and negligent parenting styles. Studies,for instance, have generally found that Asian-heritage parents tendto be more authoritarian when compared with European Americanparents (Chao, 2000; Park, Kim, Chiang, & Ju, 2010). They tendto endorse higher levels of psychological control and strictness(Chao & Aque, 2009); show less outward affection and verbalexpressions of love (Wu & Chao, 2005); more strongly emphasizefilial piety (i.e., honoring the family, respecting elders, being a topstudent; Chao, 2000), obedience, and deference to parents andelders (Supple & Small, 2006); and place less emphasis on auton-omy (Supple, Ghazarian, Peterson, & Bush, 2009). In sum, itappears that Asian-heritage parents generally place differentialvalue on control beliefs and engage in different parenting practicesalong a number of dimensions compared with European Americanparents.

There are, however, a number of gaps in current research onparenting in Asian-heritage families. First, the majority of thesestudies have focused primarily on Chinese American families, witha handful on Korean American families. Few studies have exam-ined Southeast Asian families or contemporary Asian families.Second, as with Asian American psychology literature in general,most studies employ quantitative methods and compare AsianAmerican families with European American families. Far fewerstudies have focused on within-group differences or use qualitativemethods. Third, the image of the “model minority” has dominatedscholarly and public discourse on Asian American children and ado-lescents. Subsequently, theory and empirical research on Asian Amer-ican children has focused predominantly on their educational achieve-ment. This emphasis, however, overlooks their psychological and

social well-being. As a result, the role parenting plays in AsianAmerican children’s education has been well established in the liter-ature. In contrast, much less research has focused on how differenttypes of parenting may influence the psychosocial development ofAsian American children and adolescents.

In this special issue, the authors present data collected onChinese American and Mainland Chinese, Korean American, andHmong American families. Collectively, the authors employ bothqualitative and quantitative methods, present findings on Asian-heritage parenting (including tiger parenting), focus on within-group differences, and examine how different types of parentingcontribute to children’s educational outcomes and psychosocialwell-being.

Six Empirical Studies in This Special Issue

In the first article, drawing on both parent and adolescent reportdata, Kim, Wang, Orozco-Lapray, Shen, and Murtuza (this issue,pp. 7–18) use latent profile analysis with a number of parentingdimensions to identity four parenting profiles among ChineseAmerican parents—tiger parenting, supportive parenting, easygo-ing parenting, and harsh parenting. Their longitudinal study pro-vides empirical support for the existence of Chua’s notion of thetiger parent. However, the results show that tiger parenting (mea-sured as scoring high on both positive and negative parentingdimensions) is not common, challenging the stereotype that manyAsian-heritage parents are tiger parents. The results also show thattiger parenting is prospectively linked to negative adolescent ad-justment both academically and psychosocially, challenging thestereotype that tiger parenting is always successful in producingchildren with high academic achievement. In contrast, supportiveparenting (scoring high on positive and low on negative parentingdimensions) is the most common parenting profile among ChineseAmerican families and is linked to the best developmental out-comes, including academic achievement and psychosocial adjust-ment.

In the second article on an emic-derived Korean Americanparenting socialization construct, ga-jung-kyo-yuk, Choi, Kim,Kim, and Park (this issue, pp. 19–29) show that ga-jung-kyo-yukappears to be a blend of the authoritarian and authoritative parent-ing styles. Their findings on data from both fathers and motherssuggest that traditional notions of parenting styles based on Baum-rind’s typology may not wholly capture Korean American parent-ing. Their findings also suggest that acculturation to mainstreamculture is positively associated with authoritative style, warmth,and good communication within the family. They also discussunique Korean cultural disciplinary parenting practices.

The third article by Cheah, Leung, and Zhou (this issue, pp.30–40) focuses on Chinese American parenting beliefs in thecontext of acculturation. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 50Chinese immigrant mothers with young children, the authors showhow Chinese American immigrant mothers integrate both “typi-cal” Chinese and American aspects of parenting. The mothersdiscussed the need to be more flexible across various areas toaccommodate to the cultural values of the mainstream society. Indoing so, they are challenged to balance the child-rearing goals ofencouraging their child’s autonomy with fostering a strong con-nection and sense of responsibility to the family. Importantly, this

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2 JUANG, QIN, AND PARK

study showcases how mothers’ parenting beliefs, values, and prac-tices are deeply embedded within the acculturation process.

The next two articles by Supple and Cavanaugh (this issue, pp.41–49) and Lamborn, Nguyen, and Bocanegra (this issue, pp.50–60) focus on Hmong American parents with their adolescentchildren, an understudied population in the Asian American par-enting literature. Notably, both studies focus on normative HmongAmerican parenting rather than viewing Hmong American parent-ing from a risk and deficit perspective. Supple and Cavanaugh’sfindings show that parental monitoring can offset the negativeassociation between family conflict and adolescent adjustment.The authors argue that parental monitoring (an important aspect oftiger parenting) is a culturally appropriate and positive aspect ofparenting, relaying concern and support to Hmong American ad-olescents. Their study also suggests that developmental implica-tions for tiger parenting may differ for adolescent boys versusgirls.

Lamborn et al. (this issue) show that Hmong American adoles-cents view their parents in predominantly positive ways, describ-ing their mothers as being supportive, loving, openly communica-tive, and showing warmth. Again, these views offer a contrast tothe stereotype of Asian American parents as tiger parents. Lam-born et al. also consider social class and argue that the sameparenting behaviors that they found with Hmong American moth-ers (such as training children using high expectations, close super-vision to fulfill family obligations) may have different roots fromwhat Chao (2000) and Chua (2011) have found with middle- andupper-middle socioeconomic status Chinese American families. Inthe Lamborn et al. study, many of the families were from lowersocioeconomic status backgrounds. Under these circumstances, itis a necessity that children learn how to manage the household andbe responsible for doing well in school. An important area forfuture research is to understand how differing motivations forsimilar parenting behaviors (e.g., the training model) may alsohave differing implications for child outcomes. The Lamborn et al.article demonstrates the importance of not only focusing on howcultural values shape parenting beliefs, practices, and related childoutcomes, but also the salience of socioeconomic status and familyresources.

In the only international article in the special issue, Way et al.(this issue, pp. 61–70) focus on parenting beliefs of mothers fromNanjing, China. In contrast to the tiger mother image, the mothersthey interviewed had broader goals for their children beyondacademic success, including being happy, self-sufficient, and so-cially and emotionally well adjusted. This article clearly showshow cultures are changing, and that using qualitative methodolo-gies can provide a rich description of variations in Asian-heritageparenting. These researchers allowed patterns of parenting toemerge rather than pigeonholing Chinese parenting into previouslydefined categories. They also illustrate that traditional Chineseparenting is changing in the context of rapid social, economic, andcultural changes in China as a result of globalization.

Asian-Heritage Parenting: Typologies, Prevalence, andLinks to Children’s Adjustment

Taken as a whole, the collection of articles in this special issueshows that in Asian-heritage families, parenting looks very differ-ent from what is depicted or implied by the caricature image of the

tiger mother. Instead, the studies demonstrate clearly that the tigermom is far from being representative of Asian-heritage parenting;it exists only in a restricted number of families. And more impor-tant, tiger parenting is far from the ideal way of parenting. Below,we turn to the questions that we started with in compiling thisspecial issue and discuss how this collection of articles has ad-dressed these questions and contributed to the field of AsianAmerican parenting in their innovative foci and methodologicalapproaches.

What Defines Asian-Heritage Parenting, TigerParenting, and How Common Is Tiger Parenting?

Is Asian-heritage parenting generally as harsh as what the tigermother image suggests? In addressing this question, the researchapproach appears to be very consequential. As mentioned above,most studies have used cross-sectional data to compare Asian-heritage (mostly of Chinese origin) parenting with EuropeanAmerican parenting, using mean scores on Western measures ofparental control and authoritarianism. This is the dominant ap-proach by which Asian-heritage parenting has traditionally beendefined. Results from these studies largely seem to support Chua’sassertions of stricter and more demanding parents. One advantageof this approach is offering a clearer understanding of what may beunique and what may be universal across different ethnic groups.

However, one important disadvantage of this comparative ap-proach is that it does not capture the variations inherent in Asian-heritage parenting or pay sufficient attention to culturally specificapproaches to parenting. Cross-cultural psychologists have longrecognized that parenting is grounded in the cultural context(Whiting & Whiting, 1975), and that the meaning and conse-quences of parenting are informed by culture (Harkness & Super,1992). In this special issue, the authors address this disadvantageby adopting a range of methodologies, such as using emic-drivenmeasures of culture-specific parenting (e.g., Choi et al., this issue),a person-centered approach (Kim et al., this issue), multi-informant surveys (e.g., Choi et al., this issue; Kim et al., thisissue), and in-depth interviews (e.g., Cheah et al., this issue;Lamborn et al., this issue; Way et al., this issue), as well as a rangeof analytic methods to examine whether the phenomenon of tigerparenting captures essential aspects of Asian-heritage parenting.The authors in this special issue also adopted different operationaldefinitions of tiger parenting depending on the focus and goals oftheir respective studies. For instance, Kim et al. (this issue) definedtiger parenting as scoring high on both positive and negativeparenting dimensions, whereas Supple and Cavanaugh (this issue)implicated culture-based conflicts, shaming or disapproval, andparental monitoring as aspects of tiger parenting. Collectively,findings from this special issue suggest that Asian-heritage par-enting is warmer, more emotionally supportive, and less authori-tarian than previously depicted. The findings also suggest that tigermothers are relatively rare among Asian-heritage parents. Thereare also important commonalities and tremendous variations inAsian-heritage parenting across cultural groups, time, and con-texts.

Based on Baumrind’s original parenting style typologies, theparenting style of authoritarianism has been studied extensivelyamong Asian-heritage families. One disadvantage of studyingglobal parenting styles such as authoritarianism, however, is that it

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3DECONSTRUCTING THE MYTH OF THE “TIGER MOTHER”

underemphasizes the fact that parents tend to act and responddifferently depending on the particular child, the situation, and thecontext (Turiel, 1998). Scholars have proposed a domain-specificapproach that focuses on parenting behaviors rather than generalstyles to better understand the socialization process (Grusec &Davidov, 2010). This domain-specific approach may be particu-larly useful for understanding how parents of different culturespromote specific developmental goals as it can pinpoint specificparenting practices that can promote certain child outcomes in aspecific context or culture. Almost all of the articles in this specialissue aim to broaden the global parenting style approach throughan examination of multiple aspects of parenting goals and practicesin families.

One further disadvantage of the dominant cross-sectional ap-proach of capturing Asian-heritage parenting via one snapshot ofparenting is the lack of attention to temporal change, both at theindividual level and at the cultural level. From a developmentalperspective, this is a clear limitation. In this special issue, a numberof articles address this shortcoming by considering how parentingchanges over time on an individual level (Cheah et al., this issue;Kim et al., this issue) and how cultures themselves change inresponse to fluid social and economic contexts (Way et al., thisissue). In their study of Chinese American mothers, Cheah et al.(this issue) show how mothers adapted their parenting as theyspent more time in the United States, highlighting the importantrole acculturation plays in parenting philosophy and practices. Kimet al. (this issue) show how, in a span of 8 years, both mothers’ andfathers’ practices changed from their children’s early adolescenceto emerging adulthood.

In addition to individual-level change, cultures themselveschange. And because cultures are changing, parenting beliefs,values, and practices are also changing (Kagitçibasi, 2007). Way etal. (this issue) describe how parenting in Hong Kong, Taiwan, andChina has changed over the past several decades resulting fromdramatic social changes. Contemporary Chinese parenting, quitedifferent from the traditional stern and highly controlling style, isincreasingly including many Western elements; for instance, par-ents emphasize both autonomy and relatedness in their parenting(Lieber, Fung, & Leung, 2006). Furthermore, Chinese parents inthe Way et al. study consider children’s happiness and social skillsto be extremely important for children to thrive in a changingsocial context, quite different from the tiger mother’s sole empha-sis on academic achievement. The Way et al. study is importantbecause it suggests that many (including Chua) may have an“outdated” view of Chinese parenting. Immigrants may be evenmore traditional than their nonimmigrant counterparts in the her-itage countries, and in some ways, immigrants may continue tooperate on a frozen and mummified notion of their heritage cul-ture. Thus, in studying Asian-heritage families, it is important forresearchers to be cautious of holding their own potentially out-dated views of parenting in different cultural groups.

Parenting and Links to Children’s Adjustment

As mentioned above, research on Asian-heritage parenting andchild outcomes has been dominated by a focus on children’sacademic achievement because of the continued acceptance of themodel minority myth. Chen and colleagues’ studies (Chen, Dong,& Zhou, 1997; Chen, Rubin, Li, & Li, 1999) are important because

they include measures of adjustment beyond the academic arena.Their studies focus on social and emotional development—areasthat have traditionally been neglected in research with AsianAmerican children and adolescents (Liu, 2011). Qin (2008) hasalso included a broader range of developmental outcomes to findthat aspects of tiger parenting (overly high academic expectationsand pressure to succeed, lack of open parent–child communica-tion, overly strict) may result in Chinese American adolescentswho do well in school but who are not well adjusted socially andemotionally. Several studies in this special issue examine adjust-ment beyond the academic arena such as depressive symptoms,self-esteem, and feelings of alienation from parents (e.g., Kim etal., this issue; Supple & Cavanaugh this issue). Supple and Ca-vanaugh found that certain aspects of tiger parenting (such as highparental monitoring) may promote some areas of children’s ad-justment (academic achievement and self-esteem) better than otheraspects (parental disapproval for the child who is becoming moreAmericanized). Only when academic outcomes are studied inconjunction with socioemotional outcomes simultaneously can webegin to discern whether or not there are important trade-offsassociated with certain parenting practices. For instance, as we seein this special issue, tiger parenting can contain costs in both theacademic and psychological domains for Chinese American ado-lescents (Kim et al., this issue), whereas supportive parentingappears to benefit adolescent developmental outcomes. Thus, thereis evidence that Asian-heritage parenting can evince positive out-comes in both the academic and psychosocial domains. And that todo so, Asian-heritage parents are employing parenting practicesthat emphasize nurturance and warmth as well as developing abicultural parenting style that blends values from both their heri-tage culture and the mainstream American culture. It will beimportant to continue identifying other aspects of Asian-heritageparenting, beyond parental control and authoritarianism, that aresalient for child development.

Where to Go From Here: Two Commentaries andFuture Directions

We are fortunate to have several culture and parenting expertsprovide commentaries based on their review of the six empiricalstudies and chart directions for future research. In the first com-mentary, Lau and Fung (this issue, pp. 71–75) highlight threecontroversial assertions by Chua and contrast these against thequantitative and qualitative data from the studies in the specialissue: (a) that Chinese-heritage parents place a much strongeremphasis on their children’s academic development rather thansocial and emotional development, (b) the root of this emphasis isattributed to cultural values and beliefs (vs. other factors such associoeconomic status), and (c) tiger parenting leads to high-achieving and resilient children. Lau and Fung’s commentary isnotable for integrating findings from the six studies with popularmedia/public reactions to offer a critical and thoughtful analysis ofthe claims made by Chua. In the second commentary, Deater-Deckard (this issue, pp. 76–78) takes a bird’s eye view of theresearch landscape to identify three key issues relevant to the studyof culture, parenting, and child development: (a) integrating uni-versal and culture-specific as well as dimensional and categoricalapproaches to studying parenting; (b) building consensus aroundvalidation of the most relevant dimensions and categories; and (c)

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4 JUANG, QIN, AND PARK

tackling within-family (sibling differentiation) as well as between-families variation in these dimensions and categories. Using the sixstudies as a launching point, Deater-Deckard offers a big pictureview of the field, providing insights that lead to important direc-tions for future research.

We concur with the commentary authors that despite advancesin understanding Asian-heritage parenting, there are still manyquestions left unanswered and important issues to consider. Al-though we know that socialization is a dynamic, reciprocal process(Grusec & Davidov, 2010), far more studies have primarily con-ceptualized socialization as flowing one way—from parent tochild. In this special issue, none of the studies explicitly tested thedynamic bidirectional process of parenting and child adjustment.Further, there are still few longitudinal studies examining Asian-heritage parenting and child/adolescent development. An impor-tant question to address is the stability and change in parentingthroughout children’s developmental stages. Kim et al. (this issue)show that parenting changes from the child’s early adolescence toemerging adulthood. The proportion of tiger mothers, for instance,tended to decrease over time, whereas the proportion of tigerfathers increased over time. And in her book, Chua realized thatshe needed to change the way she parented her younger daughterLulu as Lulu became a teenager. At the end of the book, Chuarealizes that her earlier ways of parenting were no longer appro-priate for her teenage daughter. Future research should investigatereasons for such changes. Why do mothers become less tigermom-like and why do fathers become more so? And, importantly,what role do children play in eliciting or challenging these changesin parenting over time?

Another area for future research is to focus on second-generation Asian American parents and children. We know muchmore about first-generation immigrant parents. In this specialissue, parents in almost all of the studies were first generation.Findings show that first-generation immigrant parents deal withthe “immigrant struggle,” namely, learning to adapt to the newculture and, at the same time, figuring out how to maintain andtransmit their heritage culture and values to their own children astheir children grow up and are likely to pick up dominant culturevalues and beliefs. With the substantial wave of Asian immigrantsto the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the childrenborn in that time period are now parents themselves. We knowvery little, however, about the parenting goals, beliefs, and prac-tices of these second-generation Asian-heritage parents. How dosecond-generation parents integrate different cultural values fromtheir heritage and dominant cultures, and how does this integrationrelate to their parenting? Chua is not an immigrant herself, but asecond-generation parent. Her story of parenting reflects a struggleto maintain aspects of parenting she views as important to herChinese heritage culture. And yet, in the end, she also realizes theflaws in her tiger mother approach and that modifications arenecessary in raising her children in a country that may have verydifferent parenting ideas compared with her own notions of suc-cessful parenting in her heritage culture.

Another direction for future research is the study of how par-enting in Asian-heritage families reflects biracial or blended cul-tural values, practices, and socialization strategies. Although Ch-ua’s children grew up in a Chinese-Jewish blended family, shedisclosed very little about how parenting decisions and negotia-tions were made to reconcile potential cultural differences. Ac-

cording to the U.S. Census, Chua’s daughters represent an explod-ing segment of the Asian American population that identifies asAsian in combination with at least one other race (15%, 2.6 millionpeople; Hoeffel, Roastogi, Kim, & Shahid, 2012). For this rapidlygrowing group, it is imperative that researchers address how bira-cial/multiracial/multiethnic families navigate parenting and social-ization in culturally blended family contexts so that we can learnmore about child development and well-being given these rapidlyshifting racial, ethnic, and cultural parameters.

Finally, it is important that future research examines the impactof Asian-heritage parenting (in all of its heterogeneity and com-plexity) on different kinds of child and adolescent outcomes withinthe same study. In this way, we can more clearly evaluate both thebenefits and costs of various parenting practices on Asian-heritagechildren’s development. This is practical for several reasons, butwe highlight two. On the one hand, identifying parenting practicesthat are associated with positive versus negative developmentaland psychosocial outcomes is critical for translating this researchinto more targeted and effective prevention and intervention ef-forts for Asian-heritage families. On the other hand, delineatingboth sources of risk and resilience would help to move the liter-ature away from stereotypes of the “model minority” to a morebalanced and comprehensive empirical knowledge base that accu-rately captures the experiences of Asian-heritage parents and theirchildren.

Conclusion

The articles in this special issue suggest several take-homemessages. First, although tiger parenting (defined as harsh, de-manding, and emotionally unsupportive) exists among Asian-heritage families, it is not common. Second, tiger parenting is notlinked to the best child outcomes—both academically and socio-emotionally. Third, the studies collectively show that there is muchmore variation in Asian-heritage parenting behaviors and practicesbeyond being strict, controlling, and demanding high academicachievement of their children. Using a range of samples andmethodologies, the studies suggest that Asian-heritage parents arealso warm, supportive, and loving toward their children, which hasnot been emphasized (and perhaps even de-emphasized) in theliterature. We hope this special issue can dispel some of thesestereotypical, monolithic notions of Asian-heritage parenting byoffering a more nuanced and accurate perspective so that readerscan see beyond the myth of the tiger mother.

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5DECONSTRUCTING THE MYTH OF THE “TIGER MOTHER”

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Kim, S. Y., Wang, Y., Orozco-Lapray, D., Shen, Y., & Murtuza, M.(2013). Does ‘Tiger parenting’ exist? Parenting profiles of ChineseAmericans and adolescent developmental outcomes. Asian AmericanJournal of Psychology, 4, 7–18.

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Development and Context. Child Psychology and Mental Health: Cul-tural and Racial Perspectives, H. E. Fitzgerald (Ed.). Westport, CT:Praeger Press.

Park, Y. S., Kim, B. S. K., Chiang, J., & Ju, C. M. (2010). Acculturation,enculturation, parental adherence to Asian cultural values, parentingstyles, and family conflict among Asian American college students.Asian American Journal of Psychology, 1, 67–79. doi:10.1037/a0018961

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Supple, A., & Cavanaugh, A. M. (2013). Tiger mothering and HmongAmerican parent-adolescent relationships. Asian American Journal ofPsychology, 4, 41–49.

Supple, A. J., Ghazarian, S. R., Peterson, G. W., & Bush, K. R. (2009).Assessing the cross-cultural validity of a parental autonomy grantingmeasure: Comparing adolescents in the United States, China, Mexico,and India. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 816–833. doi:10.1177/0022022109339390

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Received October 17, 2012Revision received January 16, 2013

Accepted January 17, 2013 !

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6 JUANG, QIN, AND PARK

Does “Tiger Parenting” Exist? Parenting Profiles of Chinese Americansand Adolescent Developmental Outcomes

Su Yeong Kim, Yijie Wang, Diana Orozco-Lapray, Yishan Shen, and Mohammed MurtuzaUniversity of Texas at Austin

“Tiger parenting,” as described by Chua (2011, Battle hymn of the tiger mother. New York, NY: PenguinPress), has put parenting in Asian American families in the spotlight. The current study identifiedparenting profiles in Chinese American families and explored their effects on adolescent adjustment. Ina three-wave longitudinal design spanning 8 years, from early adolescence to emerging adulthood,adolescents (54% female), fathers, and mothers from 444 Chinese American families reported on eightparenting dimensions (e.g., warmth and shaming) and six developmental outcomes (e.g., GPA andacademic pressure). Latent profile analyses on the eight parenting dimensions demonstrated fourparenting profiles: supportive, tiger, easygoing, and harsh parenting. Over time, the percentage of parentsclassified as tiger parents decreased among mothers but increased among fathers. Path analyses showedthat the supportive parenting profile, which was the most common, was associated with the bestdevelopmental outcomes, followed by easygoing parenting, tiger parenting, and harsh parenting. Com-pared with the supportive parenting profile, a tiger parenting profile was associated with lower GPA andeducational attainment, as well as less of a sense of family obligation; it was also associated with moreacademic pressure, more depressive symptoms, and a greater sense of alienation. The current studysuggests that, contrary to the common perception, tiger parenting is not the most typical parenting profilein Chinese American families, nor does it lead to optimal adjustment among Chinese Americanadolescents.

Keywords: parenting profiles, Chinese, tiger parenting, adolescent adjustment

There is a common perception that Asian American parents areauthoritarians when it comes to schoolwork and extracurricularactivities, and exceedingly demanding of their children both aca-demically and at home. Recently, these parents have been termedtiger parents (Chua, 2011) for the ferocity with which they disci-pline their children and for their emphasis on the importance offamily obligation and academic achievement. They are alsoviewed as displaying relatively less warmth and affection towardtheir children, and as running households that do not exhibitdemocratic values. The spotlight on tiger parenting has caused thepublic to question whether the control these parents exert overtheir children is appropriate, and whether their parenting practicespositively or negatively affect children’s development. Studieshave yet to find empirical evidence to support or refute theseconcerns. The current study uses longitudinal data from ChineseAmerican adolescents and their parents to examine the parentingprofiles that may exist specifically within this group, and the

adolescent outcomes that may be associated with each emergingparenting profile.

Parenting in Asian Americans

“All decent parents want to do what’s best for their children.The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that”(Chua, 2011, p. 63). Chua’s book, in which she presents a personalaccount of her own parenting practices, stirred parents and expertsnationwide. She claims to be a tiger mother herself, and argues thatthe methods she used to raise her daughters are aligned with theChinese cultural emphasis on academic achievement and familyobligation—two means by which adolescents bring honor to thefamily (Chao, 1994). This is in contrast to European Americanpractices, which emphasize the importance of children’s self-esteem and personal growth (Chao & Tseng, 2002). These differ-ences between the motivations of Asian and European American

This article was published Online First November 19, 2012.Su Yeong Kim, Yijie Wang, Diana Orozco-Lapray, Yishan Shen, and

Mohammed Murtuza, Department of Human Development and FamilySciences, University of Texas at Austin.

Support for this research was provided through awards to Su Yeong Kimfrom (1) Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD 5R03HD051629-02; (2) Officeof the Vice President for Research Grant/Special Research Grant from theUniversity of Texas at Austin; (3) Jacobs Foundation Young InvestigatorGrant; (4) American Psychological Association Office of Ethnic MinorityAffairs, Promoting Psychological Research and Training on Health Dis-parities Issues at Ethnic Minority Serving Institutions Grant; (5) American

Psychological Foundation/Council of Graduate Departments of Psychol-ogy, Ruth G. and Joseph D. Matarazzo Grant; (6) California Association ofFamily and Consumer Sciences, Extended Education Fund; (7) AmericanAssociation of Family and Consumer Sciences, Massachusetts AvenueBuilding Assets Fund; and (8) Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD5R24HD042849-10 grant awarded to the Population Research Center atThe University of Texas at Austin.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Su YeongKim, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, 108 EDean Keeton St., Stop A2702, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX78712. E-mail: [email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 7–18 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0030612

7

parents may mean that Western-derived parenting profiles are notas applicable to Asian Americans.

Parenting Dimensions and Profiles

Research on parenting styles originated with Baumrind’s re-search on parental control, which identified three parenting styles:authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive (Baumrind, 1966).Maccoby and Martin expanded on Baumrind’s work by reassess-ing parenting profiles using two dimensions, responsiveness(warmth) and demandingness (control), which allowed them toidentify an additional parenting profile: negligent (Maccoby &Martin, 1983). Authoritative parenting is viewed as supportive,with parents granting autonomy and encouraging communication(Darling & Steinberg, 1993). This style is correlated with positiveacademic outcomes and increased competence. Authoritarian par-enting is viewed as harsh, with parents using fear to elicit behav-ioral compliance (Darling & Steinberg, 1993); parents may alsouse power and control to produce desired behaviors in their chil-dren (Baumrind, 1966). These methods are correlated with in-creased depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem (Nguyen,2008). While both of these parenting profiles are characterized bythe use of control, the type of control (power) differs. Authoritativeparents employ confrontive power, which is open to negotiationand reasoning, while authoritarian parents use coercive power,which is aimed at maintaining the hierarchical structure of theparent–child relationship (Baumrind, 2012). A negligent parentingprofile characterizes parents who exert low levels of control andwho are largely unresponsive to their children. In contrast, apermissive parenting profile characterizes parents who are moreresponsive, maintain low levels of control, are nonpunitive, andlow in demandingness (Baumrind, 1966). While these parentingprofiles have become widely accepted in the literature, they wereinitially identified using a population of toddlers and young chil-dren in well-functioning, European American families (Baumrind,1966; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Scholars are increasingly recog-nizing the need to assess parental profiles using expanded dimen-sions to accommodate ethnic populations and different develop-mental periods (Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling,1992).

Previous research on parenting practices in ethnic minoritygroups indicates that cultural values and practices may impactparenting styles such that the western-derived profiles establishedby Baumrind (1966) and expanded by Maccoby and Martin (1983)are not as applicable to these groups. Working from the hypothesisthat ethnic minorities’ parenting practices may differ from thoseevinced in the classical profiles, Domenech Rodriguez, Donovick,and Crowley (2009) found the classic parenting styles did indeedhave less relevance in the case of ethnic minority families. Studiesconducted on ethnic minority parents have found that these parentsexhibit lower levels of parental sensitivity, use culturally specifictypes of parental control, and exhibit higher levels of protective-ness (Chao, 1994; Mesman, van Ijzendoorn, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2012; Domenech Rodriguez et al., 2009). Overall,these studies question whether the classic parenting styles accu-rately capture parenting practices in ethnic minorities such asAsian Americans.

Previous studies on Asian parents have employed classic labels,but have added caveats such as, “authoritative and psychologically

controlling” (Chan, Bowes, & Wyver, 2009, p. 849) to the classicauthoritarian label. Such parenting may be an example of tigerparenting, even though the term is relatively new. Recently, theterm tiger parent was popularized, and is colloquially understoodto refer to Asian American parents (Chua, 2011). The hypothe-sized tiger parenting profile may be characterized by high levels ofboth authoritativeness and authoritarianism among Asian parents,and may be viewed as the culturally salient merger of the classicauthoritative and authoritarian parenting profiles (Chan et al.,2009; Xu et al., 2005). In addition to the tiger parenting profile, weexpect to find additional parenting profiles in our sample. Forexample, a profile in which parents are supportive may be similarto the classic authoritative profile; a profile in which parents arecharacterized as harsh may be similar to the classic authoritarianprofile; and a profile in which parents are easygoing may besimilar to the classic negligent and/or permissive parenting pro-files.

Contemporary scholars are increasingly recognizing the impor-tance of using multiple dimensions, both positive and negative, todefine parenting profiles (Nelson, Padilla-Walker, Christensen,Evans, & Carroll, 2011). Accordingly, the current study concep-tualizes its potential parenting profiles as reflecting varying levelsof eight different parenting dimensions. The classic dimension ofwarmth is expanded to include both positive (parental warmth) andnegative (parental hostility) dimensions in an effort to distinguishbetween the mere lack of warmth and the presence of actualhostility. The classic dimension of control is expanded to includethe multiple facets of control—specifically, positive control ismeasured by parental monitoring and democratic parenting; neg-ative control is measured by psychological control and punitiveparenting. Additionally, inductive reasoning, which is a measure ofparents’ effective communication with their children, is includedas part of the fourth dimension, along with shaming, which hasbeen shown to play a significant role in the socialization ofChinese-origin children (Fung, 1999). Fung (1999) notes thatAsian parents actively pressure their children to internalize feel-ings of shame for not conforming to norms or for failing toperform as parents expect. These expanded dimensions allow for amore comprehensive measurement of control and warmth than canbe identified using the classical profiles.

A possible “supportive” parenting profile emergent in this studywould score high on positive measures (parental warmth, demo-cratic parenting, parental monitoring, and inductive reasoning) andlow on negative measures (parental hostility, psychological con-trol, punitive parenting, and shaming). Another possible profile,one characterized as “harsh,” would score low on positive mea-sures and high on negative measures. A profile characterized as“easygoing” may score low on both positive and negative mea-sures. Finally, a profile characterized as “tiger parenting” mayscore high on both positive and negative measures.

A Variable-Centered Versus a Person-CenteredApproach

In a variable-centered approach to studying parenting, eachparenting dimension is examined in isolation. The disadvantage ofthis approach is that the effect of individual parenting dimensionsmay differ depending on the parenting styles compiled from mul-tiple dimensions (Kerr, Stattin, & Ozdemir, 2012). For example,

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8 KIM, WANG, OROZCO-LAPRAY, SHEN, AND MURTUZA

high levels of control may be perceived differently when accom-panied by high levels of warmth than when they are accompaniedby low levels of warmth (Keijsers, Frijns, Branje, & Meeus, 2009).Although parenting is multifaceted, empirical studies that createprofiles have relied on arbitrary cutoffs or a median split approachin order to create parenting styles using two dimensions. Forexample, Chao (2001) and Berge, Wall, Loth, and Neumark-Sztainer (2010) identified the four traditional parenting profiles byplacing subjects rated as high (above the median) or low (belowthe median) in two dimensions into a four-tier parenting classifi-cation system. One notable limitation in this type of analysis is theresearcher may misclassify subjects by artificially placing an equalnumber of participants into each of the four profiles, which maynot accurately depict the prevalence of each profile in the sample.In addition, by focusing on only two dimensions, this approachprecludes the inclusion of other important dimensions used todefine parenting profiles, such as autonomy granting/communica-tion (Darling & Steinberg, 1993).

The current study uses multiple parenting dimensions in a latentprofile analysis to create the clusters that define parenting profilesin a sample of Chinese Americans. Nelson and colleagues (2011)also examined eight dimensions of parenting using a person-centered approach. The advantage of a person-centered approach,such as latent profile analysis, is that it allows the data to determinethe optimal number of solutions (profiles) and can provide theprobability of a participant belonging to one of the profiles. Aperson-centered approach eliminates any presumed bias toward aspecified number of solutions, and is advantageous for its appli-cability to multidimensional models (Weaver & Kim, 2008).

Parenting Profiles Across Adolescent DevelopmentalPeriods and Across Reporters

In the current study, parenting profiles are assessed during early,middle, and late adolescence. It may be possible for parentingprofiles emergent at one developmental period to differ from thoseat another developmental period. Nelson et al. (2011) examinedparenting during young adulthood and concluded that, while clas-sical parenting styles were applicable to their sample, other par-enting styles may be more relevant during emerging adulthood.The current study allows for an examination of parenting styles atdevelopmental periods from early adolescence to emerging adult-hood, and addresses whether the tiger parenting profile is evidentthroughout adolescence or only during specific developmentalperiods by a specific parent in the family.

The common adage “strict father, kind mother” (Chao & Tseng,2002) in Chinese families suggests that the mother may be respon-sible for daily upbringing and emotional guidance, while the fathermay be responsible for discipline and socialization outside thehome. At this time, little research has yet examined whethermothers and fathers may take on the roles of disciplinarian andcompassionate parent to varying degrees at different times duringa child’s development. If the tiger parenting profile does exist, itmay be more evident during a particular time period, since par-enting practices may be influenced by what mothers and fathersdeem most appropriate for meeting the developmental needs oftheir children at any given time (Costigan & Dokis, 2006; Inman,Howard, Beaumont, & Walker, 2007). For example, mothers maybe tiger parents during the earlier years, when they are more

responsible for children’s socialization in the home, up until theirchildren’s transition into adolescence. Fathers, on the other hand,might take on the tiger parenting role as adolescents gain moreautonomy and independence during emerging adulthood.

In addition to parents’ reports on their own parenting styles,adolescents’ perspectives on their parents’ parenting is also im-portant to assess. Parents and adolescents may not agree aboutwhich style of parenting is practiced in the home. Indeed, there isa high level of mismatch between the parenting practices ChineseAmerican adolescents experience and those they deem to be ex-amples of ideal parenting, suggesting a large discrepancy betweenparent and adolescent reports of parenting practices (Wu & Chao,2011).

Parenting Profiles and Adolescent Outcomes

This study evaluates multiple domains of adolescent outcomesassociated with each parenting profile that emerged in a ChineseAmerican sample. Assessing multiple adolescent outcomes canprovide a better understanding of how parenting profiles affectoverall adjustment across the developmental periods of early ad-olescence, middle adolescence, and emerging adulthood. The out-comes include academic achievement, educational attainment, ac-ademic pressure, depressive symptoms, parent–child alienation,and family obligation. Previous studies have evaluated the role ofparenting profiles in relation to a single outcome, such as academicachievement or depressive symptoms. By examining these andother outcomes together, the current study may be able to addresshow parenting profiles relate to the “achievement/adjustment par-adox” wherein Asian American students have high levels of aca-demic achievement, but low levels of psychological adjustment(Qin, 2008). This paradox may be most evident among AsianAmerican adolescents whose parents fit into the tiger parentingprofile.

Previous research has identified authoritative parenting as pos-itively correlated and authoritarian parenting as negatively corre-lated with GPA (measure of academic achievement) (Steinberg etal., 1992). Chao and Tseng (2002) emphasize that Chinese parentsmeasure success by their children’s performance in school andtheir children’s adherence to familial responsibilities, which meansthat children may feel a strong sense of academic pressure andfamily obligation. It is also important to assess adolescent adjust-ment by measuring outcomes such as parent–child alienation anddepressive symptoms. Research has found that unsupportive par-enting behaviors decrease parent–child bonding, leading adoles-cents to develop an increased sense of alienation from their parents(S. Y. Kim, Chen, Wang, Shen, & Orozco-Lapray, 2012). Inaddition, authoritarian-like parenting practices may also increaseadolescents’ depressive symptoms (Nguyen, 2008).

We expect that if tiger parenting does indeed emerge as aparenting profile, it may be the most likely of the profiles to relateto the achievement/adjustment paradox, given that tiger parent-ing’s emphasis on high academic achievement and strong sense offamily obligation may go hand-in-hand with high academic pres-sure and heightened adolescent depressive symptoms. This studywill also explore whether the achievement/adjustment paradox isevident in other profiles specific to Chinese American parentingthat may emerge.

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9TIGER PARENTING

Current Study

Chua’s book (2011) instigated a need to assess parenting pro-files using an expanded model of parenting dimensions that maybetter reflect the parenting practices of a sample of Chinese Amer-icans. First, this study aims to identify parenting profiles forChinese American mothers and fathers separately, and to deter-mine if a tiger parenting profile emerges, by using both parentself-reports and adolescent reports of parenting practices (warmth,parental monitoring, democratic parenting, inductive reasoning,hostility, psychological control, shaming, and punitive parenting).Second, this study will evaluate various adolescent outcomes (ac-ademic achievement, educational attainment, academic pressure,depressive symptoms, parent–child alienation, and family obliga-tion) associated with each parenting profile across three distinctdevelopmental periods: early adolescence, middle adolescence,and emerging adulthood.

Method

Participants

Participants were Chinese American families participating in athree-wave longitudinal study, with data gathered every 4 years.Adolescents were initially recruited from seven middle schools inNorthern California. There were 444 families in Wave 1, 350families in Wave 2 and 330 families in Wave 3. Slightly over halfof the adolescent sample is female (n ! 246, 54%). The age of theadolescents in the initial wave ranges from 12 to 15 (M ! 13.03,SD ! 0.73) years old. Median family income is in the range of$30,001 to $45,000 across all three waves. Median parental edu-cation level is some high school education for both fathers andmothers. Most (75%) of the adolescents were born in U.S.,whereas 91% of the mothers and 88% of the fathers were bornoutside the U.S. Most of the participants originally came fromHong Kong or southern provinces of China. Fewer than 10 fam-ilies hailed from Taiwan. The occupational status of immigrantparents is wide-ranging, from those in professional occupations(e.g., banker or computer programmer) to unskilled laborers (e.g.,construction worker or janitor). The majority speaks Cantonese;less than 10% of the families speak Mandarin as their homelanguage.

Procedure

Participants were initially recruited from seven middle schoolsin major metropolitan areas of Northern California. With the aid ofschool administrators, Chinese American students were identified,and all eligible families were sent a letter describing the researchproject in both Chinese and English. The 47% of these familiesthat returned parent consent and adolescent assent received apacket of questionnaires for the mother, father, and target adoles-cent in the household. Participants were instructed to complete thequestionnaires alone and not to discuss answers with friends and/orfamily members. They were also instructed to seal their question-naires in the provided envelopes immediately following the com-pletion of their responses. Within approximately 2–3 weeks aftersending the questionnaire packet, research assistants visited eachschool to collect the completed questionnaires during the students’

lunch periods. Among the families who agreed to participate, 76%returned surveys. Four years after the initial wave, families wereasked to participate in the second wave, and after another 4 yearshad passed, they were asked to participate in the third wave of datacollection. Families who returned questionnaires were compen-sated a nominal amount of money ($30 at Wave 1, $50 at Wave 2,and $130 at Wave 3) for their participation.

Questionnaires were prepared in English and Chinese. Thequestionnaires were first translated to Chinese and then back-translated to English. Any inconsistencies with the original Englishversion scale were resolved by bilingual/bicultural research assis-tants with careful consideration of culturally appropriate meaningsof items. Around 71% parents used the Chinese language versionof the questionnaire and the majority (85%) of adolescents usedthe English version.

Attrition analyses were conducted at Waves 2 and 3 to comparefamilies who participated with those who did not on the demo-graphic variables measured at Wave 1 (i.e., parental education,family income, parent and child generational status, parent andchild age). Only one significant difference emerged: boys wereless likely than girls to have continued participating ("2 (1) ! 7.20to 10.41, p # .01). Adolescent sex is included as a covariate for allanalyses.

Measures

Parenting dimensions. Adolescents, mothers, and fathers allresponded to questions about eight parenting dimensions: parentalwarmth, inductive reasoning, parental monitoring, democratic par-enting, parental hostility, psychological control, shaming, and pu-nitive parenting. The internal consistency for each parenting di-mension was from acceptable to high across waves and informants($ ! .65 to .91), except for mother report of democratic parentingat Wave 1 ($ ! .59).

Parental warmth, inductive reasoning, parental monitoring, andparental hostility were assessed through measures adapted fromthe Iowa Youth and Families Project (Conger, Patterson, & Ge,1995; Ge, Best, Conger, & Simons, 1996). Parental warmth wasmeasured with eight items about an affective dimension of parent-ing on a 7-point scale. Some examples of the items are “act loving,affectionate, and caring,” “listen carefully,” and “act supportiveand understanding.” Using a 5-point scale, participants also ratedfour items assessing inductive reasoning (e.g., give reasons fordecisions; ask for the target child’s opinion before making deci-sions; and discipline by reasoning, explaining or talking), as wellas three items assessing parental monitoring (e.g., know where-abouts of the target child; know who the target child is with; knowwhen the target child comes home). Parental hostility was assessedusing seven items about parents’ hostile behavior toward theirchildren on a 7-point scale. Some examples of the items are “shoutor yell,” “get angry,” and “insult or swear” at the target child.

Democratic parenting and punitive parenting were assessedthrough two subscales of the Parenting Practices Questionnaire(Robinson, Mandleco, Olson, & Hart, 1995) using a five-pointscale. Democratic parenting was measured with five items aboutparents’ autonomy granting (e.g., encourage the target child tofreely express himself/herself, allow the target child to give inputinto family rules, and take into account the target child’s prefer-ences). Punitive parenting was measured with four items about

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10 KIM, WANG, OROZCO-LAPRAY, SHEN, AND MURTUZA

parents’ use of punitive discipline (e.g., punish the target child bytaking privileges away with little or no explanation, discipline firstand ask questions later, and use threat of punishment with little orno explanation).

Psychological control was assessed through a measure of psy-chological control adapted by Barber (1996) from the Child’sReport of Parental Behavior Inventory (Schaefer, 1965). Using a3-point scale, all participants rated eight items about parents’attempts to regulate children’s psychological experience (e.g.,change the subject whenever the target child has something to say,avoid looking at the target child if disappointed, and become lessfriendly when the target child does not see things in the parent’sway).

Shaming was assessed through an unpublished measure devel-oped by Ruth K. Chao at the University of California, Riverside.Using a 3-point scale, participants rated five items about parents’attempts to socialize their children by inducing feelings of shame.The five items are: “Teach my child what not to do by usingexamples of bad behavior in other youths,” “Teach my child bypointing out other youths that I think are successful,” “Tell mychild to consider my wishes or expectations in his or her actions orbehaviors,” “Tell my child that his or her actions should bringrespect and honor to the family,” and, “Tell my child that his or heractions should not bring shame to me.”

Adolescent adjustment. Adolescent adjustment was mea-sured using six indicators: academic achievement, education at-tainment, academic pressure, depressive symptoms, parent–childalienation, and family obligation. The internal consistency of eachoutcome was high across waves and informants ($ ! .72 to .89).The internal consistency for academic achievement and educa-tional attainment was not computed because they were measureswith a single item.

Academic achievement was measured at Waves 1 and 2 usingunweighted Grade Point Average (GPA, without physical educa-tion courses) from school records. In Wave 3, adolescents reportedtheir current education attainment using a scale ranging from (1)high school dropout to (5) currently in graduate school (medical,law, Master’s Degree, etc.). Academic pressure was measured atWaves 1 and 2 using a scale developed by the first author. On a5-point scale, adolescents rated three items about the pressure theyfelt to succeed in school. The three items are: “Feel pressure frommy parents to do well in school,” “Get annoyed when my parentsremind me about the importance of getting good grades,” and“Stressed out about getting good grades.” Adolescent depressivesymptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Stud-ies of Depression Scale (CES-D) (Radloff, 1977). Using a 4-pointscale, adolescents, fathers, and mothers each rated 20 items aboutadolescents’ depressed mood. Parent-child alienation was assessedthrough the alienation subscale of the Inventory of Parent and PeerAttachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987). Using a 5-point scale,adolescents, fathers, and mothers each rated eight items on ado-lescents’ feeling of alienation from their parents (e.g., do not getmuch attention at home, have to rely on oneself when having aproblem to solve, and get upset a lot more than parents knowabout). The measure of family obligation was adapted from a scaledeveloped by Fuligni, Tseng, and Lam (1999). Using a 5-pointscale, adolescents rated 13 items about family obligation (e.g.,providing assistance to the family as a child, do well for the sakeof the family, and make sacrifices for the family).

Demographic information. At all three waves, adolescentsanswered questions on their sex, age, and whether they were bornin the U.S. At all three waves, fathers and mothers answeredquestions on their age, highest level of education attained, andwhether they were born in the U.S. These variables were includedas covariates when examining the differences in adolescent adjust-ment among the various parenting profiles.

Results

Analysis Plan

All the analyses were conducted separately for adolescent reportof maternal parenting, adolescent report of paternal parenting,mother report of own parenting, and father report of own parent-ing, and also separately for Waves 1, 2, and 3. Data analysesproceeded in two steps. First, parenting profiles indicated by theeight parenting dimensions were explored using Latent ProfileAnalyses (LPA). LPA assumes there are subpopulations in thesample, with distinct profiles comprised of multiple indicators, andattempts to identify these subpopulations. To determine the opti-mal number of profiles, a series of models were fitted to estimatebetween two to five parenting profiles sequentially. Each modelwas compared with its previous model (i.e., n class model com-pared to n-1 class model) on multiple fit indices to determinewhether estimating one more class improved model fit. The bestfitting model was chosen when there was no further improvementby adding more classes. Indices included Bayesian informationcriterion (BIC), the sample size adjusted BIC (ABIC), and alog-likelihood-based test (i.e., Lo-Mendel-Rubin (LMR) test) (Ny-lund, Asparouhov, & Muthén, 2007). Smaller BIC and ABICvalues indicated better model fit, and a significant LMR testindicated that a given model significantly improved model fitcompared to the previous model. Using a combination of multiplemodel fit indices strengthens the reliability of class enumeration(B. Muthén, 2003). The number of random starts was increased toensure that the final model converged at a stable solution (Hipp &Bauer, 2006).

Second, the effect of parenting profiles on adolescent adjust-ment was examined using path analyses. All the outcome variableswere included as dependent variables in the same model, anddichotomous variables representing the parenting profiles weretreated as the independent variables. In each model, when therewere n parenting profiles, n-1 dichotomous variables were created,with the last parenting profile as the reference group. The coeffi-cient estimation for each dichotomous variable indicated how eachseparate parenting profile was associated with adolescent adjust-ment relative to the reference parenting profile. The referencegroup was rotated to obtain all possible comparisons among par-enting profiles. Demographic variables were controlled for, includ-ing adolescents’ sex, age, and birth place, as well as parents’ age,birth place, and highest education level attained.

All the analyses were conducted in Mplus 6.12 (Muthén &Muthén, 1998–2011). Mplus handles missing data with full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) by default. FIML usesall the available information in its estimates and is thereforerecommended among the current methods of handling missingdata (Graham, 2009).

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11TIGER PARENTING

Parenting Profiles

Our first research question focused on whether there weredifferent parenting profiles based on the eight parenting dimen-sions. For all the chosen optimal solutions derived from latentprofile analyses, BIC and ABIC were the lowest, or the decline inBIC and ABIC between two adjacent models began to level off. Inaddition, the LMR test was significant, or marginally significant,between the optimal solution and its previous model, but notsignificant among any following models. The optimal solutions ofparenting profiles are displayed in Table 1. In the discussion thatfollows, the number of parenting profiles in each optimal solutionis described, then each parenting profile is labeled, and finally, theprevalence of each parenting profile in the current sample isexamined.

The optimal solutions were stable over time for adolescent-reported maternal parenting (four profiles across three waves),most differentiated in middle adolescence for adolescent-reportedpaternal parenting (four profiles at Wave 2 compared to threeprofiles at Waves 1 and 3), less differentiated over time formother-reported maternal parenting (four, three, and two profilesfrom Waves 1 to 3), and most differentiated in emerging adulthoodfor father-reported paternal parenting (three profiles at Wave 3compared to two profiles at Waves 1 and 2). Solutions with thesame number of profiles show a similar pattern of mean levels onthe eight parenting dimensions. Examples of mean levels for theeight parenting dimensions in a four-profile, a three-profile, and atwo-profile solution are displayed in Figures 1, 2 and 3, respec-tively.

When the optimal solution was four profiles, each parentingprofile was labeled according to its relative mean values comparedto those of the other profiles on the four positive parenting dimen-sions (parental warmth, inductive reasoning, parental monitoring,and democratic parenting) and the four negative parenting dimen-sions (parental hostility, psychological control, shaming, and pu-nitive parenting). Specifically, the parenting profile that scoredrelatively high on the positive parenting dimensions and low on thenegative parenting dimensions was labeled as supportive parent-ing; the parenting profile that scored relatively high on both thepositive and negative parenting dimensions was consistent with

our operationalization of tiger parenting and was labeled accord-ingly; the parenting profile that scored relatively low on both thepositive and negative parenting dimensions was labeled as easy-going parenting; and the parenting profile that scored relativelylow on the positive parenting dimensions but high on the negativeparenting dimensions was labeled as harsh parenting. The samelabeling scheme was applied when the optimal solution was threeor two profiles.

Table 1 also shows the group size of each parenting profile. Ingeneral, supportive parenting was the largest group, followed bytiger parenting and/or easygoing parenting, and harsh parentingwas the smallest group. Comparing adolescent and parent reports,the percentage of the sample classified as supportive tended to besmaller in the adolescent reports than in the parent reports. On theother hand, the percentage of the sample classified as tiger or harshtended to be larger in the adolescent reports than in the parentreports. Regarding the changes in group size across waves, al-though there were no clear patterns for supportive, easygoing, orharsh parenting, a pattern did emerge for tiger parenting. Specif-ically, the percentage of the sample that fit the profile for tigerparenting decreased among mothers but increased among fathersaccording to both adolescent and parent reports.

Parenting Profiles and Adolescent Adjustment

Our second research question was how parenting profiles wereassociated with adolescent adjustment. The coefficient estimatesfrom path analyses are displayed in Table 2, indicating eachparenting profile’s association with adolescent adjustment relativeto the reference parenting profile. For each type of report, therewere significant associations between parenting profiles and eachdevelopmental outcome in at least one of the three waves, with oneexception: father-reported paternal parenting profiles were notsignificantly related to adolescent-reported academic pressure.

In general, supportive parenting was associated with best devel-opmental outcomes, followed, in order, by easygoing parenting,tiger parenting, and harsh parenting. This pattern was consistentfor both adolescent and parent reports. Specifically, when beingcompared to the other three groups, supportive parenting profile,as reported by either adolescents or parents, was associated with

Table 1Classification Estimation From Parenting Latent Profile Analyses

Classes

Total1

Supportive n (%)2

Tiger n (%)3

Easygoing n (%)4

Harsh n (%)

W1 Maternal parenting (A) 199 (45.0%) 123 (27.8%) 86 (19.5%) 34 (7.7%) 442W2 Maternal parenting (A) 139 (40.3%) 66 (19.1%) 97 (28.1%) 43 (12.5%) 345W3 Maternal parenting (A) 136 (42.4%) 59 (18.4%) 109 (34.0%) 17 (5.3%) 321W1 Paternal parenting (A) 272 (63.4%) 80 (18.6%) 77 (17.9%) — 429W2 Paternal parenting (A) 131 (39.8%) 91 (27.7%) 77 (23.4%) 30 (9.1%) 329W3 Paternal parenting (A) 179 (58.3%) 85 (27.7%) 43 (14.0%) — 307W1 Maternal parenting (M) 142 (34.8%) 55 (13.5%) 182 (44.6%) 29 (7.1%) 408W2 Maternal parenting (M) 239 (77.3%) 52 (16.8%) 18 (5.8%) — 309W3 Maternal parenting (M) 210 (70.7%) — 87 (29.3%) — 297W1 Paternal parenting (F) 276 (72.4%) — 105 (27.6%) — 381W2 Paternal parenting (F) 208 (74.3%) — 72 (25.7%) — 280W3 Paternal parenting (F) 188 (69.6%) 52 (19.3%) 30 (11.1%) — 270

Note. W ! wave; A ! adolescent report; M ! mother report; F ! father report; the sample sizes in Waves 1, 2, and 3 are 444, 350, and 330, respectively.

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12 KIM, WANG, OROZCO-LAPRAY, SHEN, AND MURTUZA

higher GPA (% ! .13 to .28, p # ! .007) and educationalattainment (% ! .18 to .24, p # ! .002); a lower level of academicpressure (% ! &.33 to &.16, p # ! .003), depressive symptoms(% ! &.40 to &.13, p # ! .006), and feelings of alienation fromtheir parents (% ! &.51 to &.16, p # ! .007); and a stronger senseof family obligation (% ! .14 to .41, p # ! .008). In addition,compared to easygoing parenting, tiger parenting was associatedwith higher levels of academic pressure (% ! .17 to .26, p # !.005), depressive symptoms (% ! .17 to .24, p # ! .008), andfeelings of alienation from their parents (% ! .16 to .30, p # !.001). The only exception was that tiger parenting among mothersas reported by adolescents at Wave 1 was significantly related tohigher family obligation compared to easygoing parenting (% !.18, p ! .001). Lastly, compared to tiger parenting, harsh parentingwas associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms (% !.19, p ! .001), higher levels of alienation from their parents (% !.20 to .27, p # .001), and lower levels of family obligation (% !&.32 to &.21, p # .001).

Discussion

The current study identifies parenting profiles within a ChineseAmerican sample using multiple dimensions of parenting prac-tices. More importantly, the current study provides empirical sup-port for the existence of Chua’s (2011) concept of tiger parenting.Up to four parenting profiles are identified: supportive parenting,easygoing parenting, tiger parenting, and harsh parenting, with

supportive parenting making up the largest proportion, tiger par-enting and easygoing parenting making up the second or thirdlargest proportion, depending on the developmental period and theinformant, and harsh parenting making up the smallest proportion.In most cases, of the various aspects of adolescents’ developmentaloutcomes investigated, supportive parenting is associated with thebest outcomes, easygoing parenting is associated with similar orbetter outcomes than tiger parenting, and harsh parenting is asso-ciated with similar or worse outcomes than tiger parenting. Asexpected, tiger parenting is associated with high academic pres-sure.

The current study takes a person-centered approach by conduct-ing a latent profile analysis to identify parenting profiles within asample of Chinese Americans. A person-centered approach ismore advantageous than a variable-centered approach because theimpact of parenting practices is examined in the context of par-enting styles, which represent a combination of different levels ofvarious parenting practices (Kerr et al., 2012). A classic person-centered approach to parenting studies is the median-split analysis,which has several shortcomings (Berge et al., 2010). First, thenumber of profiles is predetermined. Second, models with multipledimensions can be extremely complicated. For example, with eightdimensions, the number in our study, a median-split approachwould lead to 256 profiles. Third, all profiles are presumed toconsist of equal number of participants, which is not realistic.Latent profile analysis, on the other hand, allows for the identifi-

Figure 1. Four parenting profiles estimated from adolescents’ report of maternal parenting practices at Wave 1.

Figure 2. Three parenting profiles estimated from mothers’ report of maternal parenting practices at Wave 2.

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13TIGER PARENTING

cation of different numbers of profiles—three to five in ourstudy—and selects the optimal solution based on the model fit tothe data. In addition, the group size varied among all the parentingprofiles, which enabled us to compare the prevalence of eachprofile in the current sample.

The profiles identified in the current study are similar to theclassic parenting styles in that warmth and control are the generalcriteria for distinguishing profiles. For example, supportive par-enting is akin to the classic authoritative parenting style, with highscores on both parental warmth and positive control, while harshparenting is akin to the authoritarian parenting style, with lowscores on parental warmth and high scores on negative control.

However, our parenting dimensions are more nuanced and com-prehensive than the two classic parenting dimensions of warmthand control, which means that the parenting profiles that emerge inthis study are distinct from the classic parenting styles. For exam-ple, in order to capture the multifaceted nature of parental control,the classic dimension has been parceled into multiple dimensionsacross both positive (parental monitoring and democratic parent-ing) and negative (psychological control and punitive control)constructs. The classic dimension of parental warmth has beenexpanded to include not only warmth, but also hostility. Consid-ering warmth and hostility as separate dimensions, rather than astwo extreme poles of a single dimension, allowed us to distinguish

Figure 3. Two parenting profiles estimated from fathers’ report of paternal parenting practices at Wave 1.

Table 2Coefficients Estimates From Path Analyses on the Relationship Between Parenting Profiles andAdolescent Adjustment

Variable Wave

Adolescent report maternal parenting Adolescent report paternal parenting

R_S R_E R_T R_S R_E R_T

E T H T H H E T H T H H

GPA w1 &.06 &.18!!! &.04 &.11 .00 .07 &.05 &.10 &.05w2 &.13 &.25!!! &.13 &.13 &.04 .08 &.17!! &.28!!! &.06 &.09 .05 .11

Attainment w3 &.15 &.15 &.24!!! &.02 &.17!! &.16 &.11 &.19!! &.05Academic w1 .11 .30!!! .24!!! .17!! .16!! .06 .02 .27!!! .26!!!

Pressure(A) w2 .16!! .33!!! .26!!! .19!! .14 &.02 .13 .16!! .21!!! .03 .12 .10

Depressive w1 .24!!! .30!!! .30!!! .03 .14!! .12 .13!! .28!!! .15Symptoms w2 .12 .25!!! .40!!! .15 .31!!! .19!! .20!!! .22!!! .25!!! .00 .11 .11

(A) w3 .13 .35!!! .21!!! .24!!! .15!! .01 .05 .27!!! .20Depressive w1 .13 .18!!! .13!! .03 .04 .03 .07 .12 .04Symptoms w2 .09 .12 .14 .04 .08 .04 .13 .08 .18!! &.05 .09 .13

(P) w3 .11 .26!!! .24!!! .17!! .19!! .09 .08 .21!! .11Alienation w1 .31!!! .43!!! .46!!! .08 .25!!! .20!!! .16!!! .46!!! .30!!!

(A) w2 .30!!! .33!!! .51!!! .07 .29!!! .23!!! .26!!! .26!!! .43!!! &.01 .26!!! .27!!!

w3 .33!!! .37!!! .47!!! .10 .31!!! .26!!! .29!!! .45!!! .08Alienation w1 .03 .07 .08 .04 .06 .03 .11 .04 &.07

(P) w2 .07 .16 .17!! .09 .12 .04 .07 .14 .25!!! .07 .21!! .16w3 .22!!! .21!!! .19!!! .04 .09 .07 .11 .24!!! .10

Family w1 &.32!!! &.18!!! &.38!!! .18!! &.17!! &.28!!! &.30!!! &.27!!! .04Obligation w2 &.24!!! &.10 &.41!!! .11 &.23!!! &.32!!! &.26!!! &.11 &.28!!! .16 &.11 &.21!!!

(A) w3 &.20!!! &.13 &.23!!! .03 &.13 &.15 &.19!! &.20!!! .05

Note. R_S ! supportive parenting as the reference group; R_E ! easygoing parenting as the reference group; R_T ! tiger parenting as the referencegroup; E ! easygoing; T ! tiger; H ! harsh; A ! adolescent report; P ! parent report; the significance level of group differences was adjusted usingBonferroni Correction in order to reduce Type I error from multiple comparisons among groups, p # .0083; blank cells indicate the particular parentingprofile did not emerge.!! p # .0083. !!! p # .001.

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14 KIM, WANG, OROZCO-LAPRAY, SHEN, AND MURTUZA

tiger parenting (high warmth, high hostility) from easygoing par-enting (low warmth, low hostility).

Our profiles also included the dimension of inductive reasoning,because reasoning and explanation provide an avenue for betterparent–child communication, which is considered to be an impor-tant component of authoritative parenting (Darling & Steinberg,1993). Inductive reasoning is also key for distinguishing betweenconfrontive control of authoritative parenting from coercive con-trol of authoritarian parenting (Baumrind, 2012). Finally, a cultur-ally specific dimension of shaming has been included to createculturally meaningful parenting profiles. The results show thatsupportive parenting, which is most beneficial for adolescent ad-justment, includes higher extent of shaming than easygoing par-enting, although not as high as the level of shaming in tiger orharsh parenting. Our results suggest that the use of shaming is animportant component of being a supportive and successful parentin Chinese culture, but the dimension of shaming is completelyabsent in the classic authoritative parenting style. Thus, the cul-turally specific parenting profiles that emerged in this study are notmerely interchangeable with the classic parenting styles.

Whereas most of the existing research on this topic uses eithera cross-sectional or a short-term longitudinal design only, coveringone or two specific developmental periods, the current study goesbeyond these studies by using a longitudinal design that coversthree developmental periods (early adolescence, middle adoles-cence, and emerging adulthood) and gathers data from multipleinformants. This allows for an examination of whether or not

parenting styles remain consistent across different developmentalperiods, as parenting may vary according to children’s changingdevelopmental needs (Nelson et al., 2011). Indeed, our resultsconsistently show that the proportion of tiger mothers tends todecrease or disappear across waves, whereas the proportion oftiger fathers tends to increase or emerge, and this is so regardlessof informant.

Traditional Chinese parents are supposed to be, as the adagegoes, “strict father and kind mother,” meaning that the fatherexerts restrictive control and the mother manifests warmth (Chao& Tseng, 2002). However, our results suggest that the roles ofmothers and fathers change over time in a way that is tied to thedevelopment of their children. It appears that mothers graduallyrelinquish their role as the tiger parent to fathers over the period oftime from early adolescence to emerging adulthood. The reason forthis phenomenon is not known yet, but one possible explanationmay have to do with the role Asian American parents play in thesocialization of their children. In Asian American families, moth-ers are responsible for the socialization of young children at home(Inman et al., 2007), while fathers are responsible for the social-ization of children outside of the home (Costigan & Dokis, 2006).Therefore, tiger parenting, as a culturally rooted parenting style,may be more likely to be used by mothers during earlier periods ofadolescence, when adolescents’ social interactions are more likelyto occur within the family. As children move into later periods ofadolescence and emerging adulthood, and begin to interact morewith the wider society, fathers may become more responsible for

Mother report maternal parenting Father report paternal parenting

R_S R_E R_T R_S R_E

E T H T H H E T T

&.07 &.15!! &.08 &.10 &.04 .04 &.13!!

.03 &.07 &.12 .06&.14 &.09 &.18!! &.07

.08 .16!! .12 .11 .08 .00 &.03

.02 .03 .00 &.13

.13 .18!! .16!! .09 .09 .03 .01

.01 .04 .03 &.00

.08 &.03 .19!! .22

.26!! .29!!! .33!!! .11 .19!!! .11 .24!!!

.14 .13 &.09 .15

.21!!! .08 .29!!! .18

.09 .18!! .18!! .12 .13 .05 .04

.07 .12 .00 &.05

.16!! .04 .20!! .14

.28!!! .35!!! .27!!! .16!! .13!! .01 .29!!!

.23!!! .22!!! &.15 .22!!!

.31!!! .23!!! .41!!! .12&.10 &.07 &.14!! .00 &.09 &.09 &.08&.04 &.03 .03 &.16!!

&.01 &.11 &.05 .08

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15TIGER PARENTING

disciplining the child, and thus may begin to take over the role oftiger parent.

Unlike many previous studies, which have relied on adolescentself-reports about their parents’ practices, this study uses reportsfrom both adolescents and their parents, for both maternal andpaternal parenting practices. This allows for a comparison betweenadolescent reports and parents’ self-reports of parenting. The re-sults suggest that, compared to their parents’ self-reports, adoles-cents are less likely to categorize their parents as supportive andmore likely to categorize them as harsh or tiger parents. Previousresearch has shown that Chinese American adolescents are morelikely than their European American counterparts to experience asalient mismatch between their ideals and perceptions of theparent–adolescent relationship (Wu & Chao, 2011). Because ofthis mismatch, which may deepen the typical parent–child gener-ational gap, Chinese American adolescents are more likely thantheir parents to report negative parenting practices. The currentstudy provides additional empirical evidence for a discrepancy inthe perceptions of adolescents and parents within Chinese Amer-ican families, and emphasizes the importance of comparing reportsfrom target adolescents and their parents.

The current study also compares the developmental outcomesassociated with each emerging parenting profile for both mothersand fathers, and across different periods of adolescence. Despitethe widely accepted notion of an “achievement/adjustment para-dox” in Asian Americans, particularly in the children of tigerparents, the current study findings do not seem to support theexistence of such a paradox. Regardless of the parenting profile,high academic achievement and high educational attainment arealways accompanied by high levels of psychological adjustment,and low academic achievement and low educational attainment areaccompanied by low levels of psychological adjustment. Thewidely agreed-upon paradox may be operative when comparingAsian American adolescents to their non-Asian peers, but withinthe current sample of Chinese American adolescents, levels ofachievement and adjustment are found to go hand in hand.

Tiger parenting, which owes its existence to the belief that“academic achievement reflects successful parenting” (Chua,2011), ironically does not result in the best educational attainmentor the best academic achievement; instead, it results in childrenexperiencing a level of academic pressure that is as high as thatassociated with harsh parenting. It is actually supportive parenting,not tiger parenting, which is associated with the best developmen-tal outcomes: low academic pressure, high GPA, high educationalattainment, low depressive symptoms, low parent–child alien-ation, and high family obligation. These results are to some extentconsistent with the literature on the authoritative parenting stylewithin European American samples (Steinberg, Elmen, & Mounts,1989). Easygoing parenting is associated with similar or betterdevelopmental outcomes than tiger parenting, with the exceptionof Wave 1 family obligation for the adolescent-reported maternalparenting profiles. Harsh parenting is associated with similar orworse developmental outcomes than tiger parenting, which reflectsfindings in the literature on authoritarian parenting (Nguyen,2008). These differences are consistent across parent and adoles-cent reports.

There are some limitations of this study. First, the sample isselected from an area with a dense Chinese American population.Students in the initial sample were recruited from schools with a

sizable proportion ('20%) of Asians in the student population,which is four times higher than the 5.6% that the Asian populationrepresents in the United States (Hoeffel, Rastogi, Kim, & Shahid,2010). Because families function in the context of the largercommunity, and because tiger parenting is a culturally specificconstruct, other studies may not be able to replicate our results.Tiger parenting may not emerge in other areas of the U.S. wherethe Chinese American population is smaller, or it may emerge butnot be associated with the same developmental outcomes as in thecurrent study. Second, the current study, as one of the first attemptsto investigate Asian American parenting profiles, uses a sample ofonly Chinese American families, the largest ethnic group of AsianAmericans in the U.S. (Hoeffel et al., 2010). It is not knownwhether the study findings are applicable to other Asian ethnicgroups who share similar collectivistic values that may also em-phasize children’s academic achievement as a way to bring honorto the family (B. S. Kim, Atkinson, & Yang, 1999). Third, due tothe culturally specific measures used (e.g., shaming), the newparenting profiles created in the current study may not be appli-cable to non-Asian racial or ethnic groups, such as EuropeanAmericans. This is because the mean values that represent thevarious parenting profiles within a Chinese American sample maynot be similar to those of other groups, such as European Amer-icans, who generally show higher mean values on parental warmthand lower mean values on parental control. In other words, it maybe that the parents identified as supportive in the current studywould no longer be identified as supportive if they were part of asample that included European American families.

There are at least two future research directions to consider.First, the effect of parenting practices may depend on the child’sown characteristics. Chua’s (2011) book shows that tiger parentingmay not result in the same developmental outcomes in differentchildren, even when they are siblings with the same tiger parent.Studies that compare the developmental outcomes of siblings canbe conducted in the future to see how each child’s specific char-acteristics can affect the way tiger parenting and other parentingprofiles relate to adolescent outcomes. Second, results of thecurrent study suggest that the parenting practices that compriseparenting profiles are not permanent, but vary over time. It may bethat parenting practices fluctuate on a daily basis. Future studiescould use a daily diary approach to investigate the changes inparenting practices and their relation to adolescents’ developmen-tal outcomes in a short-term intensive longitudinal study.

This study represents an initial effort at documenting and eval-uating tiger parenting, which is oftentimes perceived by the publicas distinctively Chinese or Asian American way of parenting. Ascontroversial as tiger parenting has been, it is relatively understud-ied. The current study suggests that tiger parenting does exist inChinese American families, but it is not the most common parent-ing profile, nor is it associated with optimal developmental out-comes in adolescents.

References

Armsden, G. C., & Greenberg, M. T. (1987). The Inventory of Parent andPeer Attachment: Individual differences and their relationship to psy-chological well-being in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adoles-cence, 16, 427–454. doi:10.1007/BF02202939

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16 KIM, WANG, OROZCO-LAPRAY, SHEN, AND MURTUZA

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Kim, S. Y., Chen, Q., Wang, Y., Shen, Y., & Orozco-Lapray, D. (2012).Longitudinal linkages among parent child acculturation discrepancy,parenting, parent–child sense of alienation, and adolescent adjustment inChinese immigrant families. Developmental Psychology, Advance on-line publication. doi:10.1037/a0029169

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Steinberg, L., Lamborn, S. D., Dornbusch, S. M., & Darling, N. (1992).Impact of parenting practices on adolescent achievement: Authoritative

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17TIGER PARENTING

parenting, school involvement, and encouragement to succeed. ChildDevelopment, 63, 1266–1281. doi:10.2307/1131532

Weaver, S. R., & Kim, S. Y. (2008). A person-centered approach tostudying the linkages among parent–child differences in cultural orien-tation, supportive parenting, and adolescent depressive symptoms inChinese American families. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37,36–49. doi:10.1007/s10964-007-9221-3

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Received May 12, 2012Revision received August 31, 2012

Accepted August 31, 2012 !

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18 KIM, WANG, OROZCO-LAPRAY, SHEN, AND MURTUZA

Is Asian American Parenting Controlling and Harsh? Empirical Testing ofRelationships Between Korean American and Western Parenting Measures

Yoonsun ChoiUniversity of Chicago

You Seung KimClark Atlanta University

Su Yeong KimUniversity of Texas at Austin

Irene J. K. ParkUniversity of Notre Dame

Asian American parenting is often portrayed as highly controlling and even harsh. This study empiricallytested the associations between a set of recently developed Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk measures and severalcommonly used Western parenting measures to accurately describe Asian American family processes,specifically those of Korean Americans. The results show a much nuanced and detailed picture of KoreanAmerican parenting as a blend of Western authoritative and authoritarian styles with positive and—although very limited—negative parenting. Certain aspects of ga-jung-kyo-yuk were positively associatedwith authoritative style or authoritarian style, or even with both of them simultaneously. They werepositively associated with positive parenting (warmth, acceptance, and communication) but not withharsh parenting (rejection and negative discipline). Exceptions to this general pattern were Koreantraditional disciplinary practices and the later age of separate sleeping of children. The article discussesimplications of these findings and provides suggestions for future research.

Keywords: Korean American parenting, Western parenting, family processes

Empirical research on Asian American families often paints acomplex and paradoxical picture.1 For example, studies aboutfamily processes and youth outcomes among Asian Americansoften do not align with conventional patterns (Chao & Tseng,2002; Park, Kim, Chiang, & Ju, 2010). In general, authoritativeparenting, a firm and warm style, is connected to intimate parent–child relations and positive child outcomes. Authoritarian parent-ing, characterized by strict and restrictive parental control and lackof warmth, is associated with higher parent–child conflict, nega-tive youth behaviors, and poor mental health (Baumrind, 1991).Asian American parents usually endorse and practice strict controland are regarded to be less expressive in showing affection (Hun-tsinger, Jose, Rudden, Luo, & Krieg, 2001). However, their seem-ingly authoritarian parenting is not always related to negativeyouth outcomes as it is in European American families (Chao &

Tseng, 2002; Deater-Deckard, Dodge, & Sorbring, 2005). In fact,in Asian American families, strict control tends to predict im-proved outcomes such as higher school grades (Steinberg, Lam-born, Darling, Mounts, & Dornbusch, 1994). Therefore, the exist-ing family process model (e.g., conceptualizing parenting style asauthoritarian and authoritative), which is derived mainly from aWestern culture and empirical evidence from non-Hispanic Whitefamilies, seems inadequate in understanding Asian family pro-cesses (Choi, Harachi, Gillmore, & Catalano, 2005; Dornbusch,Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987).

Culture and Parenting

The culture and social environments in which families residehelp determine parental beliefs about child-rearing goals and par-enting methods, which subsequently shape actual parenting behav-iors and parent–child relationships (Harkness & Super, 2002;Rubin & Chung, 2006). Thus, parenting goals, values, and prac-tices and parent–child interactions vary from culture to culture(Bornstein & Cote, 2006; Deater-Deckard et al., 2011). For exam-ple, in the dominant Western culture in the United States, thedesired child-rearing goals are independence, individualism, socialassertiveness, confidence, and competence (Rubin & Chung,2006). Authoritative parenting style is regarded as the most idealto promote these core values. Specifically, authoritative parentingestablishes firm and clear rules but employs inductive reasoning

1 The term Asian Americans refers to both U.S.-born Americans ofAsian descent and Asian immigrants who were born in Asian countries andmigrated to the United States and may or may not have been naturalized.

Yoonsun Choi, School of Social Service Administration, University ofChicago; You Seung Kim, School of Social Work, Clark Atlanta Univer-sity; Su Yeong Kim, Human Development and Family Sciences, School ofHuman Ecology, University of Texas at Austin; Irene J. K. Park, Depart-ment of Psychology, University of Notre Dame.

This study was supported by a Research Scientist Development Awardfrom the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant K01 MH069910), aSeed Grant from the Center for Health Administration Studies, and a JuniorFaculty Research Fund from the School of Social Service Administrationand the Office of Vice President of Research and Argonne Laboratory atthe University of Chicago (to Yoonsun Choi).

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to YoonsunChoi, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, 969East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. E-mail: [email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 19–29 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031220

19

and expressive warmth and allows autonomy, active exploration,and risk-taking, yielding positive youth outcomes (Rubin &Chung, 2006). It also helps to build close parent–child relation-ships and reduce parent–child conflict, and it has been shown to bethe most beneficial in all domains of youth outcomes concerningacademic performance, externalizing behaviors, and mental health(Park et al., 2010).

Conversely, traditional Asian families tend to be culturallycollectivistic, emphasizing interdependence, conformity, emo-tional self-control, and humility.2 This is in stark contrast to thecore values of the Western culture (Kurasaki, Okazaki, & Sue,2002).3 These Asian cultural values produce deeply ingrainedfamily values, such as a strong sense of obligation and orientationto the family and respect for and obedience to parents and elders(Chao & Tseng, 2002; Fuligni, 2007). Despite the differencesbetween Western and Asian family processes, the practice of usingWestern parenting theories to explain Asian parenting dominatesthe existing family and parenting research. Similarly, Asian Amer-ican families, despite their cultural difference from the dominantWestern culture in the United States, are often evaluated using theWestern paradigm. It is likely that incorrectly fitting one cultureinto another’s framework and failing to capture the critical differ-ences in core family values and practices have led to the complexand even paradoxical findings concerning Asian American fami-lies in parenting research.

Asian American Parenting Measures

Western theories of parenting tend to label Asian Americanparenting as more controlling than the idealized authoritative par-enting (Kagitçibasi, 2007; Vinden, 2001). However, a more nu-anced conceptualization sees Asian American parenting, althoughmore directive and restrictive than its Western counterpart, as astyle that is practiced with reasoning as well as warmth (Chao &Tseng, 2002; Kagitçibasi, 2007). In recent years, several measureshave been created to assess family processes unique to AsianAmericans. For example, the guan parenting and qin measureswere created for Chinese Americans (Chao, 1994; Wu & Chao,2011). Guan parenting (translated as “to govern/train and love”)involves directive control and close monitoring of child behaviorswhile building close parent–child relationships. Qin (translated as“child’s feeling of closeness to parents or parental benevolence”)captures Asian expressions of love for their children. The qinmeasures ask children’s perceptions of parental devotion, sacrifice,thoughtfulness, and guan. The rationale is that Asian Americanparents’ affection is conveyed through instrumental support, de-votion, close monitoring, and support for education, rather thanthrough physical, verbal, and emotional expressions such as hug-ging, kissing, and praising, which are typical indicators of Westernparental warmth (Wu & Chao, 2011). The guan ideology andbehaviors and the qin measures are excellent examples of AsianAmerican family processes in which components of both author-itarian and authoritative styles emerge in an idealized Asian par-enting practice.

In a similar endeavor to develop indigenous parenting measures,several scales have been recently developed to capture familyprocesses that are specific to Korean American families, calledga-jung-kyo-yuk ( ). Several scales that collectively assessga-jung-kyo-yuk were generated using multiple methods, including

focus groups, an extensive literature review, and reviews by aca-demic experts and community leaders. With survey data, they havebeen tested for psychometric properties and have been shown to bereliable and valid for Korean American parents (for more details,see Choi & Kim, 2010; Choi, Kim, Pekelnicky, & Kim, 2012).Ga-jung-kyo-yuk (translated as “home [or family] education”) isclosest in concept to “family socialization” or “family processes.”Although family processes and/or socialization and ga-jung-kyo-yuk similarly describe the process of socializing children to a set ofcore norms, beliefs, and values through parenting, main differ-ences exist in the specifics of those norms, beliefs, and values. Thecore values of ga-jung-kyo-yuk include emphasis on parenting viarole-modeling, the centrality of the family, family hierarchy, dem-onstration of respect for and the use of appropriate etiquette withparents and elders, age veneration, and family obligations and ties.For example, three new measures—Korean traditional parent vir-tues, enculturation of familial and cultural values, and importantKorean traditional etiquette—are specific dimensions that exem-plify core ga-jung-kyo-yuk values.4

Ga-jung-kyo-yuk also includes child-rearing practices. For ex-ample, more than 80% of Korean immigrant parents reportedpracticing a traditional sleeping arrangement, that is, cosleepingwith their child until he or she was 6 years old, on average (Choiet al., 2012). The goal of cosleeping with an infant or young childin Asian cultures is to build a close parent–child bond, reflectinga cultural emphasis on interdependence (Greenfield & Cocking,1994) and is likely another example of a nonverbal expression ofparental love. In addition, although similar practices that involvecorporal punishment are found in other cultures, three physicaldisciplinary practices primarily used with young children (i.e.,hitting their palms with a stick, hitting the calf of their leg with astick, and having them raise their arms for a prolonged time) areidentified as a traditional Korean parenting practice (e.g., Choi &Kim, 2010; E. Kim & Hong, 2007). These forms of discipline arepracticed along with parental love in the cultural context that sternparenting is an ideal virtue in traditional ga-jung-kyo-yuk (K. Kim,2006). Thus, similar to guan and qin among Chinese Americans,several aspects of both authoritative and authoritarian parentingstyle seem to coexist in ga-jung-kyo-yuk among Korean Americanfamilies.

2 In contemporary Asian societies, however, things are changing dras-tically as children are growing up in an increasingly globalized world. Inone of the articles for this special issue, Way and her colleagues (pp.61–70) found that in the contemporary Chinese society, parents place greatemphasis on independence, autonomy, and extraversion in children as theytry to socialize children and prepare them for a changing world.

3 The divergence of individualistic and collectivistic cultures might haveemerged in response to the disparate needs of early societies: For example,agricultural Asian societies demanded more group-oriented values,whereas nomadic Western societies required more independent values(Greenfield, 1994).

4 Enculturation means learning the culture and assimilating its practicesand values. The term is often used to indicate the degrees to which childrenof immigrants or cultural minorities maintain or learn their heritage andculture.

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20 CHOI, KIM, KIM, AND PARK

Relationships Between Asian American and WesternParenting

Despite a significant stride made in research on Asian Americanparenting in recent years, there is a continued lack of empiricalevidence on how Asian and Western family processes are differentfrom or similar to one another. Subgroup-level understanding islacking even more, with Chinese Americans being the exception.Filling in the knowledge gap are stereotypes, prejudices, andmisperceptions. The controversy over “tiger moms” (Chua, 2011)showcases the lack of understanding of Asian American familyprocesses and parenting styles. The premise that Asian Americanparents are utterly controlling, demanding, emotionally insensi-tive, and harsh, but that they effectively churn out math and musicprodigies, is, quite simply, an exaggeration. For example, even ifAsian American parents, more than European American parents onaverage, expect their child to conform to parental rules and expec-tations, does such a parenting style necessarily translate to a lackof parental warmth and acceptance and poor parent–child com-munication, as well as high levels of parental rejection and harshdiscipline? This study aimed to answer this question by empiri-cally examining how culturally distinct Asian American parentingvalues and practices are related to Western parenting styles andbehaviors. Specifically, this study investigated whether and howthe Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk measures, both of parenting valuesand behaviors, are related to several widely used Western parent-ing measures, including parenting styles (authoritarian and author-itative), positive parenting practices (parental warmth, acceptance,monitoring, and parent–child communication), and harsh parent-ing practices (negative discipline and parental rejection).

Following the notion that ideal Asian American parenting is aunique combination of authoritarian and authoritative styles, wehypothesized that the ga-jung-kyo-yuk measures would be posi-tively associated with both authoritarian and authoritative Westernparenting styles. We further hypothesized that the ga-jung-kyo-yukmeasures would be positively associated with several characteris-tics of authoritative parenting style (parental acceptance, warmth,and monitoring behaviors, as well as parent–child communica-tion), but negatively associated with the measures of harsh parent-ing such as negative discipline (e.g., getting angry, slapping orhitting with hand, fist, or object) and parental rejection (e.g.,resenting or paying no attention to the child). Although certainaspects of Asian American parenting, such as a high level ofparental control, may seem authoritarian, the ideal Asian Americanparental control is not coercive, punitive, or rejecting (Kagitçibasi,2007). In addition, although the cultural norms such as familyhierarchy and age veneration may not be a subject of negotiationwith children and thus likely require strict rules, the ultimate goalsof establishing and building strong family ties and interdependencein the family are likely to discourage a harsh and rejecting parent-ing style.

More complex associations are expected with traditional Koreandisciplinary practices. Although corporal punishment, these disci-plinary practices, at least in Korean culture, are differentiated fromharsh parenting and parental rejection and widely accepted aslegitimate methods of discipline because rules about these prac-tices are set in advance and are used without parental impulsive-ness (E. Kim & Hong, 2007). Thus, the use of these particularpractices was expected to be positively related to both authoritar-

ian and authoritative styles and positively associated with severalpositive parenting measures. However, Korean immigrant familiesin the United States reside in a society in which corporal punish-ment is strongly discouraged with possible legal complications. Infact, these parents, although they may have used one of thesemethods at some point, did not use them frequently (Choi et al.,2012). Thus, the continued use of these physical disciplinarypractices despite the social and possibly legal ramifications islikely to be positively associated with harsh parenting in an Amer-ican context.

As reflected in the low use of traditional disciplinary practices,immigrants and their offspring, even if reluctantly and slowly, altertheir culture, including parenting values and behaviors, through theprocess of acculturation (Berry, 1997; Ward, 1996). In otherwords, parenting values and behaviors may change as immigrantparents adapt to the mainstream culture. For example, a higherlevel of acculturation may predict a higher use of Western parent-ing styles. Thus, this study examined whether the relationshipsbetween Korean American parenting measures and Western par-enting measures would remain the same after taking parentalacculturation into account. If the relationships remained un-changed after accounting for parental acculturation and encultura-tion, it would indicate that it is not parental acculturation thatexplains, for example, coexistence of authoritative and authoritar-ian parenting.

In this study, we sought to further advance our understandingby examining these relationships among mothers and fathers.Fathers are rarely included in family surveys, so we know muchless about paternal than maternal parenting. There are signifi-cant and meaningful differences in how fathers and mothersview parenting, how they interact with their children, and howacculturation influences their parenting choices. Children alsoperceive similar behaviors of mothers and fathers differently.For example, child rearing is usually regarded mainly as themother’s responsibility in Korean culture (E. Kim, 2005), pa-ternal and maternal report of conflict has differential effects onyouth depression (De Ross, Marrinan, Schattner, & Gullone,1999), and only maternal acculturation moderates parenting (E.Kim, Cain, & McCubbin, 2006).

In sum, we hypothesized that the Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk mea-sures would be (1) positively associated both with authoritativeand authoritarian parenting styles, (2) positively associated withpositive Western parenting characteristics (e.g., parental warmth,parent–child communication, and monitoring), and (3) negativelyassociated with harsh parenting (e.g., negative discipline and pa-rental rejection). One exception for these hypotheses was with theKorean traditional disciplinary practices, which we believed wouldpositively relate to both positive and harsh parenting. The maternaland paternal differences in the hypotheses of this study wereexploratory. There is very limited information from which togenerate a set of explicit hypotheses in regard to parent–genderdifferences. One possible expectation would be that because Ko-rean immigrant mothers are more involved in parenting and aremore expressive in affection than are Korean immigrant fathers(Choi & Kim, 2010), the mother’s use of Korean traditionaldisciplinary practices may not be positively associated with West-ern harsh parenting as much as that of the father’s.

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21KOREAN AMERICAN AND WESTERN PARENTING MEASURES

Method

Overview of the Project

The data are from the Korean American Families Project, asurvey of Korean American youth and their parents living in theChicago metropolitan area, collected over a 2-year period. Thefamily was the sampling unit. Korean immigrant families withearly adolescents (ages 11–14 years) were eligible to participate insurveys administered by bilingual interviewers. In 2007, 291 fam-ilies were interviewed (220 youth, 272 mothers, and 164 fathers;N ! 656).5 A follow-up interview was completed a year later at theend of 2008 with 247 families (220 youth, 239 mothers, and 146fathers; n ! 605). Parents were provided $40 and youth $20 fortheir participation. Three sources (phonebooks, public school ros-ters, and Korean church or temple rosters) were used to recruitsurvey participants. About an equal number of families was sam-pled from each data source, and families did not statistically differin age, gender, and sociodemographics across sources. However,there were two statistically significant differences in the mainstudy constructs by the sampling source. Specifically, schoolroster-based participants reported a higher endorsement of Koreantraditional etiquette, F(2, 433) ! 3.837, p " .05, and a higher useof negative forms of discipline, F(2, 433) ! 4.489, p " .05, thandid church or temple roster-based participants. Sample sourceswere controlled in the later analyses to account for these differ-ences.

The survey was available in Korean and English. Survey itemsfor parents were first developed in Korean and youth items inEnglish. Translations of survey questionnaires went through nu-merous iterations and back-translations and several pretests wereconducted with parents and youth. All parents except one filled outthe Korean version, and most of youth filled out the English one.

Sample Characteristics

At the time of the first survey, average ages were 12.97 years(SD ! 1.00) for youth, 43.4 years (SD ! 4.57) for mothers, and46.3 years (SD ! 4.69) for fathers. This study used only the parentdata from the first survey. The level of parental education washigh: 63.7% of mothers and 70.3% of fathers reported having atleast some college education, either in Korea or in the UnitedStates. All parents were born in Korea and the average number ofyears living in the United States was 15.44 (SD ! 8.36). Sixty-onepercent of the children were born in the United States, having livedin the United States for 10.44 years (SD ! 4.14) on average. About47% reported an annual household income between $50,000 and$99,999, and 8% reported less than $25,000, 23.6% between$25,000 and $49,999, and 22% over $100,000. A total of 21% ofmothers reported having received public assistance, food stamps,or qualifying for the free or reduced-price school lunch programs,and 15% were currently receiving these programs. Overall, thecharacteristics of the sample were similar to the socioeconomiccharacteristics of Korean parents in the United States, that is, urbanmiddle-class immigrants with a high proportion being small-business owners (40% of fathers), Protestant (77%; Min, 2006),and fairly comparable to the parent profile in national data sets(such as the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health).

Measures

Reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alphas) were examinedacross mothers, fathers, and the full sample of parents. In addition,unless noted, response options for each item were on a Likert scalefrom 1 (e.g., never or strongly disagree) to 5 (e.g., almost alwaysor strongly agree).

Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk constructs.Korean traditional parent virtues. Six items assessed Korean

traditional parenting beliefs including parental virtues and filialpiety. Example items include “Parents should try to demonstrateproper attitude and behavior to their children” and “Parents shouldteach their children to respect elders by showing that they love andrespect their parents (i.e., children’s grandparents).” Reliabilitycoefficients ranged from .86 to .90.

Enculturation of familial and cultural values. Seven itemsasked parents about important traditional values that they want totransmit to their children. Items include supporting siblings orrelatives in need of help, regarding family as a source of trust anddependence, doing things to please parents, taking care of parentswhen they get older, maintaining close contact with family nomatter where they live, and seriously considering parents’ wishesand advice in career or marriage decisions. Reliability coefficientsranged from .73 to .79.

Important Korean traditional etiquette. There are severalrules in Korean traditional etiquette that reflect core Korean socialtraditions and norms. Six items asked parents how important it isfor specific behavioral etiquette to be practiced by their child.Examples include “My child properly greets adults (e.g., bowing toadults with proper greetings)” and “My child uses formal (respect-ful) speech to adults.” Reliability coefficients ranged from .90 to.93.

Cosleeping and age of separate sleeping. The survey askedparents whether their child slept with them during the toddler andearly elementary school years. Response options were “Yes” and“No.” No reliability was estimated because it was a binary vari-able. If the response was yes, parents were asked to specify atwhich age the child started sleeping in his or her own room.

Korean traditional disciplinary practices with young children.Parents were asked whether they used practices such as hitting achild’s palms with a stick, hitting a child’s calf with a stick, orhaving a child raise his or her arms for a prolonged time aspunishment when their child was preteen. Although over 80% ofparents reported that they had used one of three methods, corre-lations among the items were quite low, indicating that eachpractice may have been used but not as a cluster of practices. Thus,a composite scale using these items seemed inappropriate. Accord-ingly, the responses were coded either as 0 for no use of the

5 Although both parents and a child from each family were invited tocomplete the survey, participating members varied across families. Forexample, for the first survey, the number of families in which both parentsand one youth participated was 120. Eighty-five families had a mother anda child, 14 had a father and a child, 26 had both parents but no child, 41had mothers only, and four had fathers only. The primary reasons ofnonparticipation were unavailability, time conflict, or refusal to participate,rather than because the family was a single-parent household.

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22 CHOI, KIM, KIM, AND PARK

specified disciplinary practices or 1 for use of any practices. Noreliability was estimated because it is a binary variable.

Western parenting constructs.Authoritarian parenting style. Seven items were used to assess

authoritarian parenting style from the Parental Authority Question-naire (PAQ; Buri, 1991). The PAQ was constructed to measureBaumrind’s four parenting styles. Examples of items for the author-itarian style include “It is for my child’s good to be forced to conformto what I thought was right, even if my child doesn’t agree with me”and “I do not allow my child to question any decision I make.”Reliability coefficients ranged from .64 to .73.

Authoritative parenting style. Five items from the PAQ (Buri,1991) measured authoritative parenting style. Examples include“When family policy [rule] is established, I discuss the reasoningbehind the policy with my child” and “I take my child’s opinioninto consideration when making family decisions but I would notdecide for something simply because my child wants it.” Reliabil-ity coefficients ranged from .66 to .75.

Parental warmth. Seven items from the Parenting PracticesQuestionnaire (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 1995) as-sessed parental expression of affection, sympathy, and responsive-ness toward their children. Examples include “I express affectionby hugging and holding my child” and “I give comfort andunderstanding when my child is upset.” Reliability coefficientsranged from .85 to .89.

Parental acceptance. Nine items from a short version of theParental Acceptance and Rejection Scales (PARS; Rohner, 2004)were used to assess parents’ caring, attentive, and comfortingbehaviors (such as saying nice things to my child, making it easyfor my child to tell things that are important, and paying a lot ofattention). Reliability coefficients ranged from .87 to .89.

Parental monitoring. Eight items were adopted from severalsources to cover a range of monitoring behaviors of parents. Thesources include the Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers(LIFT) Project and the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS). Items askedparental monitoring on child’s whereabouts, friends and theirparents, free time, money management, and after-school activities.One example is “When your child is away from home, how oftendo you know where s/he was and who s/he was with?” Reliabilitycoefficients ranged from .85 to .90.

Parent–child communications. Six items from the LIFT andthe PYS assessed how parents and children communicate in thefamily. Examples include “Is your child free to say what s/he thinksin your family?” and “Do you find it easy to discuss problems withyour child?” Reliability coefficients ranged from .79 to .86.

Parental negative discipline. Six items from the LIFT assesseda range of negative disciplinary behaviors by parents, such as raisingone’s voice; giving a disapproving look to child; restricting privileges;slapping or hitting with hand, fist, or object; spanking; and gettingangry. Reliability coefficients ranged from .78 to .85.

Parental rejection. Fifteen items also adopted from a shortversion of PARS (Rohner, 2004) assessed how much parent rejectschild, for example, resenting a child, hurting a child’s feelings, andpaying no attention to a child. Reliability coefficients ranged from .77to .79.

Control variables. Several control variables include thesampling sources (dummy coded, phone-based sampling as areference) and demographic variables (age, gender, income, andeducation of parents as well as youth age and gender). Gender

was dummy coded with mothers and girls as a reference. Inaddition, parental acculturation was adjusted as a control. Ac-culturation is a multidimensional and multifaceted construct.Thus, several measures were used to assess parents’ level ofadapting to the mainstream culture as well as their level ofmaintaining their culture of origin. Specifically, the numberof years living in the United States, English-language compe-tence, engagement in social and cultural activities of the main-stream (i.e., reading, music, media use, foods, social clubs, andholidays), and a sense of American identity were used toindicate the level of acculturation among parents. Parallel to theacculturation items, parents’ engagement in the culture of originand a sense of Korean identity were also included. Thesemeasures were adapted from the Language, Identity, and Be-havior Scale (Birman & Trickett, 2002). All these measuresshowed high internal consistency with the sample. (Details onacculturation items are available from the first author.)

Analysis Plan

We first examined descriptive statistics of main constructs,including bivariate correlations and means and standard devia-tions for continuous variables or proportions for binary vari-ables. We used the full sample of parents and also mothers andfathers separately. Second, to examine the associations betweenKorean and Western parenting measures, we used hierarchicalmultivariate regression analyses with Korean parenting con-structs as independent variables and Western parenting con-structs as dependent variables. The decision to model the Ko-rean ga-jung-kyo-yuk construct as an independent variable isnot to imply a causal or a predicting relationship in which oneprecedes the other. Multivariate regressions enable simultane-ous modeling of the ga-jung-kyo-yuk measures (reflecting thereality in which these values and behaviors are likely to bepracticed together) in testing their associations with Westernparenting. The Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk constructs togetherwere regressed on each of Western parenting measures individ-ually while not accounting for any controls (Step 1), resulting ineight regressions. In Step 2, we examined the associations afteraccounting for sampling source and demographic controls. InStep 3, we added several parental acculturation variables. InSteps 2 and 3, to examine whether the associations differed byparental gender, we created interaction terms (the product termof independent variables by parental gender) and entered theminto the regression models. When interactions were statisticallysignificant, we used simple slope analyses (Cohen, Cohen,West, & Aiken, 2003) and graphically plotted slopes to visu-alize the relationships by mothers and fathers. There weremissing responses in the survey, ranging from 5% to 10%depending on the regression models. The analyses were con-ducted using multiple imputations method (Schafer & Graham,2002). We used STATA/SE (Version 11.1) for the analyses.

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Descriptive statistics of the main study constructs are summa-rized in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 reports means and proportions for

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23KOREAN AMERICAN AND WESTERN PARENTING MEASURES

fathers and mothers. We examined the differences by gender inmeans or proportions using independent t tests or chi-square sta-tistics. Mothers reported higher rates than fathers in Korean tradi-tional parent virtues, parental warmth, acceptance, monitoring, andparent–child communication, as well as Korean traditional disci-plinary practices. Table 2 shows correlations among the studyconstructs. One notable finding is that authoritarian parenting stylewas positively correlated with authoritative parenting style in bothmothers and fathers. We explicitly examined the statistical differ-ences by gender on the associations among constructs in thesubsequent regression analyses by testing interaction terms.

Hierarchical Regression Models

The results on the regressions in Steps 1–3 are quite similar interms of the size of coefficients and statistical significance. Inother words, the associations between Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk andWestern parenting measures did not change when demographiccharacteristics and parental acculturation variables were accountedfor. The results from the final model (Step 3) are described inTables 3 and 4.

Hypothesis 1: Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk will be positively as-sociated with both authoritative and authoritarian parentingstyles. The overall pattern of findings seems to support the studyhypothesis, although in varying ways, depending on the parentingconstructs under examination. Specifically, after accounting for allcontrol variables, Korean disciplinary practices were positively related toauthoritarian style, and Korean traditional parental virtue and encul-turation of familial/cultural values were positively associated withauthoritative style. Korean traditional etiquette was positively as-sociated both with authoritarian and authoritative styles.

Hypothesis 2: Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk will be positively as-sociated with Western positive parenting characteristics. Ashypothesized, Korean traditional parental virtue was positivelyassociated with all positive parenting constructs (warmth, accep-tance, monitoring, and communication). Enculturation of familial/cultural values was positively associated with warmth and accep-

tance but not significantly associated with monitoring andcommunication. Korean traditional etiquette was positively asso-ciated only with acceptance. Cosleeping, age of separate sleeping,and Korean traditional disciplinary practices were not significantlyassociated with any of the positive parenting constructs.

Hypothesis 3: Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk will be negativelyassociated with Western harsh parenting. Traditional parentalvirtue, enculturation, traditional etiquette, and cosleeping were notassociated with harsh parenting, which includes parental rejectionand negative discipline. Age of separate sleeping, unexpectedly,was positively related to negative discipline. Traditional disciplin-ary practices were positively associated with the Western harshparenting, as hypothesized.

Testing the Associations by Mothers and Fathers

The majority of interactions were not statistically significant,revealing that the associations between Korean ga-jung-kyo-yukand Western parenting measures are largely similar across mothersand fathers. Three interaction terms were statistically significant:the relationships between traditional disciplinary practices andmonitoring, traditional etiquette and rejection, and traditional eti-quette and negative disciplines. Simple slope analyses show thatmothers who used traditional disciplinary practices were signifi-cantly less likely to practice monitoring (b ! #0.280, p " .05),but this relationship was not significant among fathers. Althoughthe interaction term was significant, the relationship between tra-ditional etiquette and rejection was not statistically significant ineither parental gender, so it was not plotted. The endorsement ofKorean traditional etiquette was correlated with negative disciplineamong fathers (b ! 0.169, p " .05) but not among mothers. Theplots are shown in Figure 1.

Discussion

Family is, without a doubt, crucial to the development of chil-dren, while also representing culture and ethnicity. For youth who

Table 1Means or Percentages of Study Constructs by Mothers and Fathers

Construct Mothers (n ! 272) Fathers (n ! 164)

Korean traditional parent virtues, Mean (SD) 4.64 (0.44) 4.53 (0.52)!

Enculturation of familial cultural values, Mean (SD) 4.24 (0.40) 4.20 (0.40)Important Korean traditional etiquette, Mean (SD) 4.44 (0.64) 4.45 (0.67)Cosleeping, % 82 81Age of separate sleeping (years), Mean (SD) 6.69 (4.47) 5.97 (4.11)Korean traditional disciplinary practices, % 86 76!

Authoritarian parenting style, Mean (SD) 2.66 (0.58) 2.70 (0.57)Authoritative parenting style, Mean (SD) 3.84 (0.53) 3.73 (0.60)Parental warmth, Mean (SD) 4.13 (0.63) 3.89 (0.70)!!!

Parental acceptance, Mean (SD) 4.19 (0.54) 3.97 (0.63)!!!

Parental monitoring, Mean (SD) 4.26 (0.49) 3.85 (0.66)!!!

Parent–child communication, Mean (SD) 3.89 (0.66) 3.57 (0.69)!!!

Parental rejection, Mean (SD) 1.55 (0.34) 1.54 (0.37)Parental negative discipline, Mean (SD) 2.27 (0.66) 2.16 (0.64)

Note. Sample sizes slightly vary depending on the construct (i.e. 269 to 272 for mothers and 161 to 164 forfathers). Because missing data were none to very few per construct, only the sample sizes of complete cases formothers and fathers are reported here. The statistical differences were tested using independent sample t tests forcontinuous variables and chi-square for dichotomous variables.! p " .05. !! p " .01. !!! p " .001.

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24 CHOI, KIM, KIM, AND PARK

are a cultural or racial/ethnic minority, including Asian Americans,the importance of an enhanced and accurate understanding of thefamily cannot be understated. However, there is lack of empiricalknowledge on Asian American parenting. Some, such as the “tiger

mom,” portray Asian American parenting as extremely controllingand harsh (Chua, 2011). Others maintain that Asian Americanparenting is a unique combination of parental control and warmththat, although different from Western parenting, is not coercive,

Table 2Correlations Among Main Constructs

Construct 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

1. Korean parent virtues — .352!! .292!! .201! .084 #.100 .145 .427!! .362!! .415!! .280!! .385!! #.035 .0452. Enculturation .367!! — .339!! .095 .110 .020 .183! .298!! .295!! .341!! .099 .134 .026 .1393. Korean etiquette .185!! .241!! — .075 .134 .011 .226!! .250!! .123 .157! .022 .130 .089 .195!

4. Cosleeping #.001 .049 .213!! — .694!! #.076 .054 .000 .067 .094 .045 .105 .027 #.0305. Age of separate sleeping .025 .077 .154! .699!! — #.059 .090 .031 .062 .074 .087 .047 .064 .0226. Traditional discipline #.099 #.040 .091 .203!! .204!! — .161! #.172! #.041 #.085 .037 .017 .113 .313!!

7. Authoritarian style .016 .059 .218!! .125! .143! .180!! — .195! .081 .031 .019 .021 .228!! .436!!

8. Authoritative style .280!! .283!! .162!! #.053 #.052 #.013 .140! — .480!! .514!! .240!! .452!! #.174! .0299. Parental warmth .286!! .367!! .114 #.080 #.025 #.151! #.013 .389!! — .718!! .409!! .579!! #.365!! #.093

10. Parental acceptance .302!! .345!! .241!! #.015 #.024 #.108 #.015 .443!! .659!! — .406!! .592!! #.485!! #.13911. Parental monitoring .282!! .122! .142! #.066 #.071 #.202!! #.052 .183!! .311!! .400!! — .567!! #.314!! #.05112. Communication .259!! .245!! .128! #.021 #.020 #.121! #.032 .377!! .449!! .565!! .521!! — #.323!! #.05813. Parental rejection #.106 #.064 #.096 .100 .085 .202!! .297!! #.151! #.377!! #.373!! #.276!! #.303!! — .585!!

14. Negative discipline .058 .070 .033 .167!! .209!! .288!! .402!! .033 #.164!! #.172!! #.119 #.154! .602!! —

Note. Correlations below the diagonal are for mothers; those above are for fathers.! p " .05. !! p " .01. !!! p " .001.

Table 3Associations Between Ga-Jung-Kyo-Yuk and Authoritarian and Authoritative Styles, Parental Warmth, and Acceptance (N ! 431)

Dependent variable

Authoritarian Authoritative Warmth Acceptance

Independent variable b SE b SE b SE b SE

Sampling source controlsSchool-based sampling 0.018 0.071 #0.033 0.064 0.046 0.075 #0.011 0.066Church-based sampling #0.033 0.066 #0.156! 0.060 0.010 0.071 #0.086 0.062

Demographic controlsParental income 0.013 0.029 0.004 0.027 0.032 0.031 0.010 0.027Parental education 0.065! 0.032 0.015 0.029 #0.026 0.034 #0.026 0.030Fathers 0.081 0.060 #0.139! 0.054 #0.257!!! 0.064 #0.254!!! 0.056Parental age #0.008 0.007 0.006 0.006 0.013 0.007 0.017!! 0.006Boys #0.039 0.055 0.035 0.050 #0.058 0.058 #0.015 0.051Youth age 0.003 0.004 0.037 0.022 0.002 0.026 0.023 0.023

Parental acculturation controlsYears in United States 0.003 0.004 #0.012!! 0.004 #0.002 0.005 #0.009! 0.004English competence #0.001 0.049 0.119!! 0.045 0.034 0.052 0.059 0.046Mainstream culture #0.035 0.052 0.087 0.047 0.212!!! 0.055 0.190 0.048American identity 0.004 0.040 0.023 0.037 0.029 0.043 0.011 0.037Korean culture 0.175!!! 0.046 0.010 0.042 0.118! 0.050 0.018 0.044Korean identity #0.100 0.045 0.044 0.041 #0.013 0.048 0.028 0.042

Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk constructsTraditional parental virtue 0.018 0.064 0.268!!! 0.058 0.260!!! 0.068 0.255!!! 0.059Enculturation of values 0.026 0.075 0.212!! 0.068 0.364!!! 0.079 0.297!!! 0.069Korean traditional etiquette 0.161!! 0.046 0.099! 0.042 0.026 0.049 0.098! 0.043Cosleeping arrangement #0.022 0.098 #0.159 0.089 #0.118 0.104 #0.016 0.091Age of separate sleeping 0.010 0.009 0.004 0.008 0.008 0.009 0.001 0.008Traditional disciplines 0.231!! 0.073 #0.122 0.066 #0.102 0.078 #0.115 0.068

InteractionsGender $ Parental virtue 0.056 0.127 0.123 0.115 0.171 0.135 0.175 0.118Gender $ Enculturation 0.087 0.153 #0.042 0.138 #0.144 0.162 0.029 0.141Gender $ Etiquette 0.002 0.091 0.037 0.083 #0.005 0.097 #0.113 0.085Gender $ Cosleeping 0.023 0.203 #0.241 0.183 0.027 0.216 #0.091 0.188Gender $ Separate sleep 0.000 0.019 0.011 0.017 0.002 0.020 0.006 0.017Gender $ Disciplines #0.020 0.145 #0.242 0.131 0.078 0.154 0.010 0.134

R2 13.51% 24.76% 26.70% 27.85%

Note. The top rows show coefficients from the main effect models (without interactions) and the rows under Interactions show only interaction coefficientsfrom the models with interaction product terms added.! p " .05. !! p " .01. !!! p " .001.

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25KOREAN AMERICAN AND WESTERN PARENTING MEASURES

punitive, or harsh (Chao & Tseng, 2002; Kagitçibasi, 2007). Thisstudy contributes to this understudied area of research by empiri-cally testing the associations between a set of recently developedKorean ga-jung-kyo-yuk measures and several commonly usedWestern parenting measures to accurately describe Asian Ameri-can family processes, specifically those of Korean Americans.

Overall, the results of the study present a nuanced and detailedpicture of Korean American parenting as a blend of Western conceptsof authoritative and authoritarian styles and show the coexistence ofpositive and—although quite limited—negative parenting. In short,certain aspects of ga-jung-kyo-yuk are positively associated with theauthoritative or authoritarian style, or even with both of them simul-taneously. In fact, the positive bivariate correlation between authori-tative and authoritarian styles may provide additional empirical sup-port that, among Korean immigrant parents, authoritative andauthoritarian parenting styles are not clearly distinctive or negativelyrelated, as is the case in European American families (Deater-Deckardet al., 2011). In addition, the study finds that the associations betweenKorean ga-jung-kyo-yuk measures and Western parenting measures

remain unchanged, regardless of whether demographic and parentalacculturation variables are accounted for. They also are largely similaracross mothers and fathers with only a couple of exceptions.

Associations of Korean Ga-Jung-Kyo-Yuk and WesternParenting

The endorsement of traditional core cultural values (indicated bytraditional parental virtues and enculturation of familial/cultural val-ues) was positively associated with several parenting constructs thatare regarded as ideal and positive in Western parenting theory, such asauthoritative parenting style, parental warmth and acceptance, moni-toring, and parent–child communication. This finding is not surpris-ing, given that core Korean values include an emphasis on parentalrole-modeling of good behaviors, including respect for parents andelders, trust between parent and child, the centrality of family, andfamily obligation. Although varying in degrees, these values areshared across cultures and likely promote parenting that establishes

Table 4Associations Between Ga-Jung-Kyo-Yuk and Parental Monitoring, Parent–Child Communication, Parental Rejection, and NegativeDiscipline (N ! 431)

Dependent variable

Monitoring Communication Rejection Negative discipline

Independent variable b SE b SE b SE b SE

Sampling source controlsSchool-based sampling 0.082 0.076 #0.002 0.081 #0.020 0.045 0.034 0.078Church-based sampling 0.008 0.071 #0.029 0.076 #0.062 0.042 #0.141 0.073

Demographic controlsParental income #0.016 0.031 0.017 0.033 #0.016 0.019 0.006 0.032Parental education #0.001 0.034 #0.007 0.037 0.061!! 0.020 0.096!! 0.035Fathers #0.456!!! 0.064 #0.347!!! 0.069 0.019 0.038 #0.010 0.066Parental age #0.007 0.007 0.010 0.008 #0.007 0.004 #0.024!! 0.007Boys #0.062 0.059 #0.064 0.063 0.028 0.035 0.158!! 0.060Youth age #0.033 0.026 0.001 0.028 #0.021 0.015 #0.049 0.027

Parental acculturation controlsYears in United States 0.000 0.005 #0.006 0.005 0.003 0.003 0.007 0.005English competence 0.047 0.053 #0.008 0.057 #0.058 0.031 #0.019 0.054Mainstream culture 0.211 0.056 0.279!!! 0.060 0.044 0.033 0.043 0.057American identity #0.053 0.043 0.016 0.046 #0.017 0.026 #0.063 0.044Korean culture 0.056 0.050 #0.020 0.053 0.029 0.030 0.113! 0.051Korean identity 0.026 0.049 0.065 0.052 #0.041 0.029 #0.022 0.050

Korean ga-jung-kyo-yuk constructsTraditional parental virtue 0.263!!! 0.068 0.304!!! 0.073 #0.063 0.041 0.005 0.070Enculturation of values #0.022 0.081 0.130 0.086 0.001 0.048 0.083 0.082Korean traditional etiquette 0.040 0.050 0.081 0.054 #0.005 0.029 0.031 0.050Cosleeping #0.100 0.105 0.016 0.113 0.020 0.063 #0.095 0.108Age of separate sleeping 0.007 0.009 0.000 0.010 0.004 0.005 0.022! 0.009Traditional disciplines #0.118 0.078 #0.082 0.084 0.117! 0.046 0.416!!! 0.080

InteractionsGender $ Parental virtue 0.151 0.135 0.244 0.145 #0.032 0.080 #0.182 0.138Gender $ Enculturation #0.016 0.163 #0.292 0.175 #0.010 0.096 #0.001 0.166Gender $ Etiquette #0.158 0.099 #0.002 0.106 0.149! 0.058 0.245! 0.099Gender $ Cosleeping #0.178 0.215 0.019 0.232 #0.066 0.128 #0.091 0.220Gender $ Separate sleeping 0.028 0.020 #0.004 0.021 0.004 0.012 #0.019 0.020Gender $ Disciplines 0.339! 0.154 0.228 0.166 #0.099 0.091 #0.018 0.157

R2 24.56% 22.08% 8.54% 21.00%

Note. The top rows show coefficients from the main effect models (without interactions) and the rows under Interactions show only interaction coefficientsfrom the models with interaction product terms added.! p " .05. !! p " .01. !!! p " .001.

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26 CHOI, KIM, KIM, AND PARK

strong parent–child relationships by practicing firm rules and moni-toring, parental warmth, acceptance, and communication.

It is also possible that Korean American parents may be establish-ing bicultural parenting in which they continue to endorse traditionalcultural values while adopting certain idealized Western parentingpractices and values. A traditional Korean parenting virtue is stern-ness, with few overt expressions of parental love (K. Kim, 2006).Accordingly, warmth is often expressed nonverbally and indirectly. Infact, in the survey used in this study, more than 90% of Koreanimmigrant parents reported employing indirect expressions of affec-tion (e.g., cooking a child’s favorite dishes, working hard, sacrificing,etc.). However, the item of “stern parenting” was dropped from theoriginal Korean traditional parental virtue scale (Choi et al., 2012), asign that stern parenting may be no longer endorsed in this newcultural environment, which further supports the possibility of bicul-tural parenting. In a similar vein, the results show that the indicators

of parental acculturation to mainstream culture (i.e., English compe-tence and participation in mainstream culture) were positively asso-ciated with authoritative style, warmth, and communication (see Ta-bles 3 and 4). Adherence to Korean culture, on the other hand, wasassociated positively with authoritarian style and negative disciplinebut also with warmth, providing additional evidence of possiblebicultural processes among immigrant families. Nonetheless, the as-sociations between Korean American and Western parenting mea-sures were unchanged when parental acculturation variables wereaccounted for, which indicates that the associations are immune toparental acculturation. However, parenting itself may go through theprocess of acculturation, and bicultural explanation cannot be ruledout.

The degree to which parents would like to maintain Koreantraditional etiquette was associated with both authoritarian andauthoritative parenting styles as well as parental acceptance. This

Figure 1. Simple slope analyses of significant interactions.

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27KOREAN AMERICAN AND WESTERN PARENTING MEASURES

finding may suggest that, although teaching a certain set of cul-turally appropriate behaviors that represent core values of familyhierarchy and respect for elders may demand a strict set of behav-ioral rules (thus authoritarian) as alluded to earlier, parents mayemphasize traditional etiquette while also providing the rationaleof the behaviors and in the context of parental acceptance. Inaddition, despite the positive relation with authoritarian parenting,the emphasis on traditional etiquette was not related to parentalrejection or negative discipline, indicating that the endorsement ofthe traditional etiquette does not evoke harsh parenting.

Another set of notable findings is on the measures of parentingpractices of ga-jung-kyo-yuk. Eighty-two percent of parents re-ported cosleeping with their children, which is thought to be a wayto build parent–child bonding. However, such sleeping arrange-ments did not have significant relationships with any of the par-enting constructs, positive or negative. In addition, beginningseparate sleeping when the child was older was positively relatedto negative discipline. From these data, it is not clear whether thereis a threshold of cosleeping in Korean culture, and that beginningseparate sleeping later is an indication of a child’s problems (i.e.,separation anxiety) or an overendorsement of the traditionalmethod that may result in parent–child conflict and subsequent useof negative discipline.

The use of Korean traditional discipline was associated withauthoritarian style, rejection, and negative discipline. In contrast tothe hypotheses, it did not significantly relate to authoritative styleor positive parenting constructs. Even though they were once usedwidely in Korea, these disciplinary practices among Korean im-migrant families are associated with parental rejection and nega-tive discipline. Because there are social sanctions on corporalpunishment and because these specific methods are associatedwith negative parenting, which may increase parent–child conflict,Korean immigrant families will need to gradually phase out thesepractices from the ideal sense of ga-jung-kyo-yuk, in which one ofthe main goals is to establish a close parent–child relationship.

Mothers and Fathers: Similaritiesand Differences

The associations between Korean and Western parenting showgreat similarity across mothers and fathers. Two notable differ-ences include that only mothers who use traditional disciplinarypractices are less likely to provide parental monitoring, and onlyfathers who endorse Korean traditional etiquette are more likely touse negative discipline. Among both mothers and fathers, tradi-tional disciplinary practices indicate parental rejection and nega-tive discipline, whereas mothers reported a higher rate of usingphysical discipline than fathers in the survey. The negative impacton parental monitoring among mothers may be another reason todiscourage the use of traditional physical discipline among Koreanimmigrant families. The culture of the Korean immigrant commu-nity, especially among the parent generation, remains largely pa-triarchal and male-centered (Min, 2006). It is possible that fathersmay practice forceful or negative parenting in emphasizing tradi-tion, such as Korean traditional etiquette. Korean traditional eti-quettes were positively related to authoritarian parenting amongboth mothers and fathers, and it may be that this is an area in whichstricter parenting is practiced, especially by fathers.

Study Limitations and Future Research

The study has some limitations that bear mentioning. First, theassociations were tested using participants’ self-reports and self-assessments of their parenting behaviors. Although self-reports areshown to provide valid and reliable information, it is also possiblethat children view these behaviors differently. Youth perception ofparenting and family process is often significantly different fromthat of parents (Choi, He, & Harachi, 2008). The next steps of theresearch should be cross-validations of parental and youth reportsof parenting behaviors and values, and a determination of howdifferent or similar perceptions by youth and parents influenceyouth developmental outcomes.

Except for the measures of traditional disciplinary practices andsleeping arrangement, the majority of current measures of ga-jung-kyo-yuk focus on parental values. Conversely, the guan and qinmeasures evaluate specific behaviors of parental control andwarmth. Because the value measures assess cultural beliefs andideals, it may not be surprising that the measures are positivelycorrelated with authoritative parenting, parental warmth, and ac-ceptance. As discussed earlier, it may be universal for parents todesire close and accepting relationships with their children. How-ever, it may be actual parenting practices that are culturally dis-tinct. For example, the specifics of parental involvement in child’seducation, decision making, and family rules and regulations mayvary more significantly across cultures. However, guan behavioralmeasures were significantly and positively correlated with thega-jung-kyo-yuk value measures (Choi et al., 2012), demonstratinga possibility that ga-jung-kyo-yuk behavioral measures may alsooverlap with ga-jung-kyo-yuk value measures. Nonetheless, thenext step of research should include further development of spe-cific parenting behaviors that are part of ga-jung-kyo-yuk andempirical examination of the relationships with Western parentingbehavior measures.

Cultural differences and similarities in family process are com-plex and require rigorous methods, including culturally appropriateand specific measures and empirical support of relationships thatcan debunk stereotypes and misperceptions. This study contributesto building knowledge in this area. We have shown both the utilityand the limitations of Western styles of authoritative/authoritarianparenting to explain Asian American parenting processes, specif-ically, the Korean American process called ga-jung-kyo-yuk. Re-search should expand to enhance our understanding on specificfamily processes across cultures, especially understudied groups,such as Asian Americans and their subgroups, to better understanduniversals and culture specifics of family process. Such knowledgeis critical for informing intervention programs that target theculturally diverse United States, as well as global populations.

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Received April 30, 2012Revision received October 4, 2012

Accepted October 18, 2012 !

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29KOREAN AMERICAN AND WESTERN PARENTING MEASURES

Understanding “Tiger Parenting” Through the Perceptionsof Chinese Immigrant Mothers: Can Chinese and U.S.

Parenting Coexist?

Charissa S. L. Cheah, Christy Y. Y. Leung, and Nan ZhouUniversity of Maryland, Baltimore County

How Chinese immigrant mothers perceive “Chinese” and “U.S.” parenting and changes in their parentingpostmigration remains unclear, despite recent interest in Chinese parenting particularly in response to A.Chua’s (2011) controversial book on “Tiger Mothers” (Chua, A., 2011, Battle hymn of the tiger mother.New York, NY: Penguin.). The present study addressed this issue by examining the parenting beliefs andpractices of Chinese immigrant mothers through qualitative interviews. Participants included 50 first-generation Chinese immigrant mothers (mean age ! 38.39 years; SD ! 5.19) with a 3- to 6-year-oldchild. Mothers had been in the U.S. for an average of 10.20 years and were interviewed regarding theirperceptions of the contrasts between typical Chinese and U.S. parenting, the strengths of Chinese andU.S. parenting, and what changes (if any) occurred in their own parenting after they migrated to the U.S.Mothers identified key differences between the parenting in the 2 cultures across 4 themes. Importantly,mothers endorsed different aspects of parenting from both cultures and attempted to achieve a balancebetween supporting their child’s development of autonomy and individuality versus maintaining a senseof relatedness and familism in their parenting, contrary to Chua’s (2011) portrayal of rigid “Chineseparenting.” With regard to their parenting acculturation, mothers discussed having to be flexible acrossdifferent areas of their parenting in order to accommodate the cultural values of the larger societal contextand promote their child’s development in the U.S. These complex dynamics highlighted the challengesthat Chinese immigrant mothers face as they adapt and adjust to the new cultural context, and how theirparenting beliefs and practices acculturate.

Keywords: Chinese immigrant mothers, parenting beliefs and practices, acculturation

Harkness and Super (2002)’s developmental niche frameworkspecifies that the culturally constructed environment of the childconsists of the physical and social settings in which the child lives,culturally regulated customs of child care, and the psychology ofthe caretakers. These three components operate together as asystem, although each is functionally embedded in aspects of thelarger culture. For immigrant parents of young children, the uniqueparenting niche that they construct is influenced by their immi-grant context, traditional parenting customs, acculturative experi-ences, and the parenting values of the larger mainstream culture.When parents migrate to a new country, they are likely aware ofsome implicit influence of their heritage cultural values on theirfamily relationships, socialization goals for child development,and child-rearing practices (Bornstein & Cote, 2001). However,these parents also interact in varying degrees with socializationagents in the dominant society who may possess different ideas

about optimal developmental outcomes and desired characteristicsin children, and therefore endorse different socialization goals andchild-rearing strategies (Bornstein & Cote, 2010). Thus, parentingacculturation for immigrants involves constant negotiation be-tween the values and practices of the host and heritage cultures(Bornstein & Lansford, 2010). However, researchers rarely askparents directly about their beliefs regarding the parenting valuesand practices of the host versus heritage cultures.

The large numbers of immigrants to the United States in recentdecades (Grieco et al., 2012) make it imperative to learn moreabout these families. Knowledge of how mothers who are accul-turating think about the parenting of others and evaluate their ownparenting is important for understanding cultural variations inparenting (e.g., Bornstein, 1991) and the role of acculturation inparenting. This understanding is also crucial because a lack ofcultural knowledge of the mainstream culture may contribute tomisunderstandings, misinterpretations, and confusion about whatparenting to endorse in the new cultural context (Roer-Strier,2001). Higher levels of mainstream culture orientation amongChinese immigrant parents indicating greater familiarity with themainstream culture has been found to be associated with greaterparenting efficacy, which in turn was associated with more posi-tive parenting practices (Costigan & Koryzma, 2011). Thus, thisparenting knowledge is imperative so that psychologists, educa-tors, and practitioners can effectively assist acculturating familiesand promote their children’s healthy development and well-being.

Charissa S. L. Cheah, Christy Y. Y. Leung, and Nan Zhou, Departmentof Psychology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

This research was funded by the Foundation for Child Development andNICHD (1R03HD052827-01). We are grateful to the families for theirvaluable time and information.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to CharissaS. L. Cheah, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, Balti-more County, Baltimore, MD 21250. E-mail: [email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 30–40 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031217

30

Moreover, perceptions of a minority group’s parenting by thelarger mainstream culture can also lead to contention and stereo-typing. One clear example is the focus of the current special issue:the resultant controversy and media attention paid to Chineseparenting generated by Amy Chua’s book, Battle Hymn of theTiger Mother. In this book, Chua described her strict “Chinese”parenting, which she espouses to be superior to permissive “West-ern” parenting (Chua, 2011). A heated debate was raised byindividuals of different cultures as to whether the extremely harshand academically focused parenting portrayed by Chua accuratelydepicted “Chinese parenting” (i.e., practices endorsed by Chinesemothers) and the consequences of such parenting for children andadolescents.

Using qualitative interviews, we aimed to shed some light onthis issue by illustrating how Chinese immigrant mothers concep-tualized parenting espoused by the Chinese culture and the main-stream U.S. culture (hereinafter referred to as Chinese parentingand U.S. parenting). We also investigated what these mothers likedabout the parenting of each culture and how their parentingchanged since immigrating to the U.S. Examining the themesraised by Chinese immigrant mothers will contribute to our un-derstanding of the parenting challenges that these mothers face asthey adapt and adjust to the new cultural context and their parent-ing acculturation.

Chinese Immigrant Parents

As of 2010, 4.8% of the total U.S. population was Asian, and theChinese were the largest Asian American ethnic group (Hoeffel,Rastogi, Kim, & Shahid, 2012), representing people mainly fromthe People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.), Hong Kong, and Taiwan(Chao & Tseng, 2002). Discrepant values such as a general focuson independence (in the U.S.) versus interdependence (in China)may create greater social difficulties for Chinese Americans (e.g.,Kagitçibasi, 2003). Developing relationships beyond their ownethnic networks has been identified as a difficult task for ChineseAmericans, which may limit their social support networks andresources for parenting (e.g., Tsai, 2006).

Furthermore, Asian immigrants tend to retain their traditionalcollectivistic values within private domains concerning family,intergeneration relationships, and parenting (Bornstein & Cote,2006; Chao & Tseng, 2002). This higher likelihood to retaintraditional values might lead to additional challenges in parentingacculturation, particularly as children get older. A qualitative anal-ysis by Qin (2008) found that parenting for Chinese immigrantsbecame more challenging after migration to the new U.S. culturalcontext. During their interviews, parents talked at length about thedifficulty of assimilating into the U.S. society because of languagebarriers and perceived discrimination. In discussing the challengesthat they encountered in their family dynamics, these familiesmentioned several key differences between their traditional par-enting from those of the mainstream culture. However, theseparenting differences were not directly examined. Thus, our firstgoal was to assess Chinese immigrant mothers’ awareness andperceptions of the differences between the typical parenting oftheir own heritage Chinese culture and that of the host U.S. culture.

Importantly, bicultural socialization, the means by which chil-dren “acquire the norms, attitudes and behavior patterns” of twoethnic groups (Rotherham & Phinney, 1987, p. 24), is associated

with positive outcomes in immigrant children such as high self-esteem, positive racial and ethnic identities, achievement motiva-tion, and overall adaptive psychosocial adjustment (Cheah &Leung, 2011; Killian & Hegtvedt, 2003). Bicultural socializationprepares immigrant children to learn diverse and complementaryvalues, acquire different coping strategies from various culturaland social experiences and attain competence in the multiculturalAmerican society. Immigrant mothers have been shown to recog-nize the need to adapt their parenting to the new environment inorder to prepare their children to function well in the mainstreamsociety (Qin, 2008). Furthermore, more research is needed on theparenting values and practices that may be important to thesemothers and, thus, more likely to be integrated into their ownparenting toward achieving bicultural competence in parenting.Therefore, our second goal was to investigate what Chinese im-migrant mother liked about Chinese and U.S. parenting and theirreasons why.

Parenting Acculturation

One key issue for immigrant parents is the reconciliation ofdifferences between their culture of origin and their adopted cul-ture with regard to socialization beliefs, practices, behaviors, andvalues. This process is known as acculturation and has beenconceptualized as the process by which an individual changes dueto contact and interaction with another distinct culture (Berry,Trimble, & Olmedo, 1986). Parenting cognitions includes parents’beliefs, attitudes, goals, and knowledge regarding their parenting,and work to motivate and organize parenting activities and mod-erate the effectiveness of their child-rearing practices (e.g., Born-stein & Cote, 2006; Sigel & McGillicuddy-De Lisi, 2002). Cog-nitions related to child rearing and socialization are thought to berather resistant to change (e.g., Ngo & Malz, 1998) and contributeto the “continuity of culture” by helping to define culture and thetransmission of culture across generations.

However, few researchers have directly studied parenting or thedynamics of parenting cognitions among acculturating (i.e., immi-grant) mothers. Instead, most of the existing literature on accul-turation and parenting independently assess parents’ general levelof acculturation and then attempt to determine if associations existwith specific parenting beliefs or practices (e.g., Kim, Chen,Wang, Shen, & Orozco-Lapray, 2012; Shin, Bayram-Ozdemir,Lee, & Cheah, 2010). This approach may be problematic becauseacculturation likely does not impact all aspects of parenting in thesame way. Instead, the associations may depend on the compo-nents of acculturation (e.g., observable vs. nonobservable aspectsof culture) and parenting (e.g., beliefs or behavior) being exam-ined.

The findings in the literature are inconsistent with some studiesreporting significant but weak associations between acculturationand parenting (e.g., Lim & Lim, 2005; Yagmurlu & Sanson, 2009)and others reporting no associations (e.g., Costigan & Su, 2008;Hulei, Zevenbergen, & Jacobs, 2006). Therefore, a more direct andthorough examination of parenting acculturation is greatly needed.The current study significantly advanced our understanding of howChinese immigrant mothers acculturate in their parenting beliefsand practices through our third goal. Specifically, our third goalwas to examine changes in these mothers’ parenting (if any) since

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31CHINESE AND U.S. PARENTING

their migration in order to assess mothers’ own perceptions of theirparenting acculturation.

Method

Participants

The sample consisted of 50 Chinese mothers with at least onechild between the ages of 3 and 6 years old. All the mothers werefirst-generation immigrants who migrated to the U.S. at the age of13 years or older from mainland China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong.All the spouses of the mothers were also Chinese immigrants. Onaverage, the mothers had been in the U.S. for about 10 years. Mostmothers had at least college degrees and more than one child.About equal numbers of mothers reported no religious affiliationversus being Christian, with a small number who reported beingBuddhist. The representativeness of the current sample was limitedto Chinese immigrants in the U.S. with high levels of education.Specific details on the sample characteristics are presented inTable 1.

Data Collection Instruments

The demographic measure and parenting interview were origi-nally constructed in the English language and were translated toChinese (both simplified and traditional forms) by bilingual trans-lators using a translation and back-translation procedure to ensurethat the original meaning of the instruments was maintained. Alldiscrepancies were discussed until consensus was reached amongthe translators (Peña, 2007).

Demographics. A modified version of the Family DescriptionMeasure (Bornstein, 1991) was used to obtain detailed demo-graphic and descriptive information about the child, mother, andfather, and other information relevant to immigrant families, suchas the mothers’ place of origin, length of time in the U.S., andreasons for migrating to the U.S.

Interview on parenting. A structured interview was designedto understand the themes raised by Chinese immigrant mothers inthe U.S. regarding (a) what mothers perceived to be the differencesbetween Chinese and U.S. parenting, (b) what (if anything) theyliked about Chinese and U.S. parenting and why, and (c) whetherthere had been changes in their parenting since their migration tothe U.S. and how they described these changes (if any).

Procedure

Families were recruited from churches, community centers,preschools, and daycare centers throughout Maryland. After ob-taining approval from the appropriate authorities, announcementsabout the study were made at these organizations along with aquestion-and-answer session with parents. Interested parents pro-vided their contact information to the research assistants and werelater contacted to schedule a home visit. The questionnaire admin-istration and interviews were conducted separately but during thesame home visit by two trained research assistants who were fluentin the mothers’ preferred language or dialect (English, Mandarin,or Cantonese). Written consent was first obtained from the moth-ers. The course of the audiotaped interview was structured by aninterview script containing written instructions for interviewers

and a detailed sequence of carefully worded questions and probes(Hill et al., 2005). Trained researchers conducted the interviews ina comfortable and informal manner in which mothers were en-couraged to freely share their thoughts with the interviewers. Theinterviews lasted between 15 and 30 min on average. Almost allmothers chose to respond to the questionnaires and the interview inChinese, 93.3% and 94%, respectively.

Data Analysis

A qualitative content analysis (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane,2006) using a consensus-based iterative coding framework wasconducted by Charissa S. L. Cheah and Christy Y. Y. Leung to

Table 1Sample Characteristics of Mothers

Characteristic Number

Age (in years)Mother M ! 38.39 (SD ! 5.19);

range ! 30–56Child M ! 5.09 (SD ! 0.82);

range ! 3–6Child gender

Male 27Female 23

Child birth placeIn the U.S. 42Outside of the U.S. 8

Percentage of mothers who hada child prior to coming tothe U.S.

46%

Number of children in thefamily

One 18Two 25Three 6Four 1

Maternal educational levelHigh school graduate or

GED 2Partial collage 3University graduate or higher 45

Marital statusMarried 48Married but separated 1Remarried 1

ReligionBuddhist 3Christian 23None 24

Place of originChina 38Taiwan 6Hong Kong 6

Length of time in U.S. (inyears)

M ! 10.20 (SD ! 5.00);range ! 0.75–21

Reasons for migrationEducation 20Marriage/came with spouse 21Family reunification 5Better living opportunities 3Political reasons 1

Family SES 50 middle-class

Note. GED ! General Educational Development; SES ! socioeconomicstatus.

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32 CHEAH, LEUNG, AND ZHOU

systemically classify and describe the parenting themes revealedby the mothers. A mixed deductive and indicative approach wasadopted to integrate the deductive thematic analysis (Crabtree &Miller, 1999; Miles & Huberman, 1994) with the inductive codingprocess (Boyatzis, 1998), such that codes were derived theoreti-cally to address the research questions and generated to capture thenew themes that emerge in the interviews. The audiotaped inter-views were transcribed, translated, and checked by multiple bilin-gual students for accuracy. A start list was first created in whicheach research question served as a higher-order code accompaniedby corresponding subcodes that captured theoretical concepts. Onthe basis of the start list, open coding was conducted during whichinterview transcripts were analyzed to identify distinct ideas andcreate codes pertaining to similar meanings of distinct ideas. Thenaxial coding was conducted during which codes representing over-

lapping themes were grouped into higher-level codes and thedefinitions of those codes were revised. Finally, a cross-analysiswas conducted to construct common themes across mothers.

The process of identifying themes, creating conceptual codes,abstracting the core ideas, auditing, establishing coding guidelines,and cross-analyzing was guided by Hill et al.’s (2005) consensualqualitative research (CQR) method to monitor research bias. Dur-ing the iterative process, coding was first conducted by ChristyY. Y. Leung, and then reviewed by Charissa S. L. Cheah. On thebasis of a series of conjoint review and discussion sessions, theteam modified and refined the coding until any disagreementswere resolved by consensus (Barbour, 2001; Hill et al., 2005; seeTable 2 for the list of codes).

To ensure the creditability and accuracy of the data, we estab-lished trustworthiness in the present study by prolonged engage-

Table 2Coding Categories, Definitions, and Number of Mothers Addressing Specific Categories (N ! 50)

Coding category DefinitionNumber of

mothers

Differences between Chinese and U.S. parentingStrict discipline Chinese parents are stricter, exert more control and disciplinary actions, and

more accepting of physical punishment than U.S. parents.39

Regulatory reasoning U.S. parents are more likely to enforce the established rules and utilizereasoning and guidance to correct children’s behaviors than Chineseparents.

18

Social comparisons Chinese parents are more likely to compare their own children with otherchildren to correct their children’s behaviors than U.S. parents.

8

Encouragement andpraise

U.S. parents are more likely to have a positive attitude interacting with theirchildren, and encourage and praise their children than Chinese parents.

14

Familialinterdependence

Chinese parents are more likely to emphasize interdependence among family,and provide children with constant care and protection than U.S. parents.

15

Independence or self-reliance

U.S. parents are more likely to grant autonomy to and foster independence intheir children than Chinese parents.

36

Emphasis onacademics

Chinese parents are more likely to focus on children’s education, and havehigh expectations for academic achievement than U.S. parents.

29

Overall childdevelopment

U.S. parents are more likely to foster their children’s overall (social andphysical) development and individual interests.

26

Positive evaluative perceptions of Chinese and U.S. parentingStrict discipline or

firm controlParental strictness, discipline, and firm control in Chinese parenting. 31

Regulatory reasoning Consistent enforcement of the established parenting rules, the use ofreasoning and guidance in U.S. parenting.

5

Encouragement andpraise

Maintaining positive attitudes and giving children encouragement and praisein U.S. parenting.

15

Familialinterdependence

Promoting a sense of interdependence and reciprocity within the family, andmaternal devotion to children in Chinese parenting.

31

Independence or self-reliance

Fostering independence and granting autonomy in U.S. parenting. 22

Emphasis onacademics

Strong emphasis on children’s education and high aspirations for children’ssuccess and achievement in Chinese parenting.

21

Overall childdevelopment

Emphasis on children’s overall (social and physical) development andindividual interests in U.S. parenting.

28

Changes in parenting after coming to the U.S.Control and Reasoning Mothers became less restrictive, engaged in less physical punishment or

verbal hostility, enforced the established parenting rules more consistently,and utilized reasoning and guidance more.

22

Independence or self-reliance

Mothers became less protective towards, granted more autonomy to, andfostered more independence in their children.

4

Emphasis onacademics

Mothers focused less on their children’s academic achievement, fostered theirchildren’s individual interests more, or utilized more developmentallyappropriate strategies.

9

Overall childdevelopment

Mothers focused more on fostering children’s self-esteem, and social, moral,or personality development.

10

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33CHINESE AND U.S. PARENTING

ment with the participants (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The mothers inthe current sample had been visited by research assistants at theirhome four times over the course of 2 years as part of a largerproject, and this interview was conducted at the end of the secondyear. Thus, some levels of trust and rapport between the mothersand our research team had been established, allowing mothers toshare more openly during the interview. To minimize the authors’biases, Charissa S. L. Cheah and Christy Y. Y. Leung discussedand came to a mutual understanding that they would attempt to putaside their expectations throughout the coding and data analysisprocess in addition to utilizing Hill et al.’s (2005) CQR method.

Results

Table 2 presents the final list of coding categories, the descrip-tion for each code, and the number of mothers who addressed eachcode.

Mothers’ Perceptions of Differences between Chineseand U.S. Parenting and What They Liked AboutChinese and U.S. Parenting (Evaluative Perceptions)

The Chinese immigrant mothers in our sample were easily ableto discuss their perceptions of how “typical” Chinese and U.S.parenting differed. None of the mothers asked for clarification onwhat we meant by Chinese or U.S. parenting. Five themes emergedpertaining to cultural differences in specific areas of parenting.

Harsh discipline versus regulatory reasoning. Mothers in-dicated that Chinese parents rely on strict discipline and firmcontrol to ensure that their children act or behave according to theirparents’ wishes. Moreover, Chinese parents were believed to bemore likely to use physical punishment or verbal hostility thanU.S. parents, including inducing fear in their children. For exam-ple, Ms. Yang, a mother with a 5-year-old daughter, described howchildren react to the strict discipline by acting in ways that willavoid parental anger: “What will dad and mom think if I do this?Will I get yelled at?”

Unlike Chinese parents’ use of harsh punishment, some motherssuch as Ms. Xie, a mother of a 6-year-old boy, believed that U.S.parents engage in more regulatory reasoning with their children:

If children do not listen, [U.S. parents] do not use physical punish-ment. They think that is not humane. [They] really emphasize usingother ways to explain and guide their children, or give their childrenopportunities to improve. If you misbehave, [they] do not punish youright away to make you listen/follow because of fear.

Evaluative perceptions. Mothers generally reported likingthe use of strictness and discipline in Chinese parenting becausecertain restraints were thought to be necessary to enforce chil-dren’s compliance. These mothers, such as Ms. Chiang, who hada 5-year-old son, believed that “Children should be given certainconstraints or restrictions. You may need to give children somerestrictions, or some necessary corrections. In this aspect, Chineseparents tend to pay more attention, whereas American parents tendto be more permissive.” Several mothers favored the use of regu-latory reasoning in U.S. parenting because they believed thatchildren are less likely to misbehave when their parents consis-tently enforce established parenting rules with them. Ms. Wu, a

mother with a 5-year-old daughter, described how she helped herchild understand the negative consequences of her misbehaviorthrough guidance and reasoning: “There are some positive ways[of talking to children]. For example, if you have done somethingwrong, you will be treated in this way or that way later. Likewise,if you have done something good, you will end up with this orthat.” These mothers also expressed an interest in learning moreabout regulatory reasoning. For example, Ms. Hai, a mother witha 4-year-old son, related, “I don’t know what their parentingmethods are, how they can socialize [their] children so well thatwhen parents say some things are prohibited then the kids form ahabit of not doing that. . .I am interested in getting to know howAmericans socialize [their children].”

Social comparisons and criticism versus encouragement andpraise. Most mothers also noted Chinese parents’ tendency touse social comparisons with other children to correct their chil-dren’s misbehaviors, as compared to U.S. parents’ tendency to useencouragement and praise. Ms. Zhou, a mother of a 5-year-old girl,stated that “Chinese parents always use comparative words [toremind the child that] you are not as good as others, you need tocatch up.” Mothers noticed that U.S. parents did not tend to makesuch comparisons. For example, Ms. Qiao, a mother of a 5-year-old boy, described the following:

When they [Chinese parents] teach [socialize] their children, theyalways compare them with other children. They always say “you seehow that child is doing”. . .and so forth. So their children have morepressure. However, according to my observations, parents in the U.S.are not like that.

In contrast, mothers described how U.S. parents emphasizeusing encouragement and praise and generally have a more posi-tive attitude when interacting with their children than Chineseparents. For example, Ms. Zhou, a mother with a 5-year-olddaughter, said, “U.S. parents would say, ‘Ah, you are terrific!’[Whenever children] make something, [they would say], ‘Ah,really good!’ ‘Impressive, good, awesome,’ words like these.”Mothers believed that U.S. parents use encouragement and praiseto highlight their children’s positive virtues and foster their chil-dren’s strengths and self-confidence. For instance, Ms. Le, amother with a 5-year-old daughter, commented, “The difference isthat the U.S. way of parenting is positive. [Parents] always en-courage [their] children, foster confidence in [their] children, cre-ate many opportunities for [their] children, praise them, and givethem a lot of freedom. . .. I think that U.S. parenting tries todiscover children’s positive virtues, whereas Chinese parentingtends to [point out] children’s shortcomings.”

Evaluative perceptions. Many of our mothers reported likingthe use of encouragement and praise in U.S. parenting. The Chi-nese mothers in our sample admired how U.S. parents socializetheir children with such positive attitudes, and believed that thisparenting practice enables young U.S. children to have moreconfidence interacting with others and exploring their environ-ment. For example, Ms. Kou, a mother of a 4-year-old girl,indicated “I think that [giving children] encouragement and praiseis also very good because it can foster children’s sense of self-confidence from a young age.” She further discussed the impor-tance of fostering children’s self-confidence in order to overcomechallenges in life:

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34 CHEAH, LEUNG, AND ZHOU

They feel great about themselves because they have been constantlygetting praise and encouragement since they were young. This [self-confidence] is very important for us. Everyone will face difficulties atsome point in his or her life. The key [to success] is whether or notyou can persist [through the difficulties].

Interdependence versus independence. In addition, mothershighlighted the emphasis on a sense of interdependence and reci-procity between Chinese parents and children. Chinese motherswere described as inseparable from their young children, anddevoted to providing them with constant care, protection, andguidance. Ms. Ji, a mother with a 6-year-old son, indicated that “Ithink [it is good that] there is a lot of parental involvement [inChinese parenting].”

Mothers also indicated that U.S. parenting instead emphasizesfostering children’s independence from parents. For example, Ms.Han, who had a 4-year-old daughter, indicated, “I think thatChinese parents are more protective of their children, whereas U.S.parents foster their children’s independence more. For example,U.S. parents make their children do housework, whereas Chineseparents take care of everything [in the house].” Moreover, U.S.parents are perceived to allow their children freedom to discovertheir own interests and encourage their children to express theirown thoughts and feelings. For example, Ms. Chiang, a motherwith a 5-year-old son, indicated:

In the United States, parents give children as many choices andassistance as possible, which allows them to develop more freely,

and Ms. Hui, a mother of a 6-year-old boy, indicated that

[U.S. parenting] encourages children to express themselves, to havetheir own opinions, and also, [allow] different opinions.

Evaluative perceptions. Mothers endorsed the Chinese val-ues pertaining to maternal devotion and believed that young chil-dren will develop a sense of security when they are provided withlove and care by their devoted mothers. For example, Ms. Pi, amother with a 4-year-old son, indicated that “I think in traditionalChinese child rearing, there is a bond between the parent and thechild when the child is very young. I agree with this very much.”Moreover, these mothers highly regarded family interdependencein Chinese culture, especially family values such as respect for theelderly and love and care for young children. For instance, Ms.Cao, a mother of a 5-year-old boy, talked about how “The Chinese[style] is about respecting the elderly and caring for the young,which are our traditions”

However, at the same time, mothers also considered the empha-sis on fostering young children’s independence in U.S. parentingto be “beneficial for their [children’s] future” such that childrenwill be able to “live independently,” “have good judgment and beassertive when making decisions.” Mothers also indicated theimportance of granting their children freedom along with estab-lished rules and guidance. For instance, Ms. Gao, a mother of a5-year-old girl, described the approach she preferred to fosterchildren’s independence,: “I like having many rules in terms ofgiving children freedom. So, children can see that [there are]principles, but [we] also do not restrict children’s free develop-ment.”

Academic performance versus overall development.Mothers talked at length about Chinese parents’ emphasis on

children’s academic performance in contrast to U.S. parents’ focuson children’s overall development. Mothers discussed how Chi-nese parents highly value their children’s education and engagetheir children in learning activities from early childhood. Forexample, Ms. Zhuo, a mother of a 4-year-old boy, indicated that“Chinese parents force their children to learn many things whenthey are young.” These mothers discussed how Chinese parentsexpect their children to excel academically because they consideracademic achievement to be the best pathway leading to careerachievement, financial success, and increased socioeconomic sta-tus. Ms. Bai, who had a 4-year-old daughter, used a four-characterChinese idiom (“Hoping one’s child becomes a dragon”) to ex-press Chinese parents’ high aspirations and expectations for theirchildren’s success.

In contrast to the emphasis on academic performance in Chineseparenting, mothers mentioned that U.S. parenting focuses on chil-dren’s overall development. For example, Ms. Li, a mother with a6-year-old daughter, indicated that:

The parents here [in the U.S.] focus on their children’s personality,understand their strengths and weaknesses, rather than just focus onattending college and lead their children’s development in one direc-tion. I think that [the U.S. way of parenting] understands the childmore comprehensively.

Many mothers further indicated that U.S. parents encourage theirchildren to engage in sports to promote their physical develop-ment, provide their children with guidance to develop positivesocial skills, and allow their children to have play time with peersto enhance their socioemotional development. For example, Ms.Ran, a mother of a 5-year-old boy, indicated, “The U.S. familiesrather have the kids play and do sports, but in our family, we focusmore on education and extracurricular activities.” More important,these mothers also discussed how U.S. parents tailor their parent-ing to their children’s personality in order to address their indi-vidual needs and abilities as illustrated by the following responsefrom Ms. Guo, a mother with a 6-year-old son: “Regarding theChinese method of raising children, I think that U.S. parents tailortheir parenting according to their children’s psychological needs[whereas] Chinese parents pay little attention to children’s psy-chological development.”

Evaluative perceptions. Mothers discussed liking the Chi-nese parents’ emphasis on children’s academic performance be-cause parents are responsible for providing children with oppor-tunities to maximize their potential and chances of success. Forexample, Ms. Hui, a mother with a 6-year-old son, indicated that:

I think that [Chinese] parents have higher expectations regarding theirchildren’s academics [than American parents], which help children tofoster a habit of studying on their own. This is a very good habitbecause I think that the U.S. way is relatively permissive on thisaspect. I also think that in the traditional [Chinese] way, [parents]have many demands of [their children], which is basically morebeneficial for maximizing children’s opportunities, experiences, anddiscipline.

Mothers viewed U.S. parents’ focus on children’s well-roundeddevelopment favorably as well. Mothers appreciated the emphasison fostering children’s social development in U.S. parenting. AsMs. Cao, a mother with a 5-year-old son, described, “The U.S. wayof child rearing is to foster morality in their children, [to encour-

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35CHINESE AND U.S. PARENTING

age] them to participate in group activities or public activities moreand to foster and respect the development of their personalities.”Mothers also liked U.S. parents’ focus on children’s individualcharacteristics. Mothers such as Ms. Ma, a mother of a 6-year-oldgirl, endorsed the child-centered nature of U.S. parenting that werethought to optimize their children’s development: “[It is] thestronger emphasis on the individual person; [it is to] discover theirown abilities/potentials. [It is] to maximize one’s strengths, and toencourage one to do what he or she is good at or what he or shelikes.”

Several mothers also favored U.S. parents’ emphasis on pro-moting children’s physical development and participation in sportsor extracurricular activities in order to have a balanced, healthydevelopment. For example, Ms. Chiang, a mother of a 5-year-oldboy, expressed that “I like how children in the U.S. pay moreattention to their physical training; they are given more time tohave outdoor activities, various sports activities, and opportunitiesfor all kinds of extracurricular activities.”

Parenting Acculturation: Changes in Parenting SinceMigration

Overall, all mothers indicated that there were changes in theirparenting since they migrated to the U.S. Four specific areas ofparenting were identified.

Decreased coercive parenting and increased regulatoryreasoning. During the interviews, mothers discussed how someof the traditionally endorsed Chinese parenting practices wereconsidered maladaptive in U.S. society. Specifically, many moth-ers indicated that they became more flexible and less restrictive intheir parenting after moving to the U.S. “After arriving here, [I]feel that even though children are only children, they deserverespect and they need to have rights, thoughts, and opinions,” asdescribed by Ms. Xie. Moreover, mothers also recognized that theycould no longer rely on coercive strategies to discipline theirchildren. For example, Ms. Yang described how she reacts differ-ently to her 5-year-old daughter’s wrongdoings after moving to theU.S.: “Before [when we] were back in China, I might hit [physi-cally punish] her if [my] child made mistakes or misbehaved.Now, I do not [do this] anymore since [I] came to the U.S.” Moreimportantly, these mothers realized that the use of physical pun-ishment or verbal criticism might generate children’s resistancetoward their parents. As Ms. Bai stated, “[My] beliefs havechanged . . .. I actually talk with my children more [than I hitthem]. Hitting children may generate resentment in children, andlead to further resistance and rebellion; therefore [I] do not hit mychildren easily.” Instead, these mothers reported using more rea-soning and explanation of the consequences of misbehavior withtheir children when correcting their wrongdoings as they observedU.S. parents doing. Also, mothers talked about criticizing theirchildren’s mistakes less and providing guidance instead. For ex-ample, Ms. Yang described that “When she [her 5-year-old daugh-ter] is not doing so well in something, I remind/guide her when itis necessary, but I do not say too much [make too many negativecomments].”

These mothers talked about learning from U.S. parents how tobe more consistent when enforcing established parenting ruleswith their young children and to provide age-appropriate guidanceand discipline in order to regulate their children’s behaviors. For

instance, Ms. Hai, a mother of a 3-year-old boy, illustrated howshe changed her parenting since being in the U.S.: “Now, [I thinkI] should stick to my principles. No indulgence.”

Fostering children’s independence. Some mothers talkedabout changes in their parenting associated with their children’sindependence. Mothers acknowledged that they used to be veryprotective of their children and did everything for them, especiallywith regard to their daily routines. As a result, their children didnot have the opportunity to develop skills to resolve conflicts withpeers or handle their own daily self-care or chores. Thus, mothersdiscussed implementing changes in their parenting after moving tothe U.S. that allowed their children to develop more independencein each of these areas. For example, Ms. Chen, a mother with a3-year-old daughter, indicated:

I used to think that [I] should protect my child a lot, never let othersbully him or let him fall or things like that. Now [I] think it is normalfor children to have conflicts and [I] should let him learn how to dealwith them. And [I used to] take care of him a lot, did a lot of thingsfor him. Now, I don’t do them for him.

Decreased emphasis on children’s academic performance.Although mothers reported liking the Chinese focus on education,they also talked at length about the overemphasis on children’sacademic performance in Chinese societies and its associatedimpact on Chinese parenting. However, two subpatterns wereidentified regarding mothers’ conceptualization of their child’seducation. Although many mothers themselves were socialized intheir home country to emphasize education since early childhood,they mostly disapproved of this value after immigration. The firstsubpattern pertained to mothers who said that they chose not topressure their young children. These mothers indicated that thecultural context of the U.S. society allowed them to be morerelaxed about their children’s education during early childhood,compared with their counterparts in China. For example, Ms. Aucontrasted her expectations of her 5-year-old son’s homeworkhabits with those of her friends in China:

We sometimes called our friends in China. We do not want my childto study too hard, like the children in China who do their homeworkuntil 1 o’clock in the morning. Oh, my God! We can understand itbecause we also grew up and were educated in China. There are moreopportunities here. So even if you don’t go to college, you still haveother ways unlike in China where the college entrance examinationdetermines your destiny. Therefore, I feel that he may not need towork too hard as he is still too young.

Mothers whose responses fell within the second subpattern alsogenerally disapproved of the overemphasis on children’s academicperformance in Chinese societies but discussed different changesin their parenting related to this issue. Rather than decreasing theirfocus on academic achievement, these mothers talked about nowallowing their children to choose their future academic paths. Forinstance, Ms. Shiu, a mother of a 4-year-old boy, discussed howshe discovered her children’s interests through observing them,and her expectations regarding their future development:

[I] observe what [my] children like and what [they are] interested in,but I do not plan what they need to do for them. I think that many[Chinese] parents require their children to attain (certain levels of)education and obtain certain types of job. I do not do that.

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36 CHEAH, LEUNG, AND ZHOU

These mothers expressed that it was important for their childrento develop their own interests, even when they were different fromtheir own expectations. Mothers whose responses reflected thissecond pattern also focused on educating their children in a moredevelopmentally appropriate manner. For example, in order toencourage her children’s learning, Ms. Song, a mother of a 5-year-old girl, reported adapting her parenting practices to better suit herchild’s characteristics and age:

I now teach her 10 Chinese words every day. However, it is only 15minutes. If she still cannot remember after spending more than 15minutes, [I let her go]. We will just start again the next day. BecauseI found out about children’s attention span. [It is] difficult for her [mychild] to focus on a task for too long.

Increased emphasis on children’s overall development.Complementing the changes in their parenting goals and practiceswith regard to their children’s education, mothers increased theirattention on their children’s emotional development. In particular,these mothers discussed how they now value fostering theirchildren’s self-esteem more and believe that Chinese children tendto have low self-esteem because their parents rarely praised them.For example, Ms. Zhou, a mother with a 5-year-old daughter,discussed:

I think that the U.S. [parents] mostly encourage their children, whichis a good approach. This approach is different from the [parenting]approach in which I have been socialized to [in China] ever since Iwas little. I used to think that I needed to improve because I was notas good as other people. [However,] here in the U.S., the goal is toaccomplish something rather than be recognized. I think that is acompletely different approach, and this is the approach that should beused.

Ms. Kou explained how she learned to praise her 4-year-olddaughter more from observing other parents: “I encourage hermore in the U.S. When they are getting off from school, herclassmates’ parents are always surprised when they see theirchildren’s projects and they give their children compliments. So, [Itend to give] more praise here [in the U.S].” These mothers alsoarticulated their belief in the importance of fostering their chil-dren’s self-confidence and esteem through the use of encourage-ment and praise in order to help their children better adjust to theU.S. society. Ms. Hwang described changes in her parenting sincemoving to the U.S.: “My child was criticized more when he livedin China. Now we give him more self-confidence by encouraginghim.”

Furthermore, most mothers talked about changes in parentingassociated with paying more attention to their children’s social,moral, or personality development after moving to the U.S. and notjust on taking care of their children’s basic needs. For example,Ms. Yang, a mother with a 6-year-old daughter, reported, “Yes,there are changes. The biggest change is with regard to my child’spersonality development. [I] mostly adopt an approach that letsnature take its course [in terms of my child’s personality develop-ment].”

Discussion

The study of parenting among Chinese immigrant parents ofyoung children is limited, and almost exclusively dependent on

quantitative methods that rely on investigator-directed parentingthemes (Zhou, 2000). As such, our understanding of dynamicprocesses underlying the various complex and interrelated parent-ing themes and the associated parenting goals and practices hasbeen restricted. The present study contributes to the current liter-ature by examining parenting themes that emerge from qualitativeinterviews regarding the two main cultural dimensions that Chi-nese immigrant mothers encounter in their daily lives (i.e., Chineseand U.S.), and their parenting acculturation.

Across the questions, our analyses revealed that Chinese immi-grant mothers were able to coherently identify the typical parent-ing in the two cultures. Specifically, several Confucian-basedtenets related to the socialization of children, parent–child rela-tionships, parenting roles and goals, and preferred parenting strat-egies to achieve these goals (e.g., Ho, 2008) were highly salient toall the Chinese immigrant mothers and highlighted across all thequestions. For example, a central theme raised by mothersthroughout the interviews was Chinese parents’ reliance on harsherdiscipline, as compared to the use of more regulatory reasoning,praise, and encouragement in U.S. parenting. Children are thoughtto develop desirable characteristics and behaviors when their par-ents provide proper discipline, which reflects a traditional Confu-cian belief that “a child’s disposition derives from environmentalinfluences” (Wu, 1996, p.144) and parents bear the full responsi-bility of teaching their children using proper discipline (Ho, 2008).

Another practice, the use of social comparisons to other chil-dren, reflects a Confucian focus on the socially oriented self,which emphasizes one’s self-conception as a connected being whois bound to others (Lu, 2008). Interestingly, Qin (2012) identifiedthat such comparisons with other children who were academicallysuperior to their own was an often-used strategy by Chineseimmigrant parents to motivate their adolescents to study harder.However, this strategy was resented by these adolescents andbecame a common source of parent–child conflict.

Traditionally, Chinese parents tend to be emotionally restrainedand reluctant to express explicit positive comments and praise inchild rearing due to the belief that the frequent use of praise maythreaten parental authority and lead to the child’s self-contentedness and lack of motivation to improve and achieve(Cheah & Li, 2010). In contrast, European American parents werefound to believe that praising children even for small successes canreinforce children’s good behavior and help them develop positiveself-esteem (Chao, 1995).

Thus, mothers identified parent-centered goals, harshness, andstrictness to be characteristic of Chinese parenting as discussed inChua’s (2011) book. However, in contrast to what was portrayedby Chua, most of the mothers in our sample endorsed and at-tempted to achieve a more nuanced balance between the parentinggoals and practices of both Chinese and U.S. cultures. For exam-ple, mothers reported supporting their child’s development of bothautonomy and relatedness in their parenting rather than choosinginterdependence or independence (e.g., Juang, Syed, Cookston,Wang, & Kim, 2012; Kagitçibasi, 2005). This hybrid of providingautonomy with regulation reflects the socialization of an“autonomous-related self” (Kagitçibasi, 2003). The autonomous-related self may be particularly relevant for Chinese immigrantfamilies who tend to maintain their collectivistic cultural values ofinterrelatedness, while adjusting to new lifestyles in the host so-ciety that render autonomy adaptive. Thus, rather than construing

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37CHINESE AND U.S. PARENTING

autonomy and interrelatedness as polar opposites, a recognition ofthe distinctness and coexistence of both dimensions is important.

We also identified another idea that has received less attentionin previous research, which must be interpreted in light of the ageof the child in the current study. Young Chinese children below theage of understanding (about 6 years of age) who are perceived tobe incapable of understanding right from wrong are treated withindulgence and leniency in order to solidify the interdependentparent–child bond (e.g., Ho, 2008). Although mothers valued thestrong mother–child bond and interdependence fostered by Chi-nese parenting, they also believed that the inconsistent parentingresulting from this leniency is a weakness of Chinese parenting.These mothers talked about learning from U.S. parents how to bemore consistent when enforcing established parenting rules withtheir young children and provide age-appropriate guidance anddiscipline in order to regulate their children’s behaviors, reflectingaspects of authoritative parenting valued by the U.S. mainstreamculture (Cheah, Leung, Tahseen, & Schultz, 2009).

Moreover, mothers’ discussion of the use of strict and harshparenting mostly pertained to children’s education and academicachievement. This focus on education and achievement is charac-teristic of many foreign-born parents in the U.S. due to the im-portance of upward social mobility among immigrants (e.g., Hao& Pong, 2008). However, the education system in China mayfoster an especially intense focus on academic achievement amongimmigrant parents from this region. Unlike their peers in the U.S.,high school students’ ability to pursue higher education in China ispurely determined by their performance on the college entranceexamination. Thus, there is immense pressure to perform well andthe psychological and financial costs of not doing so are immense(Cheung, 2009). Many Chinese parents feel an intense need toprepare their children to maximize their chances for success. Somemothers in our sample discussed how they were able to relax thisaspect of their parenting because they learned that other pathwaystoward success were possible for their children in the U.S. (Ho,2008).

Although most mothers disliked the overemphasis on children tosucceed academically, some mothers spoke more generally aboutdecreasing this pressure, whereas others focused on specific waysto foster their children’s intrinsic interests in learning and self-esteem. Thus, some mothers appeared to have more concrete ideasabout how to change their parenting to support their new ideas.Mothers also indicated that they now encourage their children tohave play time with peers in their daily routine, which is notcommon among families in their Chinese societies of origin(Leung, 2011). These shifts in parental expectations regardingeducation were similar to those noted by the parents of nondis-tressed high-achieving adolescents in Qin’s (2008) study.

Relatedly, physical activity and sports are generally less valuedin Chinese cultures compared to North America as these activitiesare perceived to interfere with academic pursuits (Ha, Macdonald,& Pang, 2010). Some mothers spoke specifically about wanting toprovide their child with opportunities for physical activity, perhapsbecause they were more knowledgeable regarding the benefits ofphysical activity. These practices may be particularly relevant inthe new U.S. context where there is a high rate of childhoodobesity and much media attention paid toward its prevention(Cheah & Van Hook, 2012).

Parenting cognitions and practices are often believed to beadopted from one’s culture of origin with little modification, asopposed to being the product of individual deliberation (seeMcGillicuddy-De Lisi, 1992). Importantly, our findings indicatedthat Chinese immigrant parenting is much more active and dy-namic than previously revealed by quantitative studies. How par-ents negotiate and balance the parenting from both cultures iscertainly more complicated than was portrayed in Chua’s (2011)book. Importantly, the parent-centered, punitive, and psychologi-cally controlling parenting espoused by Chua were identified to beno longer adaptive and desirable in the new cultural context byalmost all our Chinese immigrant mothers. These mothers wereeasily able to identify and talk about various aspects of U.S.parenting that they liked and appreciated, in addition to aspects ofmore traditional Chinese parenting that they also valued and at-tempted to maintain.

Many of these themes matched the sources of conflict andproblematic family dynamics among Chinese immigrant and Chi-nese American families with older children and adolescents iden-tified in previous research (e.g., Juang et al., 2012; Qin et al.,2012). Thus, Chinese immigrant parents are already strugglingwith these issues early on, and greater attention to these topicsshould be paid to immigrant parents of young children.

All the mothers discussed having to be flexible with theirparenting values, attitudes, and behaviors in different ways inorder to accommodate their child’s development in the U.S. Moth-ers often indicated that they were constantly learning and adjustingtheir parenting as they themselves acculturated and learned moreabout child development and interacted with the larger socialcontext. These findings are encouraging given the strengths ofbicultural socialization mentioned previously, and the potential forimmigration to be a positive, growth-enhancing experience forimmigrant families and children (Chase-Lansdale, D’Angelo, &Palacios, 2007; García Coll & Magnuson, 1997).

Limitations and Future Directions

Several limitations of the present study need to be noted. First,our sample comprised middle-class first-generation Chinese im-migrant families and our findings cannot be generalized to immi-grant families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) or thosebeyond the first generation status. Several studies (e.g., Qin et al.,2012; Yamamoto & Li, 2012) have indicated SES differences inChinese immigrant family functioning and parenting. For example,parents in middle-class families likely have more time and re-sources to be involved in their children’s lives (Lareau, 2002).Although these findings cannot be generalized to Chinese immi-grant mothers beyond the first generation, the advantage of focus-ing on first-generation immigrants is that their negotiation betweenthe values and practices of the host and the heritage cultures islikely more salient (Bornstein & Lansford, 2010). Indeed, somemothers were able to directly compare their parenting with thesame child before and after moving to the U.S. Future researchshould examine the role of important demographic variables (e.g.,SES level, generation status) in Chinese immigrant parents’ par-enting beliefs and practices. Importantly, some mothers may havegreater access to parenting resources and gain knowledge of childdevelopment. These mothers may be more likely to make adaptivechanges in their parenting practices to support the changes in their

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38 CHEAH, LEUNG, AND ZHOU

goals (Costigan & Koryzma, 2011). It would be important forfuture research to examine where these mothers obtain their par-enting information in our attempts to support them.

We focused on mothers only despite the different parentingroles of mothers and fathers (Chao & Tseng, 2002). The parentingefficacy and acculturative experiences of Chinese immigrantmothers versus fathers have been found to differentially affectchildren (Costigan & Koryzma, 2011). Moreover, although bothChinese immigrant fathers’ and mothers’ adaptation after migra-tion influences their parent–child relationships, fathers’ adaptationdifficulties were particular important for their physical and psy-chological presence in their children’s lives (Qin, 2009). There-fore, additional research is needed on mothers’ and fathers’ un-derstanding of cultural parenting differences and changesfollowing immigration.

Another limitation pertained to the researcher-imposed nature ofour interview questions. In order to address the research topics ofinterest, the course of the interview was guided by an interviewscript. However, these interview questions and probes were fairlystructured and likely restricted the mothers from freely generatingother new themes or topics and resulted in relatively short inter-views. Mothers were asked to think about differences betweenChinese and U.S. parenting, which likely amplified their aware-ness of potential differences and limited the nature of their re-sponses. Future research should utilize a less structured interviewparadigm.

In conclusion, on the basis of these findings, we strongly agreewith Qin and colleagues’ (2012) call for more studies that capturethe complexities in the family dynamics of Chinese immigrants.The use of different methodological approaches can increase ourunderstanding of mechanisms and lived experiences. Our findingscontest the rigid and extreme portrayals of “Tiger Mom” parentingdepicted by Chua (2011). Complex parenting acculturation pro-cesses were clearly revealed when we asked mothers to describehow their parenting changed since their migration using their ownwords, tapping more directly into their perceptions of parentingacculturation. These findings shed some light on why previousquantitative studies have not systematically reported significantassociations between mothers’ general acculturation scores andtheir parenting cognitions, styles, or practices. Future study shouldincorporate a developmental strengths-based approach to examinehow Chinese immigrant parents’ individual characteristics, rela-tionships, and social contexts may lead to enhanced coping skills,life experiences, psychological benefits, and positive parenting.Together, this information can be used to support the healthyfamily functioning and development of children and youth fromthese families.

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Received May 21, 2012Revision received October 11, 2012

Accepted October 18, 2012 !

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40 CHEAH, LEUNG, AND ZHOU

Tiger Mothering and Hmong American Parent–Adolescent Relationships

Andrew J. Supple and Alyson M. CavanaughUniversity of North Carolina at Greensboro

This study examined associations between indicators of the parent–adolescent relationship (academicsupport, monitoring, normative conflicts, and culture-based conflicts) and outcomes related to academicmotivation and psychological well-being. Findings suggested that parental academic support wasassociated with higher self-esteem and academic motivation and monitoring was associated with higherself-esteem in a sample of 93 middle-school Hmong American students. Whereas normative conflictsreported by adolescents (fighting over hairstyles or clothes) were unrelated to any outcomes, reports ofculture-based conflicts were associated with greater self-deprecating thoughts for all adolescents and withgreater depressive symptoms among boys only. In addition, findings suggested that monitoring moder-ated associations between culture-based conflicts and psychological well-being. Hmong Americanparents who engage in “Asian” parenting practices may promote positive developmental outcomes forboth boys and girls when they engage in behaviors perceived to be supportive and as moderatelycontrolling (i.e., monitoring). Parent–adolescent interactions that lead to culture-based conflicts, how-ever, may be harmful to the well-being of Hmong American boys and in cases in which parents do notpromote connection via monitoring behaviors.

Keywords: cultural dissonance, parent–adolescent relationships, Hmong Americans, Asian parenting,acculturation gaps

Amy Chua’s (2011) book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Motherpaints a portrait of “Chinese” parenting that promotes heavy pa-rental control of children including the use of coercive tactics andshaming as a mean to promote success. Chua conjectures that suchan approach to parenting exists across cultural and ethnic groupsbut is more common among parents from more collectivisticcultural orientations that, in particular, are less concerned withpromoting autonomy development, self-esteem, or indulging chil-dren. In families with such cultural orientations, an overall parent–adolescent relationship resulting from “traditional Asian parent-ing” (high control, use of coercion, less emphasis on warmth) isnot expected to harm self-esteem or lead to behavioral problemsbut, rather, to promote desirable outcomes such as academic suc-cess and lower conflict and filial piety. Although in conflict withmany findings from the general parent–adolescent literature, Ch-ua’s observations are consistent with research suggesting thatAsian parents (typically of Chinese descent) more strongly endorseparenting that is restrictive, lacking overt warmth and affection,and as more concerned with promoting respect for elders thanself-esteem or autonomy in children (Chao & Tseng, 2002; Supple,Ghazarian, Peterson, & Bush, 2009). Moreover, during the late

1990s and into the 2000s, researchers described “Asian” or some-times “Chinese” parenting in terms consistent with Chua’s bookand also found that highly controlling parenting with less emphasison autonomy and warmth had no adverse influence on children andadolescents of Asian descent (Chao, 1994, 2001).

Despite research suggesting that Asian parenting or tiger moth-ering has different associations with developmental outcomes forAsian American adolescents, there are several gaps that exist in theliterature. First, the majority of studies have included samples ofChinese-descent parents and adolescents from the western regionsof North America. Because Asian Americans constitute a broadpanethnic group with great variation across nationalities, socioeco-nomic and generational statuses, sending and receiving conditions(for immigrants and refugees), regional/residential variation in theUnited States, and familiarity with U.S. customs and norms, re-search is needed on diverse groups of Asian Americans. Second, agrowing body of research suggests that harmful aspects (relative tofamily cohesion and child mental health) of the parent–adolescentrelationship result when culture-based conflicts result from parent-ing practices (Juang, Syed, Cookston, Wang, & Kim, 2012). Al-though researchers have begun to examine both culture-based andnormative conflicts in studies of parent–adolescent relationships inAsian American families, the circumstances under which conflictsare adversely related to outcomes are largely unexplored. Third,gender variation in associations between parent–adolescent rela-tionships and developmental outcomes should be considered giventhat some cultural groups (e.g., the Hmong) have very strongpatterns of gendered socialization. Finally, studies have rarelyconsidered whether putatively positive elements of Asian parent-ing (indirect support, behavioral control) interact with the morenegative aspects of Asian parenting (conflict) to differentiallyrelate to outcomes. As such, a more nuanced consideration of

This article was published Online First December 31, 2012.Andrew J. Supple and Alyson M. Cavanaugh, Department of Human

Development and Family Studies, The University of North Carolina atGreensboro.

Funding for this project was provided to Andrew J. Supple by the Officeof Research and Economic Development, The University of North Carolinaat Greensboro.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to AndrewJ. Supple, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, PO Box 26170,Greensboro, NC 27402-6170. E-mail: [email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 41–49 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031202

41

Asian parenting is lacking in that the extent to which conflicts areadversely related to outcomes in contexts of low connection andperceived support has not been considered.

To address these gaps in the literature, the current study exam-ined how parental academic support (indirect support), monitoring(behavioral control), and conflicts (both normative and culture-based) are associated with academic motivation and psychologicalwell-being. In addition, gender was considered as a moderatorvariable so that associations between aspects of the parent–adolescent relationship and outcomes could be considered acrossboys and girls. Finally, to address how negative aspects of theparent–adolescent relationship (conflict) may be offset by behav-iors that are more positive in nature (support, control) for HmongAmerican adolescents, we also considered Conflict ! Parentinginteractions.

Hmong American Parent–Adolescent Relationships

The Hmong are a cultural group who came to the United Statesprimarily as refugees fleeing Southeast Asia during the 3 decadesfollowing the military conflict in Vietnam. Culturally, the Hmongwere a highly self-sufficient and agrarian group living primarily in thehighland regions of Laos (but also China, Vietnam, and Thailand).Because of their social and economic isolation and due to coming asrefugees either directly from traumatic experiences or after years inrefugee camps, Hmong refugee parents in the United States frequentlyhad limited education, English-language ability, and familiarity withU.S. cultural norms and laws. In addition, given their traditionalreligious and medical beliefs (Shamanism, animism, healing practicesfocused on spirits), like many Southeast Asian refugee groups,Hmong Americans experienced hardships related to acculturativestress (learning a new language, adjusting to new customs and laws)and living in low-income areas. Early scholarly work on HmongAmericans painted a bleak picture of cultural conflicts, high fre-quency of mental health problems, and high intergenerational conflict(Chan, 1994; Hsu, Davies, & Hansen, 2004; Lao Human RightsCouncil, 2001; Lo, 2001; Lor & Chu, 2002). Census estimates suggestthat there are roughly 260,000 Hmong Americans residing in theUnited States, with the largest populations residing in California,Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Carolina (Hmong National Devel-opment, 2010). Although there is only a limited body of research onHmong American parent–adolescent relationships, the bulk of theliterature tends to point to three main themes: (a) significant concernregarding cultural dissonance between parents and adolescents, (b)Hmong American parents as relatively high in control but low in overtsigns of love, and (c) gender-based differential socialization of chil-dren.

The first major theme related to Hmong American parent–adolescent relationships concerns intergenerational cultural disso-nance. Alternatively described as acculturation gaps, cultural dis-sonance, or dissonant acculturation, intergenerational conflicts thatare culture-based have been the primary focus in the literature onHmong American families. As is the case with other immigrants orrefugee groups, cultural dissonance is expected to result whenparents and adolescents develop divergent views about appropriatelevels of autonomy, how children should spend free time, or theappropriateness of specific disciplinary techniques (Bahrassa,Juan, & Lee, 2012; Juang, Syed, & Takagi, 2007; Lee, Choe, Kim,& Ngo, 2000; Tsai-Chae & Nagata, 2008; Yang, 2003). These

divergent viewpoints are common in cases in which adolescentsmore rapidly acculturate toward individualistic values because ofrelatively high exposure to American “majority culture” in theirinteractions with teachers and peers at school or with media athome. Hmong American parents, on the other hand, are oftenhighly motivated to retain cultural patterns that emphasize respectfor elders, spending time with family, and fear their childrenbecoming “Americanized.” Studies have suggested that HmongAmerican adolescents view the difficult balance of trying to as-similate toward expectations with peers and at school with differ-ent expectations and values present in the family or home as theprimary source of acculturative stress (Supple, McCoy, & Wang,2010; Xiong, Eliason, Detzner, & Cleveland, 2005).

Moreover, a major concern in the Hmong community is thatHmong American youth are failing to retain cultural values andthat resulting lack of familiarity with parental cultural values andtheir subsequent family conflicts are the root cause of develop-mental problems (e.g., deviance, school failure, psychologicaldistress; Lee, Jung, Su, Tran, & Bahrassa, 2009; Yang, 2003).

A key factor that has yet to be considered, however, in studiesof Hmong American adolescents is a distinction between “norma-tive” conflicts that most adolescents have with parents (e.g., re-garding clothes, hairstyle, or dating) and culture-based conflictsthat are particularly salient for Asian Americans (Juang et al.,2012). It is possible that normative conflicts, although unpleasant,do not necessarily adversely influence family dynamics or adoles-cent outcomes. Culture-based conflicts, however, may be muchmore damaging both to perceptions of family harmony (Juang etal., 2012) and adolescent well-being because those conflicts ofteninvolve intractable disagreements and also a critique of who theadolescent is becoming.

The second key theme in the literature are findings that HmongAmerican parents (relative to “mainstream” American parents) tend tobe more controlling and restrictive, more focused on respect for eldersand familial obligations than promoting autonomy, and less overtlywarm and affectionate (Lamborn & Moua, 2008; Supple, McCoy, &Wang, 2010; Supple & Small, 2006). Given their concerns regardingthe “Americanization” of their children, Hmong American parentsmay react with greater restrictiveness, which in turn may intensifyintergenerational conflicts (Bahrassa et al., 2012; Supple & Small,2006; Xiong, Rettig, & Tuicomepee, 2008; Yang, 2003). In referenceto low levels of affection and warmth, some data suggest that HmongAmerican youth feel loved by parents despite these characterizationsbecause they recognize that many parenting strategies are intended toconvey love indirectly. Consequently, parental expressions of lovemay be more passive and involve instrumental support such as help-ing with homework, attending school events, or by simply saying“just know we love you.” Additional expressions of love includeparental sacrifice, “being there,” attempting to support schoolwork,and placing restrictions on adolescents’ activities and social interac-tions (Chao & Kaeochinda, 2010; Lamborn & Moua, 2008; Moua &Lamborn, 2010; Supple et al., 2010; Xiong et al., 2005).

The final theme in the literature on Hmong American parent–adolescent relationships centers on gendered socialization. A lim-ited body of research suggests that Hmong American parents areparticularly restrictive of girls who often are expected to spendgreater time at home assisting with family needs (cooking, clean-ing), whereas boys are allowed greater freedom to date, socializeoutside of the home, and express opinions (Bahrassa et al., 2012;

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42 SUPPLE AND CAVANAUGH

Lee et al., 2009; Supple et al., 2010). Although such genderdifferences in parenting are assumed, empirical studies have sug-gested no gender differences in reports of conflict with parentsbetween Hmong American girls versus boys (Bahrassa et al., 2012;Lee et al., 2009). Moreover, there is only mixed evidence (withsamples of college students) suggesting that gender may moderateassociations between family conflict and substance use (associatedwith more alcohol use among Hmong American female collegestudents, but less smoking for boys; Lee et al., 2009) but notbetween culture-based conflicts and psychological distress (Bah-rassa et al., 2012).

In sum, Hmong American parents are typically characterized ashighly emphasizing respect for elders and interdependence, as highlycontrolling and restrictive of free-time activities, as low in promotingor being supportive of autonomy (particularly so for girls), and asconveying their love less through warmth and affection and morethrough indirect support such as encouraging achievement, workinghard, “being there,” and listening to their children. In addition, HmongAmerican parents also may engage in shaming practices such asmaking children feel guilty and using social comparisons with otherchildren as a means of shaming their children into better behaviors(e.g., “Look at Mae, she is so polite to her grandparents, her parentsmust be so proud”) or threaten children with unrealistically harshpunishments (e.g., “If you don’t get better grades, you will have toleave the house”; Lor & Chu, 2002; Supple et al., 2010; Xiong, 2000).Given the depictions of Hmong American parenting in the literature,it seems reasonable to conclude that many Hmong American parentsengage in practices similar to those described as either traditionallyAsian (guan or “training” with an emphasis on achievement andrespect and not warmth and love; Chao, 2001) or as consistent withbeing a tiger mom.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework guiding this study proposes thataspects of the parent–adolescent relationship are the key proximalprocesses associated with adolescent well-being and academicmotivation. According to Bronfenbrenner (Tudge, Mokrova, Hat-field, & Karnik, 2009), proximal processes are ongoing and fre-quent interactions that occur with people, social settings, andcultural symbols (values, beliefs, orientations) and that provide the“engine that drives” development. Although socialization of youngpeople takes place across ecological levels that vary from broadersocietal and cultural factors (i.e., the macrosystem) to smallersocial units such as families, schools, and peer groups, it is theselatter social units (i.e., microsystems) in which the continuousprocesses are maximally influential in shaping development(Tudge et al., 2009). Based on previous research on HmongAmerican parent–adolescent relationships, four indicators wereselected to represent key processes that may be related to outcomesin adolescents: (a) academic support, (b) parental monitoring, (c)normative conflicts, and (d) culture-based conflict.

Another key element to Bronfenbrenner’s theory is that the ulti-mate impact of proximal processes varies across individual charac-teristics and also larger cultural contexts within which the interactionstake place. Macrosystem characteristics such as cultural beliefs, val-ues, and attitudes likely influence how proximal processes shapedevelopment and proximal processes within microsystems. As such,cultural beliefs alter or shape how similar parenting behaviors (high

levels of control) associate differently with outcomes such as aca-demic achievement or self-esteem. The expectation resulting from thisproposition was that for Hmong American adolescents, their motiva-tion to achieve in school and their psychological well-being would beassociated with elements of the parent–adolescent relationship thatconvey love and concern through culturally expected ways (academicsupport and behavioral control). On the other hand, conflicts withparents were expected to be associated with lowered psychologicalwell-being as most scholarship on Hmong American parent–adolescent relations tends to suggest that cultural dissonance is a key“cause” of problematic outcomes for adolescents. In sum, the pro-posed conceptual model suggests that academic support and monitor-ing by parents would be associated positively with adolescent well-being. Conflicts, on the other hand, were expected to be relatednegatively to well-being; however, the exact nature of these associa-tions was only tentatively proposed. That is, one key aspect of thisstudy was to differentiate normative conflicts from culture-basedconflict to ascertain whether one or both of these elements of theparent–adolescent relationship are associated with well-being.

Gender is also a key factor that shapes how proximal processesimpact development. Girls, compared with boys, are more stronglycontrolled, are required to be at home more often, spend more timehelping parents by translating/interpreting and performing stereo-typically female tasks in the home (cooking, cleaning, childcare),and generally report greater dissatisfaction with relationships withparents (Lee et al., 2009; Supple et al., 2010). It remains unclear,however, whether or not parent–adolescent processes may vary inassociations with development across males and females. Previousresearch has suggested that culture-based conflicts have similarassociations with psychological well-being across Hmong Amer-ican college-age youth (Bahrassa et al., 2012). On the other hand,conflicts were found to be associated with greater alcohol use byHmong American college females (Lee et al., 2009) and greateracademic success for males. As such, there is some evidence tosuggest that culture-based conflicts may more adversely influencefemales than males.

Finally, this study also proposed that associations between con-flict and adolescent outcomes should vary as a function of morepositive aspects of the parent–adolescent relationship. Previousstudies have suggested that culture-based conflicts in Asian Amer-ican families adversely influence adolescents possibly due to ad-versely affecting family cohesion (Juang et al., 2012). As such, animportant possibility to consider is whether culture-based conflictshave lowered negative associations in relational contexts thatmanage to remain more positive. That is, the expectation in thisstudy was that the association between culture-based conflicts andadolescent outcomes would vary as a function of academic supportand parental monitoring.

Method

Participants

Participants included 93 Hmong American middle-school stu-dents selected from one county school district in North Carolina.All students self-reported their ethnicity as Hmong and 97% ofrespondents were born in the United States. The remaining threestudents were born in Laos or Thailand and moved to the UnitedStates as infants. The majority (86%) lived with two biological

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43TIGER MOTHERING AND HMONG ADOLESCENTS

parents, with 92% of mothers and 98% of fathers reported as bornin Southeast Asia (with the vast majority being born in Laos).Although 86% of respondents indicated that they feel as if theirfamilies’ income was “about average” or above, 73% indicatedthat they qualify for free or reduced lunch programs at school. Alladolescents indicated that they spoke English; however, 29% re-ported that they mostly spoke Hmong at home, 47% that theyspoke both English and Hmong at home, and 24% that they mostlyspoke English at home. The average age of the sample was 13years (SD " 1.28), and 59% of participants were boys.

Procedure

Parental consent forms (in Hmong and in English) were distrib-uted to students by their middle-school homeroom teacher. Stu-dents who returned signed consent forms were provided with aquestionnaire to complete in their middle-school homeroom class.All participants who returned a consent form and a questionnairewere given a gift card to a fast food restaurant. A total of 95questionnaires were returned (of 185 possible) for a response rateof roughly 50%. All questionnaires were completed in English.Two respondents were dropped from the final sample because ofsignificant missing data across survey items, resulting in a sampleof 93.

Measures

Culture-based conflicts. Adolescents’ reports of culture-based conflicts were assessed using the 10-item Asian AmericanFamily Conflicts Scale (Lee et al., 2000). This measure assesses,from the perspective of the adolescent, how frequently the adoles-cent feels conflicts with the parents that are culture-based. Sampleitems from this scale include “I want to state my own opinion, butmy parents considerate it to be disrespectful to talk back.” The5-point response format ranged from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almostalways), and the Cronbach’s alpha for this sample was .82. Itemswere averaged to create an overall score on this measure.

Normative conflicts. Normative conflicts with parents wereassessed with nine items assessing frequency of conflicts (from 1" almost never to 5 " almost always) regarding everyday issuessuch as schoolwork, media choices, and household chores or work(e.g., “How frequently do you argue with your parents aboutschoolwork?”). Items were averaged to create a summary variable,and the Cronbach’s alpha for these items was .85.

Parental academic support. Adolescents were asked to re-port on each of their mother’s and father’s level of support relatedto schoolwork (“This parent makes me feel good when I study orget good grades”; “This parents attends school-sponsored activi-ties”) using a seven-item scale (Plunkett & Bámaca-Gómez, 2003).The 4-point Likert response format ranged from 1 (strongly agree)to 4 (strongly disagree), and items were reverse coded so thathigher scores were indicative of greater perceived academic sup-port (#s " .73 and .76 for reports of mothers and fathers, respec-tively). Because the summary scales (after averaging across items)were highly correlated (r " .56), reports of fathers and motherswere averaged to create an overall measure of parental academicsupport.

Parental monitoring. Parental knowledge of adolescent free-time activities (monitoring) was assessed using a six-item measure

(Peterson, 1985). Sample items included “This parent knows whomy friends are” and “This parent knows where I am after school.”Response options ranged from 1 (strongly agree) to 4 (stronglydisagree), and items were reverse coded so that higher scores wereindicative of greater perceived monitoring by parents. Cronbach’salphas in this sample were .72 for reports of mothers and .74 forreports of fathers. Items were averaged to create an overall mon-itoring score for reports on both mothers and fathers, but thesesummary scores were highly correlated (r " .70), so the twomeasures were averaged to create an overall measure of parentalmonitoring.

Depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms were assessedusing the 20-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depressionscale for children (CES-D; Radloff, 1977). Depressive symptomswere measured in reference to symptoms an individual may haveexperienced over the course of the past month (response optionsrange from 0 " never to 3 " almost every day). Items wereaveraged to create an overall score for depressive symptoms, andthe Cronbach’s alpha was .84 for this sample.

Self-esteem. Self-esteem was assessed using the RosenbergSelf-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1989). Although the RSESincludes 10 items (with response options ranging from 1 "strongly agree to 4 " strongly disagree), recent studies suggestthat method effects associated with the negatively worded itemsbias overall self-esteem scores. Moreover, studies also suggest thatthe RSES may assess two distinct (although related) subdimen-sions, one that is the typical conceptualization of self-esteem(positive feelings toward the self) and another element of negativeself-esteem or self-deprecation that is more similar to depressivesymptoms (for a review, see Supple, Su, Plunkett, Peterson, &Bush, in press). As such, in this study, summary scores werecreated by averaging across the five positively worded RSES itemsto assess self-esteem (# " .73) and across the five negativelyworded items to assess self-deprecation (# " .75) after all itemswere reverse scored so that higher scores would indicate greaterself-esteem and self-deprecation.

Results

Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations for all studyvariables are presented in Table 1. An examination of these asso-ciations suggests that girls, compared with boys, reported greaterdepressive symptoms, monitoring by parents, and academic moti-vation. Consistent with previous studies, Hmong American boysand girls in this study reported comparable levels of conflict (bothnormative and culture-based) with parents. Correlations also sug-gest that academic support and parental monitoring are associatedpositively with self-esteem and academic motivation, but are un-related to self-deprecation and depressive symptoms. Culture-based conflicts, on the other hand, are associated positively withself-deprecation and depressive symptoms, but are unrelated toself-esteem and academic motivation. Normative conflicts are onlyassociated with higher self-deprecation. Also of note, the associ-ation between normative and culture-based conflicts was positiveand moderately strong, suggesting that adolescents who reportgreater frequency of culture-based conflicts also tend to reportgreater normative conflicts with parents.

Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to evaluate themain research questions. A model was estimated with each of the four

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44 SUPPLE AND CAVANAUGH

outcome variables regressed onto adolescent gender, perceived familyeconomic standing, free/reduced lunch at school, and the four mea-sures of the parent–adolescent relationship. Variables representingfamily socioeconomics were included as control variables; however,because these variables were unrelated to any other variables in thestudy, their coefficients are omitted from the tables and results anddiscussion. In a subsequent model, Gender ! Parent–AdolescentRelationship product terms were included. Product terms were createdby multiplying gender by each parent–adolescent relationship variableand then each of these product terms was regressed on gender and therelevant parent–adolescent variable. The residuals from that analysiswere used as product terms so that product terms and their constituentvariables had zero associations (Kline, 2011). A similar approach wasused to create Monitoring ! Culture-Based Conflict and AcademicSupport ! Culture-Based Conflict product terms for a total of sixinteractions examined.

The results are presented in Table 2 by each dependent variableand with nonsignificant coefficients for product terms omitted. Inreference to depressive symptoms, only gender was significantlyassociated, which suggested that girls, on average, reported greaterdepressive symptoms than boys. The gender difference remainedafter parent–adolescent variables were included in the model. Asignificant Gender ! Culture-Based Conflict product term, how-ever, suggested that the association between this aspect of theparent–adolescent relationship and depressive symptoms variedfor boys and girls. An examination of simple slopes suggested thatthere was a statistically significant and positive association forboys (B " .14, p " .03) between culture-based conflicts anddepressive symptoms; however, among girls, there was no asso-ciation (B " $.11, p " .43). The nature of this interaction isdemonstrated in Figure 1.

In addition, there was a significant Monitoring ! Culture-BasedConflict product term. This negative association (B " $.34, p ".005) suggests that, at higher levels of parental monitoring, the posi-tive association between culture-based conflicts and depressive symp-toms becomes less positive. The nature of this interaction is presentedin Figure 2. In addition, simple slopes suggested that the associationbetween culture-based conflicts and depressive symptoms was non-significant at high (B " –.24, p " .11; 1 standard deviation above the

mean) and medium levels of parental monitoring (B " .10, p " .27;at the mean) but positively associated at low levels of parental mon-itoring (B " .44, p " .001; 1 standard deviation below the mean).Such findings suggest that culture-based conflicts are more stronglyassociated with depressive symptoms in instances in which adoles-cents experience lower parental monitoring. Put another way, parentalmonitoring may offset the association between culture-based conflictsand depressive symptoms.

In reference to self-deprecating thoughts, the only significant asso-ciation was observed between culture-based conflicts and increasedself-deprecation. There were no significant interactions. With self-esteem as the outcome, however, both parental academic support andparental monitoring were related positively. There was a significantMonitoring ! Culture-Based Conflict interaction (B " .26, p " .01),suggesting that at higher levels of parental monitoring, the negativeassociation between culture-based conflict and self-esteem becomesmore positive. Figure 3 displays this interaction, and simple slopessuggested that at high levels of parental monitoring, there was apositive association between culture-based conflicts and self-esteem(B " .25, p " .02), whereas at low levels of parental monitoring, therewas a negative association between culture-based conflicts and self-esteem (B " $.28, p " .03). The association between culture-basedconflicts and self-esteem was nonsignificant, on the other hand, atmedium levels of monitoring (B " $.01, p " .83). This interactionsuggests that culture-based conflicts are most strongly and adverselyrelated to self-esteem at lower levels of parental monitoring.

With academic motivation as the outcome variable, findingssuggest that gender (girls were higher on average) and academicsupport were significantly associated. These findings suggest thatgirls and those adolescents reporting greater academic support byparents indicated greater academic motivation. There were nosignificant interactions, however, with academic motivation as theoutcome.

Discussion

Results suggested that elements of the Hmong Americanparent–adolescent relationship that convey support and connectionwere associated with higher motivation to achieve in school and

Table 1Correlations and Descriptive Statistics of Key Variables (N " 93)

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. Age –2. Gender $.05 —3. Family income $.05 $.04 —4. Reduced lunch $.12 .03 .01 —5. Depressive symptoms $.08 .29!! .06 $.04 —6. Academic motivation $.07 .40!!! $.10 $.06 $.12 —7. Self-esteem $.02 .04 .01 .16 $.28!! .46!!! —8. Self-deprecation $.06 .15 .01 .03 .52!!! $.14 $.29!! —9. Parental monitoring $.07 .27!! $.09 .01 .04 .43!!! .48!!! $.07 —

10. Parental academic support $.20 .12 $.03 .09 $.10 .41!!! .50!!! $.15 .65!!! —11. Culture-based conflict .07 .17 $.13 .06 .23! $.02 $.14 .44!!! $.02 $.01 —12. Normative conflict .13 .02 .00 .03 .10 $.14 $.19 .37!!! $.07 .10 .60!!! —M 13.00 1.41 2.97 .73 2.03 2.39 2.04 1.48 2.24 1.90 2.68 2.52SD 1.28 0.49 0.68 0.43 0.44 0.47 0.43 0.57 0.46 0.51 0.82 0.88

Note. Gender was coded as 1 " boys and 2 " girls. Reduced lunch qualification was coded as 0 " no and 1 " yes.! p % .05. !! p % .01. !!! p % .001.

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45TIGER MOTHERING AND HMONG ADOLESCENTS

higher self-esteem. Culture-based conflicts (but not normativeconflicts), on the other hand, seemed to have an adverse associa-tion with well-being in terms of greater depressive symptoms forboys and self-deprecation for both boys and girls.

In reference to the debate regarding the effectiveness of tigermothering or Asian parenting for Hmong American adoles-cents, these findings suggest that different elements of parent-ing relate to adolescent outcomes in different ways. When itcomes to putting in effort at school and a positive sense of self,experiencing parents who are supportive (through their effortsto support academic success) and who possess knowledge of thechild’s activities and whereabouts are positive factors. As such,Asian American parents who can convey support and concern,even indirectly by attending school events, asking where chil-dren are going after school, or knowing about their child’sactivities solely by “being there” may have a positive influenceon their children. These same factors, however, seem unrelatedto early adolescents’ internalized negative feelings. Culture-based conflicts, on the other hand, were associated with in-creased self-deprecating thoughts for both boys and girls andwith depressive symptoms for boys. Such findings are consis-tent with other studies of Asian Americans suggesting thatconflict with parents may be associated with increased psycho-

Table 2Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses With Adolescent Depressive Symptoms, Academic Motivation, Self-Esteem, and Self-Depreciation Regressed on Parent–Adolescent Relationship Indicators

Variable B SE B & R2

Dependent variable: Depressive symptomsStep 1 .15!

Gender .22! .10 .25!

Parental monitoring .10 .13 .10Parental academic support $.16 .12 $.19Culture-based conflict .13 .07 .24Normative conflict $.03 .06 $.06

Step 2Culture-Based Conflict ! Gender $.25! .11 $.23! .20!

Culture-Based Conflict ! Monitoring $.34!! .12 $.29!! .23!!

Dependent variable: Academic motivationStep 1 .33!!

Gender .31!! .09 .33!!

Parental monitoring .17 .12 .17Parental academic support .24! .11 .26!

Culture-based conflict $.01 .07 $.02Normative conflict $.05 .06 $.10

Dependent variable: Self$esteemStep 1 .34!!!

Gender $.06 .08 $.07Parental monitoring .28! .11 .30!

Parental academic support .25! .10 .29!

Culture-based conflict $.03 .06 $.06Normative conflict $.05 .06 $.10

Step 2Culture-Based Conflict ! Monitoring .26! .10 .23! .39!!!

Dependent variable: Self$deprecationStep 1 .24!!

Gender .12 .12 .10Parental monitoring .04 .16 .03Parental academic support $.18 .14 $.16Culture-based conflict .23!! .09 .33!!

Normative conflict .10 .08 .16

Note. Gender was coded as 1 " boys and 2 " girls. Family income and reduced lunch qualification were included in analyses but not shown above.! p % .05. !! p % .01. !!! p % .001.

Figure 1. Interaction between culture-based conflict and gender on ado-lescent depressive symptoms.

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46 SUPPLE AND CAVANAUGH

logical distress and that culture-based conflicts are particularlyproblematic for Hmong Americans (Bahrassa et al., 2012; Leeet al., 2009). On the other hand, these results are inconsistentcompared with those of Juang et al. (2012), who found thatnormative conflicts were directly associated with lowered psy-chological well-being, but that culture-based conflicts weremediated by parent–adolescent relationship factors using sam-ples of Chinese Americans.

These findings highlight a nuanced understanding of how ele-ments of being a tiger mother should be viewed as benign orunrelated to outcomes for Hmong American adolescents. Whenadolescents perceive that their desire to have an opinion or interestin having non-Hmong friends is met with accusations that the childis not “behaving Hmong” there may be adverse psychologicalconsequences, particularly for boys. These findings and those ofother recent studies (Bahrassa et al., 2012; Juang et al., 2012; Lee

et al., 2009) suggest that elements of Asian parenting may beassociated with conflicts that are associated with feelings of cul-tural dissonance, which may, in turn, be associated with morenegative parent–adolescent relationships and lowered adolescentpsychological well-being. The first implication of these findings isthat when it comes to evaluating the desirability of a tiger motherapproach to parenting, understanding correlates of child outcomesdepends on the aspect of the parent–adolescent relationship and theoutcome. Some aspects of Asian parenting or tiger mothering maybe unrelated, but others are negatively associated in ways that arenot overtly obvious. That is, children of tiger mothers may wellhave high self-esteem and do well in school; however, less obviousoutward signs related to the development of self-deprecatingthoughts may be more common among adolescents who feel asense of rejection based on the parents’ disapproval of who thechild “is becoming” (i.e., an American).

Figure 2. Interaction between culture-based conflict and parental monitoring on adolescent depressive symp-toms.

Figure 3. Interaction between culture-based conflict and parental monitoring on adolescent self-esteem.

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47TIGER MOTHERING AND HMONG ADOLESCENTS

Previous research has suggested that, compared with boys, girlsexperience much greater restrictiveness from parents and are ex-pected to spend more time at home alongside parents assisting withfamily responsibilities (Bahrassa et al., 2012). Although greaterrestrictiveness by parents was reported by girls in this sample (seeTable 1), boys and girls did not vary in their reports of eithernormative or culture-based conflicts, which also is consistent withprevious studies of Hmong American college students (Bahrassa etal., 2012; Lee et al., 2009). Perhaps because Hmong Americanboys are granted more freedom and autonomy, when their actionsor behaviors are met with derision from parents (a boy who wantsto spend more time with peers is told he is not respectful), there isa perceived role violation. Consequently, culture-based conflicts inearly adolescence might be more detrimental to Hmong Americanboys in terms of their depressive symptoms. On the other hand,culture-based conflicts were associated in a similar manner acrossgender to greater self-deprecating thoughts. In reference to debatesregarding Asian parenting and tiger mothers, there is some evi-dence (although limited) to suggest that boys may react differentlyto such parenting compared with girls.

In addition, associations between culture-based conflicts anddepressive symptoms and self-esteem were moderated by percep-tions of parental monitoring. In both cases, greater reports ofparental knowledge of free-time activities and surveillance effortsby parents tended to offset possibly adverse influences of culture-based conflicts and these outcomes. The measure of parentalmonitoring used in this study (often deemed to actually assessknowledge or even child disclosure; Stattin & Kerr, 2000) mayassess perceptions of parental concern, relatedness, or “beingthere” for Hmong American early adolescents. In such a context,culture-based conflicts may be interpreted differently and be lesslikely to adversely influence self-esteem or depression. Moreover,recent studies with Chinese Americans have suggested thatculture-based conflicts may erode family cohesion (which in turnnegatively impacts mental health; Juang et al., 2012). As such, animplication for tiger mothering is that if parents engage in behav-iors that may appear coercive or that involve shaming (and areculture-based) but also show concern by knowing about and re-stricting their children’s activities, these parenting behaviors maynot adversely influence adolescents and, in some cases, may evenenhance self-esteem. Put another way, when parents convey cul-tural disapproval in the context of less relatedness (Juang et al.,2012), that disapproval and culture-based conflict may be partic-ularly damaging to the development of internalized negativethoughts about the self.

Limitations associated with this study include reliance ononly adolescent-report data from a relatively small samplesurveyed at one time point. Associations between study con-structs are not possible to differentiate in terms of causes versuseffects. For example, this study suggests that the perception ofcultural conflicts may be associated with greater depressivesymptoms among boys, but it is also plausible that boys whosuffer depressive symptoms may negatively view their relation-ship with parents. In addition, the reliance on adolescent reportsonly is not the ideal manner in which to study acculturationgaps according to some researchers (Birman, 2006), and ourfindings are limited in that, rather than pointing to actual gapsbetween parents and adolescents, we only assessed adolescents’perceptions of culture-based conflicts. Researchers are begin-

ning to observe, however, that actual conflicts or gaps are not asrelevant for Asian Americans as are feelings associated withthose gaps. For example, it may be internalized conflicts that anadolescent experiences due to conflicts with parents that areperceived to be cultural (Bahrassa et al., 2012) that are respon-sible for disrupted family relations and adverse outcomes foradolescents (Fuligni, 2012). Future studies regarding culture-based conflicts and their contribution to adolescent well-beingshould include longitudinal data to assist in determiningwhether there are particular points in adolescence when suchconflicts are highest and also more or less detrimental topsychological well-being. Larger and more culturally diversesamples are also needed to further explore gender differences inparent–adolescent relationships and in associations betweenthese factors and adolescent outcomes.

In addition, this study examined a limited number of con-structs related to the parent–adolescent relationship, some ofwhich may not map exactly onto factors related to tiger moth-ers. For example, the measure included in this study to assessmonitoring or behavioral control may be similar to restrictive-ness, but likely does not capture the strong nature of restric-tiveness some Hmong American adolescents may experience(e.g., not being allowed to participate in extracurricular activ-ities). Moreover, the measure of monitoring may be moreaccurately described as an assessment of parental knowledge(Stattin & Kerr, 2000), with that knowledge resulting from childdisclosure or, in the case of Hmong Americans, requiring chil-dren to be at home and with the family (i.e., not monitoringactivities away from home). Findings that varied from thosereported in Juang and colleagues’ (2012) study of ChineseAmericans may have been due to different measures selectedfor each study as well. Future studies should continue to ex-amine how normative and culture-based conflicts impact familyfactors including indicators of relatedness and familism, andhow those processes are associated with adolescent outcomesboth in mediational (family factors are responsible or transmit“effects” of culture-based conflict) and moderation models(culture-based conflicts are not as negatively related in contextsof high relatedness) for Asian American adolescents.

Despite these limitations, the current study adds to the literatureon Asian parenting or tiger mothers by suggesting that parent–adolescent relationships that include elements of restrictiveness(knowing where adolescents are) and indirect support may beassociated with greater self-esteem and academic outcomes. As-pects of the parent–adolescent relationship that result in conflict,but only culture-based conflicts, may be adversely related to in-ternalized negative feelings directed toward the self. In sum,Hmong American tiger mothers may express care and concern inculturally appropriate ways (indirect support and monitoring ratherthan warmth and affection) to enhance their children’s achieve-ment and self-esteem. If parents convey disapproval that childrenare not “Hmong enough,” their early adolescents may begin todevelop negative feelings about themselves resulting from inter-nalized conflicts regarding their relations with parents and what itmeans to be Hmong American. Particularly when those conflictsoccur in conjunction with less connection to parents, they may beparticularly detrimental.

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48 SUPPLE AND CAVANAUGH

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Received May 15, 2012Revision received October 4, 2012

Accepted October 18, 2012 !

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49TIGER MOTHERING AND HMONG ADOLESCENTS

Hmong American Adolescents’ Perceptions of Mothers’ ParentingPractices: Support, Authority, and Intergenerational Agreement

Susie D. Lamborn, Jacqueline Nguyen, and Joel O. BocanegraUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Twenty-four Hmong American adolescents participated in individual interviews regarding their percep-tions of mothers’ parenting practices. A content analysis revealed a set of nine parenting practices thatwere represented in the responses. The adolescents talked about supportive parenting practices thatincluded caretaking, positive communication, acceptance, and involvement. The adolescents also talkedabout parental assertions of authority that included high expectations for achievement, family obligations,and supervision. Less commonly discussed were the categories of psychological autonomy and inter-generational support. This study captured youth perceptions of family interactions, which revealed arange of parenting practices that represent Hmong American mothers.

Keywords: parenting practices, Southeast Asian, adolescents

The Asian American population experienced the largest growthof any other ethnic group in the past decade (46%; United StatesCensus Bureau, 2010). With nearly a quarter of the populationcomprised of children under the age of 18, the nature of AsianAmerican parenting and child development is an important topic ofresearch. Mainstream interest in the topic was piqued by AmyChua’s (2011) memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in whichshe describes a strict approach to parenting that she claims isrooted in traditional Chinese cultural approaches to parenting. Thenotion that there is a Chinese, or more broadly, Asian approach toparenting is supported by Chao’s (1994) model of Asian parentingthat emphasizes the concepts of guan (caring and governing) andchiao shun (training). In this model, Chinese immigrant parents arerepresented as having high control but without the negative emo-tional climate that is often thought to characterize strict families. Inparticular, families are described as using a style in which parentshave high expectations for educational outcomes and emphasizehard work, self-discipline, and obedience. Warmth and responsiv-ity are shown through investing time and having high expectationsrather than verbal or physical expressions of closeness and inti-macy in the parent–child relationship. These interactions occurwithin a hierarchical family structure in which respect for parentsis highly valued. Children largely experience positive psychosocialand academic outcomes in the context of the guan or training style

(and their equivalent models in other Asian cultures; for a review,see Chao & Tseng, 2002).

These cultural models pervade research on Asian and AsianAmerican parents. However, there has been limited attention toother Asian populations within the diaspora, as these characteriza-tions of Asian parents are drawn largely from studies of Chinesefamilies living in the United States, China, or Taiwan. The modelsof parenting presented by both Chua and Chao argue that differentmeanings and manifestations of parental control exist in Chineseand other Asian families, compared with Western families. Chaoexplains that these conceptualizations differ from parenting prac-tices that have characterized European American families, and toaccurately understand the relationship between parenting and childoutcomes in Asian American families, it is important to understandthe perceptions of parental control and warmth that are driven byculture (Chao, 2000a; 2000b; Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011). How-ever, the bulk of research on Asian American parenting has fo-cused on East Asian ethnic groups, despite some evidence ofvariation within the diaspora (Chao & Tseng, 2002). Limitedresearch has examined parenting practices by Hmong Americanparents, a Southeast Asian ethnic group with a history as refugees(e.g., Supple & Small, 2006; Lamborn & Moua, 2008).

The current study examined perceptions of mothers’ parentingpractices for a group of Hmong American adolescents with parentswho originate from Southeast Asia. Consideration will be given tohow these perceptions compare with previous research on HmongAmerican adolescent perceptions of parents, and whether thesefindings support mainstream and Asian models of parenting prac-tices.

Hmong Families

History of the Hmong

The Hmong are an important ethnic group to study due to theirunique history of being a “hidden” ethnic minority, both in theirhomelands of Laos and Thailand and in the United States (often

This article was published Online First December 31, 2012.Susie D. Lamborn, Jacqueline Nguyen, and Joel O. Bocanegra, Depart-

ment of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.This study was supported by a research grant from the University of

Wisconsin System Institute of Race and Ethnicity. Transcription supportwas provided by the Consulting Office of Research and Evaluation (Di-rector, Cindy Walker) in the School of Education at the University ofWisconsin–Milwaukee.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Susie D.Lamborn, Department of Educational Psychology, Enderis Hall 7th Floor,University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Hartford Avenue, Milwaukee, WI53211. E-mail: [email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 50–60 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031045

50

being identified in research as Laotian or aggregated into a broaderAsian American label). Due to the history of displacement andpersecution experienced by this refugee group, research tends tofocus on trauma, delinquency, adjustment problems, and othernegative psychosocial outcomes. There is a great need to examinenormative development in Hmong American adolescents.

The Hmong are members of a clan-based ethnic minority groupwho have lived in the mountain regions of Laos and have beenengaged in swidden (slash-and-burn) farming practices (Hein,2006; Vang, 2010). During the Vietnam War, they allied with theUnited States military and engaged with the United States CIA ina “secret war” that took place in Laos, which was supposedlyneutral territory during the Vietnam War. After the United Statestroops pulled out of the region, many Hmong were left to fend forthemselves in Laos, where the new government viewed them asenemies. Due to conditions of war and ethnic persecution, many ofthe families fled to refugee camps in Thailand before immigratingto the United States. In the United States, a large number offamilies have settled in California and the Midwest as secondarymigration patterns have brought extended family and clan mem-bers together. California has the largest population of Hmong inthe United States, followed by Minnesota and Wisconsin (91,224,66,181, and 49,240, respectively; United States Census Bureau,2010).

Research

A small but growing literature examines aspects of normativefamily functioning in Hmong American families as perceived byadolescents. In a culturally comparative study, Supple and Small(2006) administered surveys to assess Hmong and EuropeanAmerican adolescent reports of various parenting practices andstyles. Hmong American youth reported their parents to be sup-portive, knowledgeable about activities, and engaged in joint de-cision making, and these parenting practices were positively re-lated to school performance and other aspects of positiveadjustment. However, their perceptions of these parenting prac-tices were lower than those of European American youth. Suppleand Small’s study relied upon preexisting measures of parentalauthority and support to operationalize these constructs; however,there is the potential for cultural variability in the definitions ofthese very constructs.

Rather than imposing definitions for parenting variables, Xiong,Eliason, Detzner, and Cleveland (2005) conducted open-endedfocus-group interviews of Hmong adolescents and parents andasked respondents to describe the difference between “good” and“bad” parents. Adolescents reported that good parents give loveand care, communicate in a positive fashion, protect youth throughmonitoring, and show understanding. Parent participants agreedwith these perceptions, but also asserted that good parents providefor the child’s needs for food, clothing, and other material goods.Of note, parents felt that provision of basic needs was more centralthan emotional expressions of love and caring. The focus-groupinterviews analyzed in this study reveal generational differences inperceptions of “good parenting” and also shed light on additionalaspects of parenting that are highly valued by some members ofthe Hmong community.

Lamborn and Moua (2008) revealed similar reports of Hmongparenting practices and found, in addition, that parental involve-

ment and family interdependence were emphasized as forms ofcloseness to parents. The study (interviews of a small sample ofHmong American adolescents) also uncovered themes that areunique to the immigrant experience—particularly that of first-generation immigrants from more impoverished backgrounds:hardworking but absent fathers and parents’ desires for children toachieve economic and educational mobility. These themes re-flected the parents’ efforts to advance the family so that thechildren could experience a more economically stable lifestylethan the parents experienced as working-class immigrants withlimited educational backgrounds and English language skills (Ngo& Lee, 2007).

We found it striking that adolescents in these two studies did notemphasize intergenerational tension or conflict in the parent–childrelationship, a common theme in studies of Asian American fam-ilies, particularly over issues on which adolescents and parentshave differential rates of acculturation (Lee, 2005). Lee examinedthe effects of acculturative orientations on educational outcomes inwhat she calls “traditional” and “American” United States Hmongadolescents. The traditional group was more successful in main-taining stronger ties to their traditional beliefs. This group alsoaccepted parents’ desires for them to fulfill family obligations bysharing in household responsibilities, translating, and performingother support behaviors. Strong family ties and links to culturalpractices served to support educational achievement, as manyfamilies viewed education as a way to advance economically.Parents supported selective acculturation in which they encourageyoung people to become biculturally competent (Ngo & Lee,2007). In contrast, the Americanized group had more problems atschool and at home. Relationships with parents tended to be moreconflicted as intergeneration tensions mounted through dissonantacculturation. The teens adopted American practices more quicklythan their parents, who viewed these behaviors as disrespectful andundermining parental authority. According to Ngo and Lee (2007),the research literature emphasizes educational struggles thatHmong youth may face as they learn to manage cultural practices,such as kinship responsibilities, early marriage for girls, and fam-ily obligations, all of which may interfere with educational suc-cess.

This small body of literature on Hmong parents reveals twofindings: (a) a similarity between Hmong and non-Hmong ap-proaches to parenting, namely the presence of warmth and close-ness, and (b) within-group heterogeneity, in which some Hmongfamilies experience greater conflict regarding parental expecta-tions and practices, whereas others have little intergenerationaltension. It is also evident that there may be some differencebetween Hmong parenting approaches and the models of parentingpresented by both Chao (1994) and Chua (2011). Missing from thecurrent literature appears to be the notion of extremely highpressure for academic achievement and training with regard tohard work, obedience, and discipline. However, the parentingvariables examined across these studies vary greatly, and there isa need to more closely examine these issues to explore some of thecultural factors that may inform adolescent perceptions of theirparents’ behaviors and values, and inform our understanding ofhow Hmong families may differ from the largely Chinese familiesthat comprise the predominant perspectives on Asian parentingpractices.

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51HMONG PARENTING PRACTICES

Current Study

The extensive research on the training, or guan model of par-enting has dominated research on Asian families. However, thismodel has been evaluated primarily on Asian and Asian immigrantfamilies from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Less information isavailable about how the training model addresses parenting prac-tices in Southeast Asian families. Furthermore, a more recentparenting model for Asian families, the tiger-mother model, hasalso focused most directly on Chinese American families. Basedon a memoir, little empirical research is available regarding thisparenting model. Finally, each of these models has been presentedin contrast to a well-known, mainstream parenting-practices modelthat examines warmth, behavioral control, and psychological au-tonomy granting (Steinberg, 2001). Controversy persists overwhether this model is appropriate for Asian families, although thecontroversy is more limited when emphasis is placed on theindividual parenting practices rather than on the parenting stylesthat can be constructed by combining across the parenting prac-tices.

Thus, an important goal of the current study will be to evaluatewhether the perceptions of parenting practices provided by thisgroup of Hmong American adolescents support previously devel-oped mainstream and Asian (training, tiger-mother) models ofparenting practices. In addition, the findings will be compared withprevious research on Hmong American adolescents’ perceptions ofparenting. The current study focused on understanding HmongAmerican adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers’ parentingpractices. This was investigated through semistructured, individualinterviews to explore how youths perceived their mothers’ parent-ing practices without directing them with preconceived questions.

Method

Sample

Participants were 24 Hmong American adolescents between theages of 14 and 18 years (M ! 15.8) who attended an ethnicallydiverse high school in an urban area in the Midwest. Girls repre-sented 67% of the sample. The majority of the students lived withboth of their parents (83%), and the remaining 17% lived inanother family arrangement. Half of the students (54%) were bornin the United States; the others were born in Southeast Asia. Thissecond group arrived in the United States as infants or youngchildren and were raised and educated in the United States (1.5generation; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). The sample was predomi-nantly working class, based on parents’ educational levels. Thirty-six percent of the fathers and 52% of the mothers had not attendedschool at any level. Twenty-four percent of the fathers and 22% ofthe mothers had some schooling up to high school graduation.Sixteen percent of the fathers and 12% of the mothers had somecollege or more. Finally, some of the students reported that theydid not know the educational background of their fathers (24%) ormothers (14%). According to the adolescents, all parents exceptfor one father were born in Southeast Asia and immigrated to theUnited States. All of the parents were Hmong from either Laos orThailand. The students reported grades that ranged from mostly Asand Bs to mostly Cs and Ds. The mean response of the sampleindicated B-level performance at school. All of the students indi-

cated that they intended to attend college. The average responsewas to complete a 4-year college degree, although the responsesranged from completing a degree at a technical college to gainingan advanced degree beyond a bachelor’s degree.

Procedure

The students were invited to participate through the Asian Club,an informal after-school club that allowed students to gather so-cially and support each other academically. The faculty sponsor ofthe Asian Club permitted the researchers to attend several meet-ings to explain the study and pass out consent forms. Studentsprovided written parental consent and also assented to be a part ofthe study. Each student received $10 for participating in the study.About 60% (24) of the students who attended during the recruit-ment sessions participated in the study. The study sample distri-bution of girls and boys was similar to that in the Asian Club,which included more girls. The study was approved by the uni-versity’s institutional review board.

The participants engaged in individual, semistructured inter-views with trained interviewers. Participants were offered theoption to complete the interview in English or Hmong (with aHmong native interviewer) and all, including those fluently bilin-gual, elected to do so in English. Participants were asked to talkabout their mothers’ or female guardians’ general parenting prac-tices. We focused on the mothers, as they were primary socializa-tion agents in most of the families, given that the children hadmore interactions with them on a daily basis. Ninety-two percentanswered for their mother. One boy did not have a mother orfemale guardian and answered for his father. The lead questionwas, “Tell me what your mother (or female guardian) is like whenshe is with you.” Probing continued until adolescents identified sixcharacteristics or qualities regarding their mothers. The interviewswere audiotaped and the interviewer took notes regarding theadolescents’ statements during the interviews on data sheets. In-formation from the data sheets was typed into coding sheets. Thisreduced problems with legibility of the data sheets and resulted inclearer and more consistent coding results. The coding was com-pleted from the typed coding-sheet summaries. Checks were madewith the transcripts when needed.

Content Analysis

Using content analysis, the data were coded to reveal parentingpractices as described by Hmong American youth. In preliminaryreviews of the data, it became apparent that many of the contentswere consistent with a coding scheme used in an earlier study ofHmong American adolescents (Lamborn & Moua, 2008), whichincluded 10 parenting-practices codes that were consistent withmainstream parenting practices (support, behavioral control) and acultural–ecological model that emphasizes the role of culture indevelopment (maternal caregiving, family obligations) (Chao &Otsuki-Clutter, 2011; Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011; Fuligni,Hughes, & Way, 2009; Garcia Coll et al., 1996; Wu & Chao,2011). Therefore, this scheme was adapted for the current study,but additional codes that emerged from the data were added in adynamic process. Saturation was evident when categories repeatedand new categories did not emerge. After coding all responsesunder the final coding scheme, percentages of responses were

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52 LAMBORN, NGUYEN, AND BOCANEGRA

calculated on the total sample. This information is presented inFigure 1.

Reliability of the content analyses was evaluated using percentagreement between two coders. Training for coding took place inweekly meetings over a 2-month period. Responses from 10 of theparticipants or 40% of the sample were coded for reliability. Thisdata included 60 responses, with percent agreement at 95%. Afterdiscussing the codes together, coding discrepancies were correctedand modest revisions in the codes were conducted.

Results

There were nine primary categories within which adolescentdescriptions of mothers’ parenting practices were coded. Thesecategories represent four major themes which emerged from thedata: (a) parental support, comprised of caretaking, acceptance,positive communication, and involvement; (b) parental authority(high expectations, family obligations, and supervision); (c) other(intergenerational agreement and psychological autonomy); and(d) opposite framing of responses. Interview excerpts exemplify-ing each type of parenting practice appear in Table 1.

Parental Support

The first theme of support included four categories. Collec-tively, these four categories reflected mothers’ thinking about whatthe adolescent needs and wants, expressing acceptance, talkingopenly, and participating in activities with the adolescent.

Caretaking. Caretaking was a central element of the parent-ing practices that were revealed by this group of Hmong Americanadolescents. The adolescents spoke warmly about their mothers’caring and provision through managing the house, cooking for

them, and generally working hard inside and outside the house. Asone youth stated succinctly, “She’s a normal mom, housewife,cook, clean, go to work.” Another teenager indicated that hismother “loves us, gives us what we want, cooks . . .” Someparticipants discussed mothers’ caretaking behaviors during ill-ness, both in terms of nurturance and cultural knowledge of heal-ing as the two following participants discuss: “She’s great, what amom’s supposed to be. She’s a mom, taking care of me when I’msick and feeling down; trying to cheer me up, buy me thingssometimes.” and “[My mom] uses Hmong medicine to help us getbetter. When we cry, we go to her. She makes us feel better. Whenwe’re sick, she finds us medicine.” The important recognition ofparents’ time and employment sacrifices was clear in the inter-views. One mother was described as someone who “works hard,sacrifices her time for us. Her work schedule is around us. [She]works third shift.”

Acceptance. Acceptance included expressions of love andcaring, accepting the teenager for who she or he was, and bringinga quality of friendship or fun to the relationship. One girl describedher mother as her best friend, someone who was always there forher. She went on to say that she and her mother were really closeand explained that there was “no distance between us.” Anotherteenager described her mother as fun to be with: She is “very, verygoofy—tells us a lot of jokes. Makes fun of my boyfriend a lot.Makes fun a lot.” Similarly another youth commented that “I canjoke with her . . . She’s fun . . . has a good sense of humor.” Theemphasis on being able to joke with parents indicates a level ofcomfort and acceptance between the adolescent and parent.

Emotional comfort was also emphasized. One young womandescribed her mother as “a nice person, forgiving. I get her mad,next day if I ask her to do something for me, she will, even still

0.7 2.1 4.9 0 2.8 1.4 0 3.5 2

11.8

9

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14.6

9

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20

Acceptance Involved Posi!veCommunica!on

Caretaking Supervision High Expecta!ons FamilyObliga!ons

PsychologicalAutonomy

Intergenera!onalAgreement

Support rehtOytirohtuA

Posi!ve

Opposite

Figure 1. Percentage of responses for Hmong American adolescent perceptions of mothers’ parenting prac-tices.

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53HMONG PARENTING PRACTICES

mad.” Another stated that her mother is a caring person, in that“she tries to be there for me in an emotional way. She understandswhen I’m sad or in a bad mood. She’s there when you need her.”Finally, one participant described the relationship with the motheras “best friends. She wants me to know I’m loved.” These re-sponses illustrate emotional closeness between the mother andteenager. These responses emphasized friendship, humor/fun, andgeneral acceptance, in contrast to the next category that specifi-cally addressed open communication.

Positive communication. Positive communication was dis-cussed by participants as a form of closeness with their mothers.The adolescents talked openly with their mothers about their livesand problems, and viewed their mothers as good listeners. One girl

said that her mother is “easy to talk to. We’re close, we talk a lot.I spend time every night talking with her if I have problems.”Echoing this theme, another youth commented, “I tell her every-thing. If I have a problem at school, I tell her my feelings.”According to another adolescent: “She’s always there for us. If I’mfeeling low, she will talk to me, gives advice, listens well. We talkoften.” One girl explained the closeness between herself and hermother: “. . . I will just tell her stuff . . . like who’s giving meproblems and stuff like that. Just basically tell her. Like she’sbasically my journal entry, I guess, I tell her all my feelings andstuff to her.” These Hmong American teenagers had open andflexible channels of communication with their mothers. Theyviewed their mothers as people with whom they could share their

Table 1Content Analysis: Examples of Hmong American Adolescents’ Perceptions of Mothers’ Parenting Practices

Category Sample Response

Acceptance We’re best friends. She wants me to know I’m loved.She’s a caring person. Still supports me [even though she’s] disappointed that I got

pregnant and married.Caretaking My mom is very caring. In my house, she will get up, like so early in the morning

just to cook breakfast for me. And she will come and wake you up, tell you thatthe food is ready and stuff like that. She basically, she’s just like a very caringmom.

Positive communication Yeah, she listens to me. We, we often talk, we have a lot in common, me and mymom.

Involved We do everything together.She always encourages us, like, “Oh, yeah, you know, you can do better next time,

you know, next time that you just do better, more. If you think that you’re failingor something.” [Interviewer: So, it’s kind of like in a positive way.] Yeah, just in apositive way, but not in a negative way.

High expectations They want me to go to college, and, I mean, getting the good grades and doing allthis extra stuff, helps get into college. I know they don’t want to pay for college, sothey want me to stay in school . . . I guess when we moved to the U.S., that wastheir first, main thing for us to do. So since, and I was only five, so I guess I grewup like that; always focusing on school.

She has a very strong work ethic. She wants me to be on time and considerate ofothers.

Supervision She’s always concerned about us, if we’re like off to someplace, and you know, shealways kinda like, call to make sure that we’re there and we’re safe, or at least like,supposed to call her back and tell her that like, “Yeah, we’re safe,” and you know,there’s nothing going on . . . [Interviewer: So, one of the things she does, is shedefinitely keeps track of you.] Yeah, she keeps track of us . . . I have a cell phone,so I either call her and tell her where I’m at, or I’m safe and stuff. Or either she’llcall me and ask me where am I, or what am I doing, am I safe and all this stuff.

Family obligations It’s sort of like a little training thing, or like, she tells us that we need to be good,you know. Only good people can have a good future, and stuff like that. We learnhow to cook right away, and we, the girls always have to watch the mother doeverything. I grew up like that, so then you know what’s expected. But when she’sthere and how to act, you know, like you can’t be silly around her. But when she’sthere you won’t act silly.

Tells us to work around the house. When she’s tired, she wants us to help, washingdishes, help out.

Intergenerational agreement Well my parents were not born here. So they’re basically like in the old, Hmong way,which is my religion. So they’re more open minded about how we act, how thisgeneration acts different from the older generation . . . In our religion, back then,the girls couldn’t play sports. Basically they were supposed to do in the house, justclean up the house. Basically, a typical housewife, I guess. That was your role as awoman. Now since we came to the United States, I mean it’s basically girls whohave the same rights as any man, so you don’t have to do housework if you don’twant to. Basically you have a choice now, so . . . [Interviewer: And your mom kindof agrees with that?] Yeah, she agrees with that.

Psychological autonomy She gives more freedom. She’ll let us go out with a boyfriend.She wants me to experience the world, lets me go out.Trust. She trusts me.

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54 LAMBORN, NGUYEN, AND BOCANEGRA

daily experiences and consult on problems. They also indicatedthat their mothers shared information with them.

Involved. Involvement included spending time together andengaging in shared activities. One of the teenagers described hermother in the following terms: “She’s really nice. We don’t havea lot of life problems . . . We hang out and do a lot together.”Similarly, another teenager explained that “we do everything to-gether . . . we enjoy time together, we’re close.” A third adolescentcommented that she and her mother “go shopping together.” An-other teenager explained, “Like I’m in soccer, she cheers me onand picks me up (from practice and games).” This category alsoincluded general descriptions of mothers providing support andencouragement.

Parental Authority

Parental authority included the coded categories of high expec-tations, supervision, and family obligations. The teenagers felt thatthe mothers conveyed high expectations for current and futureschool performance. The mothers made efforts to keep track ofthem by knowing their friends and whereabouts, and had strictrules and consequences. Finally, mothers expected them to com-plete household responsibilities as part of their obligations to thefamily.

High expectations. High expectations included mothers’ em-phasis on educational and behavioral outcomes. A primary em-phasis was on educational success. The mothers were described assupporting strong achievement outcomes during high school, aswell as aspirations for students to attend college in the future.Responses included, “She’s into school, asks about school, home-work, reviews it” and “She wants me to get good grades.” Whereassome of the comments focused on current school performance andsuccess, other mothers were focused on high school performanceas a means to college admission and completion. For example oneadolescent commented that her mother wanted her to “finishschool. She wants me to have success in life, go to college, finishschool and find a good paying job.” The expectations for doingwell extended to behavior and moral character as well. One youthexplained, “She doesn’t want me to do bad things like smoke andstuff.” Mothers were reported as having high expectations for botheducation and general behavior.

Supervision. According to participants, mothers engaged insupervision through monitoring and managing activities andfriends, strictness, and effective disciplinary practices. Accordingto one teenager, “On school days, I can’t go out. On weekends Ihave to be home by 10 p.m. I go right home . . . She keeps trackof who I’m with, where I’m going. She knows most of my friendsand their parents, most are relatives.” One girl described hermother as “really protective in a good way, calls my friends andchecks on me.” Similarly, another girl described her mother as“protective” in that she “asks a lot of questions, wants to knoweverything.” Another youth described the mother’s approach toenforcing family rules and expectations: “Instead of yelling, shewords things nicely, explains as nicely as possible. Then, if I don’tlisten she yells.” These responses indicated that the mothers wereproactively involved in supporting positive youth outcomes bykeeping track of youth, having strict rules, and engaging in posi-tive forms of discipline.

Family obligations. These Hmong American adolescents re-ported that they were obligated to help the family with householdresponsibilities, caring for siblings, and translating for parents withlimited English language skills. One girl described her mother’sexpectations for her at home: “There are lots of expectations forcooking for the family. As the oldest daughter, I’m supposed tostay at home doing chores.” She elaborated that she also has toteach her younger siblings to cook or her mother becomes upset.Another participant explained that the girls in her family “have totake turns, cook the whole meal for our family.” One adolescentconveyed that her mother was “very demanding around the house.She expects kids to take care of parents.” Another teenager ex-plained, “She wants me to be a role model for my youngersiblings.” The role model responsibility included completinghousehold chores, doing well at school, and behaving correctly.Several adolescents were expected to translate for the motheroutside of the home, for example when she went shopping. Insome cases, the adolescents described expectations for completingeveryday household chores, such as taking out the garbage orwashing dishes that are similar to expectations in many UnitedStates homes.

An element of this theme was obligation to the extended family.One youth described her mother as “. . . really nice. If my cousincomes over and needs money, she’ll give it and wants to help.”Similarly, another youth described her mother as someone who“helps everybody. She babysits for other people, relatives andfriends, helps with problems.” The adolescents were also expectedto support the extended family in various ways, such as throughbabysitting nephews and nieces. Sometimes these activities werepresented as interfering with time spent together with the parents.One teenager felt that the parents focused on helping relativesrather than spending time with their own children. The mothersboth modeled providing support to the extended family as well asexpected the teenagers to participate in family obligations to theextended family.

Other Responses

Two additional categories were placed in an “Other” categoryand included psychological autonomy and intergenerational agree-ment. These categories were not mentioned as often as some of theother categories, but seemed to reflect important elements of theyouths’ perceptions.

Psychological autonomy. Psychological autonomy was re-flected when the mother was described as allowing freedom toexperience life, was trusting of the youth, and invited the youth toexpress their opinions through shared decision making. One teen-ager described her mother in this way: “She wants me to experi-ence the world.” Another teenager described his relationship withhis mother in terms of trust: “My mom trusts me.” Anotheradolescent described the mother as follows, “She gives morefreedom.” Mothers were rarely described as inviting shared deci-sions and engaging in discussions that allow for differences ofopinion between parent and child. This type of parenting was morelikely to be represented as a negative characteristic of mothers, asbecomes evident in the section on opposite responses (below).

Intergenerational agreement. In discussing intergenera-tional agreement, adolescents discussed the potential for conflictbetween Hmong and United States lifestyles or expectations but

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55HMONG PARENTING PRACTICES

mentioned that mothers supported or even encouraged some ac-culturation toward United States norms. The mothers were some-times described as accepting the more flexible roles for womenregarding delaying marriage, going to college, and having a careerthat were part of the United States value system, as illustrated byone female participant: “My sister got married at 16. She tells meto go to college then get married.”

Opposite Responses

Overall, the adolescents had positive descriptions of their moth-ers. However, in a minority of the responses (17.4%), the motherwas described in what we label “opposite” framing of the parent-ing characteristics. In describing negative communication patternswith his mother, one teenager indicated that she “speaks to chil-dren only when she orders them around.” In another description ofproblematic communication patterns, a different teenager com-mented that his mother “doesn’t always listen. She doesn’t want tobe bothered, wants to be alone.” This mother was reported asstressed and challenged by the dual responsibilities of home andwork. Another instance of work disrupting the establishment of aclose mother-child relationship was evident when one studentresponded that “She works, spends little time with me. She works3 p.m. to 12 a.m. so we don’t see each other, just on weekends andsummer.” This mother worked as a seamstress for a factory.

Psychological autonomy included responses that were oppo-sites, or some form of psychological control. One teenager de-scribed his mother as overprotective: “She doesn’t trust us. Shethinks we’re out doing bad things.” He elaborated that this positionwas unfair because it was a general assessment of his behavior andindicated mistrust rather than directly relating to the participant’sbehavior. According to one teenager, “She doesn’t want to hearoptions; doesn’t take into consideration my ideas.” These HmongAmerican adolescents expressed dissatisfaction with psychologicalcontrol as a form of parenting. In summary, the opposite descrip-tions revealed strains in the mother–adolescent relationship thatwere evident through disrupted communication and restricted timetogether. Sometimes, the mothers were viewed as stifling theteenagers’ freedom and expression of ideas through overprotectiveparenting practices. In other instances, the overextended worklives of the mothers simply did not allow time for talking andspending time together.

Opposite responses to intergenerational agreement addressedcultural tensions associated with generational separation in whichthe mothers aligned with the traditional Hmong values of theirupbringing in Southeast Asia, whereas the teenagers felt morecomfortable with the American point of view that they experiencedgrowing up in the Midwest. According to one participant:

She expects me to be like how she was when she was younger. Um,‘cause back then they had to farm and everything, but now we don’tfarm. She wants me to be able to cook, be polite when people come,and know how to serve them. And just like, be around the house andbe like what a girl should be. And I should be able to speak in my ownlanguage when I’m at home.

Another participant explained that her mother’s mindset repre-sented a “cultural barrier. I volunteer, she wants me at home. Shedoesn’t speak much English. She speaks mostly Hmong.” Themother’s traditional values were viewed as conflicting with her

attempts to be involved in community activities outside the house.Some of the Hmong American adolescents in this study perceivedthat their mother’s expectations were traditional or old-fashioned.Parental expectations that conveyed Hmong values were viewed asdiscordant with the dominant United States lifestyle. The studentsdescribed United States values as allowing more freedom to ex-plore and date, focusing on education, and encouraging the Englishlanguage at home.

Conclusions

The interview responses allowed these Hmong American ado-lescents to voice their perceptions of the parenting practices theyexperience in daily interactions with mothers. These perceptionsreflected a uniquely Hmong American parent–child experiencethat is consistent with the group’s Hmong American backgroundand lifestyle of being raised and educated in the United StatesMidwest by mothers who were originally from Southeast Asia.The mothers were described as warm, caring, and loving whenthey engaged in caregiving, accepted the adolescents, listened andcommunicated effectively, and engaged in joint activities withthem. Thus, support was defined as active participation in variouselements of adolescents’ lives in addition to emotional warmth andbasic caregiving. The youth also discussed mothers’ assertions ofauthority through supervision, high expectations for education, andfamily obligations. Finally, they occasionally talked about inter-generational agreement with parents over cultural differences inHmong and mainstream American values, as well as opportunitiesfor freedom and independence.

Parental Support

Contrary to dominant lay and academic perceptions of AsianAmerican mothers as overly strict and authoritarian, a perspectiveperpetuated by the recent Chua memoir, the mothers in this studywere rarely described in negative terms. Notably, even whendiscussing parental authority, adolescents framed these discussionspositively, with little discussion of the intergenerational tensionover issues of authority that pervade research on Asian Americanparent–child relationships (e.g., Lee & Liu, 2001; Su & Vang,2005). Despite the emphasis on conflict in the Asian Americanliterature, the current findings in which parents were presented assupportive, are consistent with many results from the studies ofHmong American adolescent perceptions of parents previouslyreviewed in this manuscript. Moreover, the displays of supportdiscussed by adolescents did not differ greatly from those ofnon-Hmong, European American youth: Mothers can be fun, havehumor-filled relationships with their children, and are partners incommunication.

These demonstrations of warmth have not been documented inmany studies of Asian families across the diaspora. Instead, it hasbeen found that more often, parental support (and sometimeswarmth) are demonstrated through caregiving behaviors, includingsacrifice (Chao & Kaeochinda, 2010). Moreover, intergenerationaltension can arise when parents and adolescents have incongruentbeliefs about the adequacy of this expression of support (Wu &Chao, 2005). In contrast, this group of adolescents clearly recog-nized caregiving behaviors as a means for mothers to expresssupport and love for them and were supportive of their mothers’

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56 LAMBORN, NGUYEN, AND BOCANEGRA

demonstration of warmth through these means. This finding issimilar to another study of Hmong Americans living in the Mid-west (Lamborn & Moua, 2008), but differs from findings by Xionget al. (2005), who found that the parents but not the adolescentsviewed caretaking as an important aspect of good parenting.

In a previous study (Lamborn & Moua, 2008), as with this one,the adolescents described patterns of open communication. Yetanother finding that distinguishes this group of Hmong Americanfamilies are the descriptions of parent–child communicationthrough openly talking, sharing information, and listening to whatadolescents had to say. Some of the Hmong Americans in thisstudy described their mothers as friends with whom they couldconfide in almost any topic and with whom they talked regularly.When mothers were available to engage in positive communica-tion exchanges, the teenagers valued this commitment and viewedit as expressing love and caring for them. These outward expres-sions of emotion are inconsistent with the training model and witha Chinese form of warmth or qin (Wu & Chao, 2011). Moreover,these findings are a departure from many studies of Asian andSoutheast Asian parent–adolescent relationships, which find thatacculturation gaps are contributing factors to internal and externalintergenerational conflict and negative psychosocial outcomes inadolescents (e.g., Fuligni, 2012; Xiong et al., 2005). The narrativesof participants in this study counter this dominant narrative of“cultural” modes of parenting that are argued to be endemic toAsian (and Southeast Asian) ethnic groups. Instead, the resultsyield insight into a potential cultural shift toward new forms ofparent–adolescent communication in the Hmong community.

Participants in this study largely belong to the 1.5 generationand second generation and have young or youthfully orientedparents who were themselves influenced by United States valuesand customs. It is likely these mothers have experienced someacculturation toward dominant United States norms and alteredtheir behaviors after feeling disaffected with their own parents’form of caregiving, particularly with regard to warmth. As mem-bers of the Hmong community acculturate and develop relation-ships with their children that vary from “traditional” modes ofinteracting, a cultural shift could rapidly occur, altering the face ofparent–adolescent relationships within the Hmong community andperhaps Southeast Asian communities at large. However, it isimportant to note the geographic specificity of this study andacknowledge that this cultural change may occur within a localizedcommunity with a relatively small number of Hmong families.

Parental Authority and Training

The Hmong American adolescents also emphasized expressionsof parental authority through high expectations, supervision, andfamily obligations. The youths spoke extensively about the moth-ers’ strong expectations for helping to manage the house and fordoing well in school. The mothers wanted their children, especiallythe girls, to be capable of running a household. These expectationsare typically framed as family obligations, which are a commonelement of family life in many immigrant families (Fuligni et al.,2009). Hmong girls transfer from their family of birth to thehusband’s family when they marry (Donnelly, 1994). The skillsthat they take with them achieve multiple goals. The girls are ableto run their own homes independently if they have been trainedwell by their mothers. They may be valued more or treated better

in their new extended family when their household managementskills are strong. They also may represent their childhood familyand bring respect as well as avoid shame to the family, particularlythe mother, when they are viewed as good wives. If these activitiesare reframed as a form of training activity (marriage or householdtraining), rather than solely socialization toward family obliga-tions, it is indeed the case that Hmong mothers are engaged in atraining model of parenting. The mothers’ expectations for house-hold responsibilities and childcare duties, especially for girls,seemed aimed toward ensuring that daughters could run theirfuture households on their own. The strategy used by these immi-grant Hmong mothers seemed to focus on an apprenticeship modelin which the teenagers are shown explicitly how to perform cook-ing, cleaning, and caretaking responsibilities. The teenagers, be-ginning in childhood, were expected to follow the modeling of theparents and eventually take over these responsibilities on theirown. This might be described as an apprenticeship or scaffoldingmechanism of direct transfer of skill performance from mother tochild through observation, modeling, and direct training. Thistraining is gendered, however, and the burden of this form ofcaregiving is placed largely upon girls.

While this training model may persist in Hmong families, theimpetus for such training may diverge from the models discussedby Chao (1994) or Chua (2011). Due to the extreme poverty inwhich Hmong families live in the United States compared withother East Asian populations (Hernandez, Denton, & Macartney,2009), it may be a mandatory requirement that young women learnthese roles simply for the household to function while parentswork the third shift—a common occurrence in Hmong families inthis study. In addition to socialization for cultural reasons, Hmongadolescent girls receive training out of necessity. This is an im-portant contrast to Chua’s description of strict parenting and so-cialization toward “Asian” norms. As highly educated members ofan elite social and economic class, Chua has had the luxury to pickand choose the cultural ideals to which she prefers to socialize herdaughters. Socialization toward household responsibilities is notborn out of necessity in the same way it is for low-income Hmongfamilies. The outcomes for both child and parent under thesedifferent motivations for use of a training model of parentingmerits further attention.

Similarly, Hmong mothers in this study were perceived to havehigh academic aspirations for their children: to attend college andhave good jobs. As reported in other studies of Hmong Americanfamilies, it is possible that these forms of expectations reflectsocial class issues as much as cultural values (Brown, Bakken,Nguyen, & Von Bank, 2007; Lamborn & Moua, 2008). Often,parents’ educational expectations were perceived by adolescents asstrategies to encourage teenagers to aim for careers that wouldprotect them from factory work, which sometimes required work-ing late or double shifts.

Future research could help to further understand how socialclass and cultural values interact to influence parenting practices(Garcia Coll, et al., 1996; Lau, 2010). In some families, highexpectations for education could also be interpreted as a vehiclefor career advancement to provide youths with more independencein their adult lives. However, as with other elements in thesefamilies, these goals may have been combined with expectations tosupport the family. As others have suggested (Ngo & Lee, 2007),the adoption of new cultural values is complex in that Hmong

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57HMONG PARENTING PRACTICES

American parents and adolescents do not just adhere to Americanor Hmong values but construct their own mode of parenting as aresult of the cultural values of their ethnic group and those of theireconomic class.

Other Parenting Practices

It is important to note, providing opportunities for the expres-sion of psychological autonomy was only represented in a limitedfashion in the adolescents’ responses. In addition, the descriptionsof psychological control were presented with a negative emotionaltone, suggesting that these youths resented excessive emotionalrestrictions from mothers. This finding is consistent with earlierdescriptions of Hmong American and other Asian American fam-ilies, suggesting that Asian American parents differently valueyouth expressions of their own point of view or other aspects ofindependence training (Lamborn & Moua, 2008; Brown et al.,2007). Nevertheless, the mothers could be viewed as promotingself-sufficiency through behavioral management that occurredthrough high expectations for education and family obligations.The expressions of independence training may appear differentlyin different cultures.

Some of the adolescents felt cultural dissonance betweenHmong and American cultural values (Brown et al., 2007). Inter-estingly, in some cases this was expressed as intergenerationalconflict, whereas in other cases, the mother shared those adoles-cents’ American-based values that emphasized education, careers,and gender equality. Cultural dissonance becomes interesting toconsider in relation to the training and tiger-mother models: Howdo parents balance the high expectations for success in school andcommunity with the traditions that describe the need to be acontributing member of the household? Acculturative discrepan-cies between parent and adolescents may contribute to how wellcultural parenting models explain adolescent outcomes (Choi, He,& Harachi, 2008). Chao (1994) and Chua (2011) both may de-scribe parenting practices that have a stronger fit with the adoles-cent’s current sociocultural environment. The Hmong Americanadolescents in this study sometimes were faced with parentingexpectations that did not resonate with their day-to-day lives, dueto mothers’ adherence to traditional values. For instance, Chuamight encourage her children to be involved with the communitybecause she knows that volunteering is an essential component forcollege admissions in the United States. When there is morealignment between parent and adolescent expectations, as some ofthese Hmong American youths expressed, there may be moreadaptive child outcomes. This suggests that a “goodness of fit”between parent and child expectations may support more positiveadjustment, as has been suggested by previous research (Juang,Lerner, McKinney, & von Eye, 1999).

Comparisons With Previous Family Models

The findings of this study are only partially consistent withprevious research on Hmong American adolescents and with main-stream and Asian models of parenting practices. These adolescentstalked about parental support and authority that were consistent insome ways with each perspective. However, neither previousresearch on Hmong Americans nor mainstream or Asian parentingmodels seemed to adequately capture everything that the youths

discussed. For example, the findings related to the training modelin that the adolescents discussed high expectations for education,family obligations, and strictness. They also discussed caretakingas a form of love. However, contrary to this model, they describedmothers who expressed love and acceptance through positivecommunication and open emotional displays of affection. Thistype of support is more consistent with mainstream parentingmodels.

On the surface, the findings seem to support the tiger-mothermodel as well. However, on closer inspection, these familiesdiffered noticeably on the dimension of social class. The expecta-tions for achievement were focused on the adolescent doing aswell as possible to get good grades, finishing high school, andgraduating from college. However, the press for perfect grades andadmission to elite, high-status universities was not conveyed bythese mothers. The emphasis on household chores also reflects adifferent set of cultural values blended with practical concerns.Girls in particular were trained to manage a household so that theywould be valued as future members of their husband’s extendedfamily. Training was also a practical strategy for running thecurrent household while both parents held blue-collar jobs thatkept them away from home during evening and early morninghours. Supervision helped to keep adolescents safe in troubledneighborhoods. The tiger-mother model focuses on householdchores and strict supervision to keep children from a higher socialclass environment grounded and focused on extreme achievementstandards to prepare them for entry to elite schools.

Culturally Blended Parenting

Representing the diversity that occurs within specific subgroupsof Southeast Asian families is an important focus of this study.These Hmong American adolescents described parents who ex-pressed support and love by taking care of them, accepting them,talking openly with them, and participating in their lives. They alsoportrayed parents who asserted their authority through high expec-tations for education, supervising teenage activities and friend-ships, and defining family obligations. Sometimes, parents andteenagers aligned together to achieve goals that were consistentwith what American culture dictated was important. In otherinstances, intergenerational conflicts brought tensions to theparent–adolescent relationship. These Hmong American parentsand teenagers together fashioned a new cultural portfolio thatblended elements from both traditional Hmong culture and main-stream American culture. An important message from this study isthe value of understanding the range of parenting practices that areapparent when listening to the voices of Hmong American ado-lescents. This within group variability in perceptions of parentingpractices becomes lost in many quantitative descriptions of AsianAmerican parents. The goal of recognizing the diversity in AsianAmerican parenting can be supported by including qualitative andmixed methods approaches that allow adolescents to voice theirperceptions of parent-youth interactions. The Hmong Americanadolescents in this study revealed a range of parenting practicesthat were characteristic of immigrant Hmong mothers.

Limitations

Several limitations are evident in this study. The participantswere a small sample of Hmong American students from one high

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58 LAMBORN, NGUYEN, AND BOCANEGRA

school who were also members of the school’s Asian Club. Var-ious aspects of the recruitment process, including the requirementfor written parental consent, may have biased the sample towardmore well-functioning families. Therefore, these findings will notnecessarily apply to all Hmong American adolescents. Furtherresearch on normative aspects of family functioning in HmongAmerican families is desirable to build a stronger normative re-search base for this Southeast Asian group. In addition, due to theoverrepresentation of girls in this sample, better representation ofHmong American boys will be useful in future work. TraditionalHmong culture treats boys and girls differently, beginning inchildhood (Vang, 2010; Yang, 2008). These gender-role expecta-tions can be the source of cultural conflict between the generationsand need to be understood better. These types of gender patterns inethnic socialization have been emphasized in other immigrantgroups as well.

Of importance, the interview procedure of this study permittedaccess to adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers’ parentingpractices. It may be important to differentiate parent perspectivesfrom that of adolescents (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009). Theseperspectives often diverge and can have different implications forthe prediction of adolescent outcomes. For example, other researchhas shown that adolescents’ perspectives of intergenerational cul-tural dissonance and parent–child conflict predicted youth out-comes differently than when information was collected from theparents’ points of view (Choi et al., 2008). In a family such asChua’s (2011), her perspective of how she parents may not beshared by her daughters. Ultimately, these differing perspectivescan have serious implications for youth outcomes, as with Chua’syounger daughter. Although we were not able to examine theseimportant linkages in the current study, past research attests to theimportance of considering adolescents’ perceptions of family dy-namics in relation to youth outcomes (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver,2009).

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59HMONG PARENTING PRACTICES

Su, J. L., & Vang, R. M. (2005). Intergenerational family conflict andcoping among Hmong American college students. Journal of Counsel-ing Psychology, 52, 482–489. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.52.4.482

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Received May 1, 2012Revision received October 16, 2012

Accepted October 18, 2012 !

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60 LAMBORN, NGUYEN, AND BOCANEGRA

Social and Emotional Parenting: Mothering in a ChangingChinese Society

Niobe Way, Sumie Okazaki, Jing Zhao,and Joanna J. KimNew York University

Xinyin ChenUniversity of Pennsylvania

Hirokazu YoshikawaHarvard University

Yueming JiaEducation Development Center, Waltham, Massachusetts

Huihua DengSoutheast University

Chua’s (2011) book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother generated vigorous debate regarding its descriptionof “Chinese” parenting ideology and practices. In this article, the authors analyzed the narratives from 24Chinese mothers of middle school students in Nanjing, China to explore their parenting ideology andpractices. In sharp distinction to the “Tiger Mother” image, our analysis indicated that although allmothers wanted their children to do well in school, their primary goals were focused on raising sociallyand emotionally well-adjusted children who had the capacity to be self-sufficient and gainfully employedin the future. With few exceptions, the mothers’ strategies for achieving these goals included providingtheir children the freedom to make their own decisions and not forcing their children to engage inparticular activities. These strategies were based on their concerns for the children’s short-term andlong-term happiness as well as a perception that the way they were raised was no longer relevant toraising their children; consequently, the mothers allowed their children more autonomy and control toforge their own path than the mothers themselves were allowed as children. Our findings draw attentionto the social, political, and economic context of China and how this changing context is shaping parentinggoals and practices.

Keywords: Chinese, mothers, adolescents, parenting

Amy Chua’s (2011) book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Motherignited a storm of controversy surrounding what Chua dubbed the“Chinese way” of parenting that emphasizes strict parental control,uncompromising imposition of parental rules, high expectation forchildren in effort and achievement, and a singular focus on chil-dren’s success. At the heart of the uproar was the description of therelentless and harsh manner by which a tiger mother drives herchildren to work hard and achieve success; Chua wrote, “. . .thesolution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish,and shame the child” (p. 52). Chua explained the reason behindsuch punitive and shaming child rearing practice: “. . . I’ve noticedthat Western parents are extremely anxious about their children’s

self-esteem. . . Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, notfragility, and as a result they behave very differently” (p. 52). Bypushing her daughters from an early age to master and excel atacademic and music performance, which invariably required hoursof drilling and practice at the cost of play dates and entertainment,Chua believed that she was giving them not only skills and workethics but also confidence in their capacity to achieve much morethan the children initially thought possible. Chua’s characterizationof Chinese parenting struck a chord as it flagrantly challenged theAmerican “cult of self-esteem” (Twenge & Campbell, 2009).

To be fair, Chua (2011) stated at the outset of her book that sheuses the term “Chinese mother” loosely, as a short hand for thetype of strict parenting that aims to produce high-achieving chil-dren. Chua also stated that she had intended her writing to beself-mocking and sardonic. Yet the abundant references to theseparenting methods as “Chinese” in her book, and her eagerness tocontrast them with “Western” parenting, have resulted in thewidespread impression that Chinese parenting is marked by ex-cessive focus on academic success, high parental control, andshaming. Thus, we are compelled to ask, what are actual parentingideologies and practices of contemporary mainland Chinese par-ents? To what extent do Chinese parents exercise authority overtheir adolescent children? Are the “Chinese” parenting notions ofChua—a second generation Chinese American, raised by parents

This article was published Online First December 31, 2012.Niobe Way, Sumie Okazaki, Jing Zhao, and Joanna Kim, Department of

Applied Psychology, New York University; Xinyin Chen, Department ofHuman Development, University of Pennsylvania; Hirokazu Yoshikawa,School of Education, Harvard University; Yueming Jia, Education Devel-opment Center, Waltham, Massachusetts; Huihua Deng, Research Centerfor Learning Sciences, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to NiobeWay, Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, 246Greene Street, New York, NY 10003. E-mail: [email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 61–70 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031204

61

who grew up in a Chinese diaspora community in the Philip-pines—relevant in contemporary Chinese society? In this study,we examine the parenting ideologies and practices of parents ofadolescents in a sample from urban China.

Portraits of Traditional Chinese Parenting

To an extent, Chua’s (2011) inclination to draw a markedcontrast between Chinese and Western parenting has a basis inempirical literature that makes cross-cultural comparisons. Tradi-tional Chinese parenting has been described as more controlling,more authoritarian, and less affectionate than American parenting(Chao, 1994). Chen et al. (1998) found that, relative to NorthAmerican parents, Chinese parents were more likely to endorse apunishment orientation as a method of discipline and more likelyto use high-powered coercive strategies. Fong (2007b) found,furthermore, that urban Chinese parents consistently stressed theimportance of achieving excellence (youxiu) to their adolescentchildren, specifically through academic achievement. Values andcharacters associated with moral personhood included “determi-nation, perseverance, an ability to tolerate hardships, (and) a will-ingness to forego immediate satisfaction for the delayed gratifica-tion of future achievement” (Woronov, 2007, p. 44), which werenot only reflective of traditional Chinese culture but also the valuespromoted during the Mao era.

By the beginning of the 21st century, however, these valueswere considered “old-fashioned” to many affluent urban Chineseparents (Woronov, 2007). And indeed, contemporary Chinese par-enting appears to be a combination of traditional Chinese andWestern ideologies and practices. On the basis of data from parentsof preschool-aged children in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Lieber,Fung, and Leung (2006) identified four sets of Chinese child-rearing concepts: training, shame, authoritative, and autonomy.The first two constructs appear to be consistent with traditionalChinese cultural ideologies, based on the Confucian notion thatparents are responsible for training the child to be socially andmorally responsible and that shame serves as a key emotion in thesocialization of children’s social sensibilities. The latter two con-structs resemble constructs from the West, with the beliefs thatparents should encourage and nurture children’s self-esteem, in-dependence, and expressions of opinions and feelings. Questionsof how to instill creativity and independence have also becomesalient concerns over the past decade among mainland Chineseeducators and parents (Woronov, 2007).

Shifting Contexts for Parenting

The shifts in Chinese parenting ideologies reflect the rapidsocietal changes in China over the past 3 decades (Chen, 2012).With the transition to a market economy in a globalized market-place, Chinese parents have had to contend with expanded reper-toire of desirable characteristics to cultivate in their children,centered on the notion of “quality” (suzhi) (Fong, 2007a; Kipnis,2006). Accordingly, Chen and Chen (2010) have noted a consid-erable shift in parental child-rearing attitudes and values. Forexample, even between a period as short as 4 years (between 1998and 2002), Shanghai parents’ scores on parenting measures evi-denced a notable shift toward higher warmth and autonomy sup-port and toward lower power assertion. Among the children,

shyness, which had been a traditionally valued trait associated withmodesty and self-control, was correlated with positive psycholog-ical adjustment in 1990. However, by 2002 shyness was negativelyassociated with peer acceptance and school adjustment and posi-tively correlated with depression and peer rejection among Chi-nese schoolchildren (Chen & Chen, 2010). This shift in the cor-relates of shyness likely reflects an increasingly capitalistic systemwhere shyness is less adaptive to success than in the past (Chen &Chen, 2010; Yoshikawa, Way, & Chen, 2012).

The transition from state socialism to market economy in Chinahas, furthermore, created anxieties for parents over their children’scharacter, skills, and psychological quality (xinli suzhi) that couldmeet the heightened demands for academic success (Anagnost,2008). Chinese parents—spurred on by popular media discourse—fear that their children will be unprepared for the new kind offuture that values individual initiatives, emotional intelligence, andpractical knowledge. The dizzying economic changes as well asthe one-child policy have reconfigured the affective life of theChinese family dramatically within one generation. Parents’ be-liefs about autonomy and social relations have shifted considerablyas China has transitioned from “the iron rice bowl” commandeconomy (centered on state-sponsored occupations with guaran-teed lifetime employment and benefits) to market economy involv-ing more entrepreneurial and merit-based careers in both state-owned and private firms (Yoshikawa et al., 2012). Among theparents, “in the demolition of the socialist project, that which oncehad value has now been evacuated of it” (Anagnost, 2008, p. 66),there has been an increase in attention to children’s socioemotionalcompetence as well as real worries about what it would take fortheir only children to be able to provide postretirement housing,health, and economic securities for their parents.

In an analysis of ethnographic data from families of late ado-lescents in Dalian City, China, Fong (2007a) described the parents’struggles in finding successful strategies for raising their onlychildren. The parents agreed that they wished to inculcate values ofexcellence, independence, obedience, and caring–sociableness intheir children. However, because these values were often contra-dictory (e.g., to be obedient yet independent) and the parents hadno coherent ideology for simultaneously fostering these values, theadolescents felt confused and stressed by their parents’ contradic-tory and inconsistent messages. Fong argued that the parent–childconflicts in China mirror the “uneasy coexistence of multiplecontradictory values” brought about by rapid social, political,economic, and demographic changes. She wrote, “[p]arents’ dis-satisfaction with their children results largely from parents’ inabil-ity to keep pace with the changing world and their changingchildren” (p. 116).

Taken together, there is evidence to suggest that the changingpolitical, economic, and social context in a globalized worldevokes considerable anxieties and ambivalences among Chineseparents over how to parent. Indeed, the emerging literature onChinese parenting in contemporary China is a far cry from theunwavering ideology that Chua (2011) described in her book onparenting her 3rd generation Chinese American daughters the“Chinese way.” However, the extant literature on Chinese parent-ing is still largely dominated by studies that repeat old worldnotions of Chinese parenting and, furthermore, investigate theparenting of young children exclusively using a cross-culturalcomparative paradigm contrasting immigrant Chinese American

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62 WAY ET AL.

and European American parents or Chinese and American parents.Aside from Fong’s (2007a, 2007b) studies, we know very littleabout how Chinese mothers parent their adolescent children in thecontext of a rapidly changing social, political, and economicworld. In the present study, we examine the parenting ideologiesand practices of contemporary urban Chinese mothers drawingfrom the interviews of 24 mothers of junior high school-agedadolescents in Nanjing, China. Consistent with qualitative ap-proaches in cultural psychology (Hammack, 2008), our qualitativeanalysis of mothers’ interviews allows for a discovery of themutual constitution between the individual parenting goals andstrategies and the larger societal and cultural master narrativesabout cultivating successful, modern, and Chinese young adults.

Method

Participants and Setting

The data for these analyses were drawn from a longitudinalmixed-method study on parenting and child development in Nan-jing, China. In fall 2006, 710 families with Grade 7 children (355girls, 355 boys) from three public middle schools in Nanjingparticipated in the first wave of study. The mean ages of thestudents, mothers, and fathers in the first wave of the study were12.3 (SD ! 0.5), 38.8 (SD ! 3.2), and 41.7 (SD ! 4.2), respec-tively. The same families were followed when the students were in8th grade and again in 9th grade. Among them, 3 families fromeach 7th grade classroom, for a total of 60 families, were purpo-sively sampled by gender (30 boys and 30 girls) and invited to takepart in an interview component of the study. In-depth interviewswere conducted with 60 students and their mothers at 7th grade,with follow-up interviews conducted with a smaller subset offamilies in 9th grade.

For this analysis, we randomly selected a sample of 24 mothersamong the 60 mothers who participated in the qualitative study.We selected mothers from the entire qualitative sample for ouranalysis rather than simply from the longitudinal sample as wewanted to include a broader sample than only those who chose toremain in the study over time. Furthermore, we did not expectchange over time in mothers’ child-rearing goals and practicesover 2 years (7th to 9th grade) during middle school. The currentsample consisted of 13 girls and 11 boys in middle school withmean age of 12.8 (SD ! 1.0). The mothers selected from this studydid not appear to differ from the larger study sample, with themean age of 38.3 (SD ! 3.6; range 28–46) at the time of theinterviews. The majority (79.2%) of the mothers reported aneducational attainment of high school or less, whereas the rest(20.8%) held 2- or 4-year college degrees.

As the capital of Jiangsu Province in eastern China, the city ofNanjing is a medium-sized city with a population of over 6 millionin 2006. It was chosen for research because it is considered amodal urban city, neither a “first-tier” city that has experienceddramatically rapid economic reform and growth (e.g., Beijing,Shanghai) nor a rural city that has been slow to embrace social andeconomic development. It provides an ideal environment forstudying parenting beliefs and practices in the context of contem-porary urban China. The majority of the parents in our study grewup in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution and experiencedprofound social and economic changes in their adolescence and

adulthood, as China transitioned from a planned to a marketeconomy. Also important to note is the influence of the one-childpolicy on family planning in Nanjing. All children of families inthis sample were born after China’s one-child policy was intro-duced in 1979. As such, all but 2 of the 24 mothers interviewedwere speaking about their experiences raising their first and onlychild.

Grade 7 in Nanjing is equivalent to Grade 7 in the U.S. second-ary education system; Grades 7 through 9 are a part of the samemiddle school, entailing no school transitions. Although Grade 9 isthe final year of compulsory education in China, most students willattend senior high school (Grades 10 through 12), although somemay attend vocational and technical schools. In Nanjing, themiddle schools themselves are ranked with respect to levels ofachievement (high, middle, and low). Of the present sample of 24mothers, 29% (7) of the children attended the low-achievingschool, 42% (10) of the children attended the middle-achievingone, and 29% (7) of the children attended the high-achievingschool.

Procedure

Participants for the longitudinal study were initially recruited infall of 2006 from three different middle schools in Nanjing (low,middle, and high achieving). Consent forms were distributedthroughout the school and signed by students and parents whowere interested in participating. Families were reimbursed for thecost of the transportation to the research site.

At each wave of qualitative data collection, students and theirmothers each participated in in-depth semistructured interviews.Interviews with mothers included questions about their family’sdaily routine, mother’s views on her child’s characteristics,parent–child relationships, goals for child, child’s schooling andacademics, child’s friendship and gender socialization, and themother’s and father’s work. The interviews were conducted at theend of the spring semester in the 7th and 9th grade at a localuniversity. Interviews typically lasted between 90 and 120 min andwere conducted in Mandarin. The interviews were audiorecorded,transcribed verbatim in Chinese, and then translated into Englishby bilingual native Chinese speakers from mainland China andTaiwan. Names of the participants were substituted with pseud-onyms to protect their identity.

The data analysis consisted of conducting a content analysis ofthe interview data using narrative summaries as a way to condensethe amount of data for each participant (see Way, 2011). Narrativesummaries are intended to briefly characterize the responses ineach section of the protocol (e.g., parent–child relationship, child-rearing goals), while relying on direct quotes from the interview asmuch as possible to prevent inference leaps and inaccurate sum-maries of the data. Two data analysts created narrative summariesfor each topic in each of the interviews. The data analysts wereresearch assistants with extensive experience in China, with onehaving been born and raised in China and the other having been ateacher in Nanjing, China for 2 years. They were trained in thetechnique of narrative summaries by a senior researcher on theproject who has used this technique for over 2 decades and haslived and worked in China. The senior researcher read the narrativesummaries created by the research assistants to check for accuracyof the summaries. Following these steps, themes were then gen-

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63CHINESE MOTHERING

erated independently from the narrative summaries by the tworesearch assistants and two senior researchers on the project. Atheme had to be identified independently by at least three of thefour researchers for it to be considered a theme. Each of the themespresented in this article was identified independently by each ofthe four researchers. Although six of the mothers in the sample hadmore than one data point (7th and 9th grade data), we detected nothematic change over time. Thus, we collapsed the interviews foreach participant into one narrative summary. There were no dif-ferences in the themes detected between those who had longitudi-nal data and those who did not. Each of the themes detected in thecurrent analysis were evident in the 7th grade data for those whoonly had one data point and in the 7th and 9th grade data for thosewho had two data points.

Results

The Chinese mothers in our sample maintained a clear set ofsocial, emotional, and academic goals for their children. Motherswanted their children to be socially skilled, happy, healthy, auton-omous, and to attain good grades. Yet there was variation in theextent to which mothers valued these goals, with most mothersplacing equal or more emphasis on social and emotional goals thanon academic ones. Only two mothers in our study emphasizedacademic achievement above all other goals. Some mothers be-lieved that their children had achieved these social and emotionalgoals, whereas others worried about their children’s introversion orlack of friendships, their bad moods, their children’s dependenceand lack of assertiveness. With few exceptions, mothers believedthat if their children were not socially and emotionally adjusted,they would not thrive in school. Mothers also repeatedly under-scored the importance of fostering the autonomy of their child andnot forcing their children to do anything, as they believed that suchactions would backfire and make their children unhappy. Themothers discussed the challenges they faced in meeting theirparenting goals in a rapidly changing society in which their knowl-edge was perceived by both the mothers and the children to beoutdated and, thus, no longer valuable. They expressed frustrationthat they had little control over their adolescent children and, thus,parented in a permissive style with the hopes that such an approachwould lead to happier children and less conflict in the home.Mothers saw their parenting approaches as a direct response to achanging society where what it means to be a child as well as aparent has changed dramatically.

Raising Social Children

The mothers in our study spoke repeatedly about the need fortheir children to be able to communicate with others as well ashave good friendships. A mother in our study, Juan Li, said shewants her daughter to have “the capability to meet the demands ofsociety—to communicate with people, work with others, be toler-ant, and hold her own stance.” Zhongyu Guo, another mother, saidabout her son: “If he doesn’t talk at his job, it will be bad. Whenyou are looking for a job, the potential employer won’t appreciateyou. If you don’t talk, you won’t be hired.” Yenjia Liu spokefavorably about her child but is concerned about his shyness:

When hanging out with people, he is not actively engaged. If you aresomeone that he likes or if you have a common language with him, he

might be willing to talk, but a stranger, he is not good at dealing withthem . . . I think in this society, you have to learn how to communicatewith people. You have to get help from other people sometimes, right?. . . Because if you communicate well with people, they will help you.. . . Interpersonal communication is very important. . . It is somethingthat you cannot survive without in your life.

Twelve out of 24 mothers in our study indicated that they feltanxious about their children’s introversion, often attributing theirchildren’s struggles at school to their shyness. Trying to under-stand why her daughter gets bullied on a regular basis at school,Kenan Gong said:

I think [my daughter’s] introversion is not good. She should beplaying and making noise with other children. That would be good.Why does she sit there quietly? . . . In fact my daughter’s personalityis what I worry about the most. She is very introverted. I don’t knowhow to deal with it. I really don’t know how to solve it. In school,other children make noise together and play but she is always alone. . .What should I do? I feel she isn’t happy because she is always alone.Her teacher says so. Nobody plays with her. She has few friends, fewfriends, yes very few friends.

Kenan Gong’s anxiety is readily apparent as is her frustration inregard to how to help her daughter become less introverted.

Social skills, friendships, and mental health were intimatelylinked for the mothers in our study. One mother said, “friendshipshelp children relieve anxiety.” Lina Zhu said about her son:

If you do not make friends, you only know how to study and becomeclosed off from the outside world. You will not know how to com-municate with people. You will not know how to get along with them.Even when you grow up and learn technology, you cannot go any-where. . .. You have to learn to get along with people. Then they[children] will not be limited in their job in the future. They will notbe lost in how to talk to people.

Like the other mothers, Lina Zhu saw friendship as a route toparticular outcomes rather than being valuable in and of itself. Sheadded, “Friends are important because [it would help my child]develop in moral, intellectual, and physical ways and in an allaround way.” Friendships, according to the mothers, not only helptheir children communicate but also foster healthy development inmultiple domains.

Mothers of daughters, in particular, also spoke about wanting tobe friends with their daughters. Dai Wen said about herself and herdaughter: “There is nothing that we cannot talk about. Whether shewas happy or not, she would talk to me, about all happy andunhappy things.” Another mother said:

I said to her that “I hope you regard me as your friend. Whateverhappens, I hope you can talk to me. I was your age in the past. . . . Iknow how to deal with things and how to help you.” . . . I do not forcemy thoughts onto her. When we talk. . . she can speak her mind.

Yue Ma said that she wants a friendship with her daughter as well:“I feel she and I are able to get along with each other like friends.”Similarly, Juan Li said that she and her daughter are

just like friends. I told her, “you can consider your mom your friend.Just talk to me. I will not criticize you. I want to help you.” She cantalk to me about the thoughts and feelings in her heart. In this way Iunderstand my daughter better.

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64 WAY ET AL.

The emphasis for these mothers was on the emotional supportthat they offered to their daughters.

On occasion, but less frequently, mothers expressed a desire tobe friends with their sons as well. Yenjia Liu said,

I think we two are like friends. . . Sometimes we chat about every-thing. Sometimes we just lie there, chat, play tricks on his dad. I thinkit is harmonious. . . . I think it is good. At least when he comes backhome, I make him happy, it’s not an anxious atmosphere . . . I thinkthe communication between me and my child is pretty good. I mean,he asks me about almost everything.

The mothers in our sample, in sum, wanted their children tohave both social skills and friendships, as they believed that thesegoals were critical to the future success of their children. Mothersof daughters, furthermore, considered themselves to be, or wantedto be, friends with their children as a way to enhance the happinessof their children.

Raising Happy and Healthy Children

Across the interviews, mothers were first and foremost con-cerned about their children’s happiness and health. Mothers talkedextensively about being lenient, tempering their expectations, andproviding opportunities for autonomy with their children to ensuretheir health and happiness. Ming Li said, “I just think when my sonis healthy, we do not need to worry about his academics, when Isee his round and smiley face, I am very happy.” Another mother,Juan Li, said,

I am not that strict with my daughter. It is not possible for everybodyto get great grades. My daughter does not have the top grades [in herclass]. If she worked harder, she would be better. I just spoil my kid.Why work that hard everyday and make yourself exhausted? I believechildhood should be spent happily. So I let it be. . . I do not give herimpossible requirements.

Kenan Gong said the following about her daughter:

I don’t worry a lot about her studies. I think humans should be happy.I hope that she can be happy. She can grow up happily and be healthy.Regarding her studies, as long as she can keep up, that’s enough. Idon’t have very high requirements for her.

Even at points when mothers did not explicitly mention theirchildren’s happiness and health, they implicitly underscored suchgoals and described the strategies they used to ensure happiness.Primary among these strategies was allowing their children tomake their own career choices. Mothers reported that they wishedfor their children to find future careers that are stable, free ofexcessive stress, and well-matched with their children’s personal-ity and interests. Yenjia Liu considered her son’s preferences andinterests as crucial in deciding what career he pursues: “I think hewill do something with computers but I will let him decide. . . . Itshould be close to something that he likes and then it will be easyfor him to find a job in the future.” Even one of the most stringentand demanding of the mothers in our sample, Chun Huang, re-peated the theme of wanting her son to be happy and, thus,allowing him to make his own career choices: “He can becomewhatever he wants to be. He can do whatever he wants. We willsupport him. . . Even if he wants a blue-collar job that will be hisown business. We will not be able to stop him.” Mei Wang

expressed that, personally, she would like to see her daughterbecome a doctor, but she also wants her daughter to choose thecareer she is interested in because “if you ask her to do what sheis not interested in, she can never do it well and be respected. Ifyou are interested in it, you will do it well, then naturally you willbe respected.”

Wangmei Pan, a mother of a son, also linked happiness andhealth with autonomy when she said, “We only have one child. Ifhe is happy, we are happy. If he is not happy, we are not happy.We do not force him [to do things or make certain choices]. Hisdad does not force him either.” Ying Fang, a mother of a daughterwho has won many awards in various competitions, gave thefollowing as a reason why she does not force her daughter tocompete:

Mental health is important too. . . you have to face life with anoptimistic attitude. You cannot be defeated by difficulties. The key isto have a good mind to face it. My thought is as long as she is tryingher best, it is enough. As for grades, although I expect her to do wellin school, I feel sometimes you cannot treat it as the only measure forher. I think grades are important but characteristics and psychologicalconditions, sometimes, are even more important.

Fang repeated this theme in her interview the following year:

I believe all parents want their children to go to college, but if youcannot, you have to face reality. To go to college is not the only way.To be healthy physically and mentally is more important. You can beaccomplished in other ways. . .. I think the healthy growth of a childis more important than anything else. The key is to let her have a goodattitude and discipline her to be a human, then you can have hereducated as well. . . . Anyway, I believe as long as she tries her best,it is okay to me. I do not force her to meet my requirements.

Making her values explicit, Fang said what is important to her isher daughter’s “studies and her feelings. . .. Only when you arehappy to study, you can make it well. If we force her, or if shestudies passively, I think she cannot make progress.” A sentimentindicated by one mother but repeated by many mothers was:

I am relatively indulgent to my child. I let him do as he wishes. . . nomatter what he wants, I mainly satisfy him . . . Almost no matter whathe does, I satisfy him. That is to say, I let him do as he wishes, I don’trebuke him. . .. As long as he is willing to learn, he can do well.

Happiness, health, autonomy of choice, and success were inti-mately linked together for the mothers in our studies. Lina Zhusaid about her son: “I just wish him to have an expertise, to raisehimself, to be safe, and to have a smooth life.”

A common impediment to happiness and health, according tothe mothers, was the amount of academic pressure placed on theirchildren. Yue Ma worried about the amount of homework that isassigned to her daughter. “If she were a smart kid and she couldmanage her time well, I would not say anything to her teacher. Butright now, I feel she is too tired.” Zhouhui Shao expressed heranxiety about her son experiencing too much academic stress andthe potential consequences of such stress:

In the newspaper today, you hear about a kid who jumped off the topof a building to commit suicide, tomorrow another kid will killhimself. We are scared when we hear about a lot of them. So usuallywe are not tough on our son. We usually do not scold him if he isdoing okay.

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65CHINESE MOTHERING

Ming Li said,

Being too hard on yourself could sometimes turn out to be a bad thing.There are a lot of examples of this. Many kids jump off the tops ofbuildings and commit suicide. Why? They are expecting too much ofthemselves. They cannot bear failure. I do not like that either. I wisha person could be content with an ordinary life and have a good stateof mind. If you face life with a negative attitude, it is pointless nomatter how knowledgeable you are. . . I always tell my son. “Ifsomething is bothering you, just say it. As long as you are happy it isgood.”

Mothers were acutely aware of the dangers for their children oftoo much pressure or expectations that are too high and sought toprovide a more balanced home life with the hope that that wouldenhance their children’s happiness and health.

In response to their concerns about stressed-out children, moth-ers provided relaxation opportunities for their children. Lan Peng,who worried about her daughter being too tired, said, “I have heardfrom educational experts that when the child has been in class fora whole day, you should give her some time to rest. Otherwise, shewould feel tired. Rest can help her do homework better.” Herstrategy to help her daughter relax includes going on walks to-gether in the early evening. Another mother said,

At the very beginning I did not let him watch TV, but lately, we sawthat the pressure on him was increasing. We wanted to keep things asthey used to be. . . . It would not help him if we just put unnecessarylimitations on him. It would only add extra burdens on him.

Delicately attuning her parenting style to the needs of her son, thismother, like most of the mothers in our study, changes her prac-tices to keep up with what she believes her son needs. Wen Dai, amother of a daughter said, “Sometimes my daughter reads news-papers and books but her dad thinks she should read nothingexcept for textbooks. You can’t only read textbooks. . . .. You haveto let her catch her breath occasionally.”

Raising Autonomous Children

The theme of autonomy in the mothers’ narratives can bedivided into two subthemes. On the one hand, mothers encouragedtheir children to make their own choices, be assertive, take care ofthemselves, and think for themselves. The mothers believed thatsuch behavior is valuable in and of itself, and the mothers alsohoped that this strategy would enhance their children’s happinessand health. On the other hand, they also allowed their childrenautonomy through maintaining a “no-forcing policy” because theyfelt powerless to change their children’s behaviors. This lattertheme stemmed in large part from the macro-level changes occur-ring around them, which led them to feel insecure about theirauthority. The mothers relegated many of the daily decisions totheir children with the hopes that that would maintain peace in thehousehold. Below we discuss both subthemes under the primarytheme of raising children to be autonomous.

Fostering Autonomy. Mothers often spoke of encouragingtheir children to be autonomous. Lichun Tao, one of the mothers inour sample, said:

I: What do you think is good about your daughter? Something you areproud of?

M: She can take care of herself.

I: What do you mean?

M: She. . . no matter what it is, she can deal with it, and solve littlethings.

Like Lichun Tao, mothers heavily emphasized the importance oftheir sons and daughters being independent and able to takeinitiative. Chun Huang said, “I think I provide input less with mychild so he can have more input. If I input more, he will input less.”Lan Peng said:

I teach my daughter, “if you want something, you should ask someoneyourself.” For example, at the very start, you want ketchup in KFC. Ifyou want, you should ask people for it yourself. If you want me to askfor it, I won’t do it. I think that my daughter’s self-care ability is verystrong.

The value of taking initiative was also evident in the expressionof ideas. Lan Peng said:

My daughter has her own point of view. She is not following thecrowd. Now I don’t think a docile child is good—that kind of childwho does whatever you tell her to do. That kind of child, if you askher to go outside, she doesn’t have any opinions, she can’t make upany solution. She will tell you, “Oh my mother hasn’t told me aboutit” or “I will ask my mom about it at home.” Other people may behavelike this but my daughter won’t. . . . I know she knows her own mind.She makes up her mind, generally speaking, and you cannot dissuadeher.

Mothers wanted their children to be able to assert themselves,express what they believe, and take a leadership role in and out ofthe classroom. Ming Li said the following about her son:

He has to make the decision himself. I said, “It is your own life, youmake the decision and finish it yourself.” One day there was an issueand he called me. I said, “Actually you can solve it yourself. Why didyou have to call mom?” I even said, “You called me and I cannot bethere in a second. Couldn’t you solve the problem yourself?”

Mothers sought to enhance their children’s self-sufficiency byactively challenging their children to be more independent. Theybelieved that dependency would stifle their children’s ability tothrive in the future. Lina Zhu said the following about her son:

I think, as a mom, you should give the children freedom and respect,if it is appropriate. . . as long as he does not wander onto the wrongroad, it’s better to keep your hands off appropriately. Overdependencedoes not do any good to children. . .. Children have their own road totake. If we, as parents, design it for him, it would be a problem.

When Lina Zhu is asked about how her child has changed as hegrows up, she responded with pride in her voice: “He has becomemore independently aware. He has many more opinions of hisown.” Parents stressed, in particular, that their children ought tohave their own opinions. Juan Li said:

My daughter is not too dependent on me. She has her own thoughts.She can handle many things by herself. . . . She has her own opinions.She does not do what she is told. She makes decisions based on herown understanding of the situation.

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66 WAY ET AL.

The importance of independence and self-assertion was ex-pressed most frequently by those mothers who were poor orworking class and who did not believe they had the social con-nections or the finances to support their children in the future.Ming Li, who works as an administrator at a hospital said:

I said to my son that “we as parents do not have the capability toarrange everything well for you. You have to strive for it yourself,including the school you want to go to this time. . . If you want to relyon your parents, you are doomed to fail.”

For less well-connected and financially stable parents, indepen-dence was not simply a value, it was a necessity for survival. LinaZhu, who works as a cashier in a department store, said,

We do not make plans for him. . . We are just normal people, howcould we make any plans for him? We do not have a family enterpriseor something like that. . . . We parents do not have the power andinfluence to make any arrangements like someone else could. For anordinary family, you have to work hard, master some technology, andfight for your life on your own.

Zhuojun Ren, who sells medicine in a local pharmacy, also wantsher daughter to be “an independent people” and “not listen toothers on everything.” She believed that her daughter’s academicperformance and life will be “all depends on yourself,” and alsorepeated several times that she wants her to find a stable job so that“she can support herself and rely on herself.” Low-income mothersin particular were worried about their children’s future and be-lieved that their children’s autonomy would allow them moreopportunities to thrive.

Mothers used various strategies to achieve their goals of auton-omy. In addition to allowing their children to choose their owncareers, as described previously, mothers also gave their childrenthe freedom to decide when and how they wanted to study (e.g., tolisten to music while studying), to choose their own friends, toreturn home from school when they wanted, and to eat the type offood that they liked. These strategies were used not only toenhance their children’s happiness and health, as discussed previ-ously, but were also strategies to support the mothers’ goals ofraising children who are able to take care of themselves, have theirown opinions, and act independently. These qualities, the mothersbelieved, would lead to happy, healthy, and successful children.

Allowing for Autonomy. Mothers were also aware of thelimitations of autonomy for their children, especially when theirchildren’s thoughts and opinions conflicted with the mothers’ ownvalues and views. In these cases, mothers expressed a lack ofcontrol over their child and a self-doubt regarding their parentingstrategies. They questioned the effectiveness of allowing completeautonomy, yet they also felt, at times, that they had no choice butto allow their children to do as they pleased. Lina Zhu expressedconcern that “nowadays children have too many opinions. . . .Everybody insists on their own viewpoint and no one compro-mises.” Lan Peng said about parents in general: “On one hand weare hoping our own children will listen to us. On the other hand,we think [our children’s] independent character is pretty good,which might be useful in society.” Zhouhui Shao said, “I just feelthat since this semester (spring of 8th grade), he has becomeincreasingly hard to control. He is not like what he was in thepast. . .. Now he has his own thoughts. You cannot control him. If

you want to ask him to do something, you cannot be too demand-ing.” In her interview Lina Zhu said:

I told my husband, students have their own opinions. You cannotforce our opinions on our son. Therefore I let him watch TV when hewants. It is impossible for me to forbid him to watch because I do notlike it.

Jingwei Zhang said the following about her son:

I let him be himself. I do not want to put him in a bad mood.Otherwise, his grades will be affected. I ignore the trivial and do mybest to satisfy his needs in daily life. . . . I do not want to over controlhim. Too much pressure on him is meaningless. Nowadays if you donot let kids use the Internet at home, they go outside and do it.Anyway he has money so when he wants to use the Internet, I do notcontrol it too much.

As suggested by Jingwei Zhang, autonomy in the home is notnecessarily the preferred strategy but, at times, simply a reaction toseemingly stubborn children and a desire to maintain peace athome. Wangmei Pan said about her son: “If he wants to study, helearns. If he does not, it is pointless if you force him. Usually weleave it to him. We do not force him. It’s useless. He does notlisten to me.” Ying Fang said the following about her daughter:

You cannot try to control her and tell her that she was not allowed toread [a non academic book] at all. Of course, even if you do not allowit, she would still do it anyway, but you will have no ways to deal withher. Nowadays kids are just like that. I said, “If you really, really wantit, I will buy it for you.”

Notably, mothers commonly attributed this no-forcing policy tothe modern era where parents have little control over their chil-dren. Fang believed that a no-forcing policy is the proper way toraise children: “You cannot control kids in that rigid way. Aspeople say, No it won’t work. You cannot control them. Childrentoday are too thoughtful, too insightful.” Yenjia Liu said about herson,

To push him to the highest level that is possible is not realistic. It willbe like dragging out a sprout before it comes out. Maybe his brain canonly understand problems of this level of achievement. I am afraid itwill be inappropriate to push him to a higher level.

Yenjia Liu, like many mothers, wants to keep her expectations“realistic” and does not see the utility of forcing something thatmay not be possible. Ming Li said: “I understand that there is nouse in forcing him to do something that he is unwilling to do.”

Mothers also thought there would be negative consequences ifchildren were forced. Lan Peng said, “Because I think if shedoesn’t swim well and I force her to swim, she will do evenworse.” Mothers worried that if their children were not givenfreedom or were forced to engage in activities, the problem wouldonly increase. Thus, they allowed their children to make their owndecisions. Mothers maintained this belief even if it meant that theirchildren did not complete schooling. One mother said to her son,“If you really do not want to go to school, we will not force you.However, whatever you do, you have to do it well.”

Expressing much of the frustration of many mothers in ourstudy, Jingwei Zhang said:

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Sometimes kids really have their own will . . . you cannot force it. . . .Trying to force him only makes him unhappy and me unhappy as well.. . .My son will ignore you even when you talk to him. When helistens, he still argues with you. He does not follow what you say. It’snot like what it was in the past, he listened to everything you told him.Now, he does things according to his own will. Your talking to him ispointless. . . He has the final say for his own stuff.

The reasons why mothers chose a strategy of no forcing varied. Forsome mothers, especially those who were more economicallystable, not forcing their children was based on the belief that it wasa positive parenting strategy to get their children to behave inproper ways and to avoid conflict. For other mothers, many ofwhom were more overwhelmed with a challenging and stressfulwork life, a no-forcing policy was the result of not knowing whatelse to do and feeling like they have little or no choice in thematter. These latter parents often spoke about feeling inadequate asparents and struggling to do the right thing but being at a loss ofhow to deal with their willful children. They blamed it, at times, ona generation gap or on the “new” society that allowed children tohave much more freedom than they did as children.

The confusion mothers felt is described well by Wangmei Panwho described the difficulty she has with her son who will notlisten to her:

If we set our feet in, he thinks we are annoying. If we leave him alone,he becomes mad, too; I do not know what he is thinking. We reallyhave no idea what kids of today are thinking about.

The insecurity expressed by Pan was common among the mothersin our study. This insecurity stemmed from a changing context inwhich they believed that they lacked the knowledge necessary ofwhat was best for their children. One mother said, “Sometimes youdo not have a choice. You have to adapt to the situation.” Sixteenout of 24 mothers explicitly referred to societal changes in Chinaas a context for their own parenting dilemmas, with 12 mothersrepeatedly using phrases such as “today’s children” and “nowa-days” to emphasize their awareness of the changing mores. YingFang said about her daughter:

Now she has her own thoughts. If we make requirements on heraccording to our old way of thinking, of course, she won’t accept themeasily. . .. Now because the teachers teach them innovative ways ofthinking, I do not set my feet in as much. . . .When my daughter facessome problems, for example, a hard problem, we have no ways to helpher, no way at all. We can be of no help at all. I think other childrenhave their parents to teach them, but we cannot. I feel sorry for mychild.

Kenan Gong expressed the same type of frustration with herdaughter: “I can’t help her. The coming courses for her are beyondmy knowledge, I can’t help her really. I don’t understand. . . . I canonly find some tutoring for her. I cannot help her in other ways.”Another mother, Mei Wang, said, “Children are hard to educate.There are too many ways to educate children. Our ways may notbe suitable for contemporary children’s ways of thinking.”

The mothers’ narratives suggested a keen awareness that Chi-nese society has undergone enormous changes within one gener-ation and that today’s children face a very different future withrespect to the necessary social capital, work life, and familyobligations. The mothers recognized that their children should be

more autonomous and their educational paths required more tech-nical skills (e.g., computer, English language) than the previousgeneration, and they often expressed frustration either at their childor at the changing context that made it so hard for them to be morehelpful with their children. The mothers appeared to be trying theirbest to raise healthy, happy, independent, and academically suc-cessful children, but the ways to do that seemed, at times, entirelyunclear.

Discussion

Our analysis of the interviews of the Chinese mothers abouttheir young adolescent children revealed foremost the extent towhich contemporary urban Chinese mothers are concerned abouttheir adolescents’ happiness and mental health. Contrary to previ-ous depictions of Chinese parents as being concerned primarilywith academic achievement (Chua, 2011; Fong, 2007b), the moth-ers in our study expressed broader range of beliefs about qualitiesimportant for their children. Mothers cited social skills and com-munication skills as critical to the children’s ability not only tomake friends but also to succeed in gaining future employment inthe market economy. Consistent with the documented change overtime in China on shyness as a now-devalued personal quality(Chen & Chen, 2010), Nanjing mothers of seemingly shy childrenwere especially worried about their children’s mental health.

Many mothers expressed a desire for a friendship-like intimacywith their children, particularly with their daughters, and thisdesire appeared to be closely tied to their belief that an adolescentmust be able to talk openly about his or her emotions (“happy andunhappy things”). However, the mothers’ desire for the type ofclose relationship in which their children could talk to them aboutanything was moderated by the reality of parenting moody ado-lescents who were perceived to be under considerable academicstress. On the one hand, the mothers wished to have their adoles-cents feel free to talk about their emotions, yet they also felt thatpushing for more openness and trying to initiate conversations mayalienate their children. Notably absent was any mention of the useof shaming to shape their children’s character or behavior. In fact,mothers stressed that criticizing would not only be ineffective, butalso potentially damaging to their children.

The majority of the mothers reported a large degree of permis-siveness in their parenting style, with only a small minority ofmothers expressing that they set strict limits on their children andstick to the rules. Some mothers articulated their permissive par-enting practices and “not forcing” their children through the ide-ology of individual freedom and autonomy. However, other moth-ers’ permissive parenting practices appeared to be borne out of notonly a concern for their children’s well-being (i.e., a belief thatupsetting a child by enforcing a rule would result in negativeoutcomes) but also their desire to avoid conflictual relationshipswith their only children. This finding seems consistent with arecent longitudinal survey study with junior high school studentsand their mothers in mainland China (Shuster, Li, & Shi, 2012),which found that the mothers who reported valuing social andinterpersonal harmony were also likely to refrain from usingpsychological control with their children. Yet, notwithstanding thereports that permissive parenting in China is generally on the risepossibly due to the one-child policy (Chen, Liu, & Li, 2000), wedetected frustration at the perceived necessity of such lax parenting

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68 WAY ET AL.

styles. Many of the mothers expressed that “there is no use” intrying to enforce rules about studying, daily routine, or otheractivities because their children would not listen.

These descriptions of tensions surrounding parental authorityand defiant adolescents certainly echo familiar dynamics of par-enting adolescents. However, what may be unique to China are theattributions that these mothers make to their sense of low parentingefficacy. With the rapid modernization and cultural change withina generation, the majority of the mothers in this study weresubstantially less educated than their children’s academic trajec-tory. Many mothers repeatedly used the phrase “nowadays” tosignify their awe (and sometimes dismay) at the changes in thesocietal mores since they themselves were children. Not only didthe children call their parenting “outdated”, but many mothersthemselves felt “outdated” in their knowledge about the world.

Our findings are consistent with recent ethnographic and soci-ological portraits of urban Chinese families (Anagnost, 2008;Crabb, 2010; Fong, 2007a, 2007b), which all point to considerableparental anxieties about raising their children in a societal contextstrikingly different from those of their own upbringing. In herethnographic study of upwardly mobile Beijing families’ educa-tional strategies for their middle-schoolchildren, Crabb (2010)reported that teachers and parents frequently complained of an“unhealthy” level of academic focus in children, yet also commu-nicated resigned acceptance of this fact, with the phrase“meibanfa” (or “there’s no [other] way”; p. 392).

That we found the mothers to be concerned with their children’soverall wellbeing and happiness and not singularly focused onacademics may be due to a few different factors. First, our studyused an in-depth interview on wide-ranging topics concerningfamily and work life, which allowed for prevailing issues ofconcern to be expressed by the mothers. Second, our study did notuse a comparative design in which Chinese parenting was con-trasted with Western parenting, thus, allowing room for the morenuanced and contextualized portrait of Chinese mothers’ parentingdilemmas to emerge. Third, the mothers appeared keenly aware ofthe risks of poor psychological health among contemporary urbanChinese youth, as multiple parents referred to the news of adoles-cent suicides. As Fong (2007a) suggested, the singleton status ofthe children may have heightened the mothers’ sensitivities to theirchildren’s happiness, resulting in parenting strategies that wereaccommodating to the children’s moods and wishes in ways thatwere previously not considered within a traditional Confucianfamily structure. And finally, Nanjing—while a large metropolisby many standards with a population of over 6 million—is stillconsidered a second-tier city with respect to population size andcity economy scale. As such, competition for the most elite aca-demic credentials and cosmopolitan strivings seen in the researchin first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai may not be quite asfierce in Nanjing. The findings must be interpreted with the par-ticular contexts of the study.

Our study points to the enormous challenges facing urban Chi-nese mothers who face an uncertain future in a rapidly globalizingworld. The data suggest that mothers in urban China are raisingtheir adolescent children without a sure roadmap. Notably, observ-ers have noted that Amy Chua herself is not parenting in contem-porary China, as she is an American-born daughter of ethnicChinese immigrant parents from the Philippines, married to anAmerican Jewish partner and raising their daughters in the United

States (Guo, 2011; Jen, 2011; Kohler, Aldridge, Christensen, &Kilgo, 2012). Guo (2011) noted that Chua—not having grown upin contemporary China—holds an image of Chinese culture that is“very old.” Jen (2011) also suggested that Chua’s particular familybackground as an elite ethnic minority in both the Philippines andthe United States who faced hostility and discrimination shapedChua’s notion of Chinese culture. Thus, Chua’s parenting, too, canbe said to be a product of the particularities of her family’s timeand place within a global context; yet her notions of the Chineseway of parenting would be viewed as “outdated” according tocontemporary Chinese mothers.

This study has some important implications for scholars andpractitioners who work with immigrant Chinese American familiesin the United States. First, as our findings suggest, the meaningsattached to “Chinese” parenting ideologies and practices can varygreatly between contemporary urban Chinese families and latergeneration Chinese American families in contradictory ways. Forexample, American-born Asians may hold fast to their parents’ andtheir grandparents’ notion of their heritage culture from bygoneeras, whereas more recently immigrated Asians may hold attitudesand values shaped by their nations’ recent global and cosmopolitanstriving. Scholars and practitioners should conduct a careful as-sessment of individuals and families with respect to their culturalpositions rather than to assume that the recency of immigration isassociated with the degree to which Asian Americans hold “Asian”ideologies and practices about family, children, and schooling.Second, it is critical to acknowledge that happiness and well-beingare of salient importance to urban Chinese mothers in raising theirchildren—a finding born out of a qualitative, discovery-orientedstudy. It would be of keen interest to scholars and practitioners touncover as well the parenting goals and practices of Chinesefathers as well as Chinese American and Asian American parents.

Our findings suggest that that parenting ideologies and practicesare intimately shaped by the particular societal and economiccontexts of the time and place. Nevertheless, as suggested by theemerging pluralist-constructivist perspective of human develop-ment (Chen, 2012), the challenges and stresses of parents’ adapt-ing to rapidly globalized cosmopolitan society are accompanied bynew opportunities for young people to develop new sets of qual-ities and skills that would enable them to not only function flexiblyand effectively in changing contexts but also to create new cul-tures. What Amy Chua, a second generation Chinese Americanmother in the United States, and the urban Chinese mothers in ourstudy have in common is that they are all parenting their childrenin a rapidly changing societal context, looking (or not looking) toculture as guideposts for the uncertain future.

References

Anagnost, A. (2008). Imagining global futures in China: The child as a signof value. In J. Cole & D. Durham (Eds.), Figuring the future: Global-ization and the temporalities of children and youth (pp. 49–72). SantaFe, NM: School for Advanced Research Press.

Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parentingstyle: Understanding Chinese parenting through the cultural notion oftraining. Child Development, 65, 1111–1119. doi:10.2307/1131308

Chen, X. (2012). Human development in the context of social change:Introduction. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 321–325.

Chen, X., & Chen, H. (2010). Children’s socioemotional functioning and

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adjustment in the changing Chinese society. In R. K. Silbereisen & X.Chen (Eds.), Social change and human development: Concepts andresults (pp. 209 –226). London, England: Sage. doi:10.4135/9781446252161.n10

Chen, X., Hastings, P. D., Rubin, K. H., Chen, H., Cen, G., & Stewart, S. L.(1998). Child-rearing attitudes and behavioral inhibition in Chinese andCanadian toddlers: A cross-cultural study. Developmental Psychology,34, 677–686. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.34.4.677

Chen, X., Liu, M., & Li, D. (2000). Parental warmth, control, and indul-gence and their relations to adjustment in Chinese children: A longitu-dinal study. Journal of Family Psychology, 14, 401–419. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.14.3.401

Chua, A. (2011). Battle hymn of the tiger mother. New York, NY: PenguinPress.

Crabb, M. W. (2010). Governing the middle-class family in urban China:Educational reform and questions of choice. Economy & Society, 39,385–402. doi:10.1080/03085147.2010.486216

Fong, V. L. (2007a). Morality, cosmopolitanism, or academic attainment?Discourses on “quality” and urban Chinese-only-children’s claims toideal personhood. City & Society, 19, 86–113. doi:10.1525/city.2007.19.1.86

Fong, V. L. (2007b). Parent-child communication problems and the per-ceived inadequacies of Chinese only children. Ethos, 35, 85–127. doi:10.1525/eth.2007.35.1.85

Guo, K. (2011). Pondering the “Tiger Mother”: Parenting in changingcultural contexts. Early Education, 49, 25–28.

Hammack, P. L. (2008). Narratives and the cultural psychology of identity.Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12, 222–247. doi:10.1177/1088868308316892

Jen, G. (2011, February 17). Mother superior: How Chinese is the “Chinesemother”? The New Republic, 6–7.

Kipnis, A. (2006). Suzhi: A keyword approach. The China Quarterly, 186,295–313. doi:10.1017/S0305741006000166

Kohler, M., Aldridge, J., Christensen, L. M., & Kilgo, J. (2012). Tigermoms: Five questions that need to be answered. Childhood Education,88, 52–53. doi:10.1080/00094056.2012.643724

Lieber, E., Fung, H., & Leung, P. W.-L. (2006). Chinese child-rearingbeliefs: Key dimensions and contributions to the development of culture-appropriate assessment. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 9, 140–147. doi:10.1111/j.1467-839X.2006.00191.x

Shuster, M. M., Li, Y., & Shi, J. (2012). Maternal cultural values andparenting practices: Longitudinal associations with Chinese adolescents’aggression. Journal of Adolescence, 35, 345–355. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.08.006

Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2009). The narcissism epidemic:Living in the age of entitlement. New York, NY: Free Press.

Way, N. (2011). Deep secrets: Boys’ friendships and the crisis of connec-tion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674061361

Woronov, T. E. (2007). Chinese children, American education: Globalizingchild rearing in contemporary China. In J. Cole & D. Durham (Eds.),Generations and globalization: Youth, age, and family in the new worldeconomy (pp. 29–51). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Yoshikawa, H., Way, N., & Chen, X. (2012). Large-scale economic changeand youth development: The case of urban China. New Directions inYouth Development, 135, 39–55. doi:10.1002/yd.20027

Received June 18, 2012Revision received September 4, 2012

Accepted September 7, 2012 !

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COMMENTARY

On Better Footing to Understand Parenting and Family Process in AsianAmerican Families

Anna S. LauUniversity of California, Los Angeles

Joey FungFuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California

Amy Chua’s now notorious Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother(2011) was not a scholarly treatise on the empirically tested meritsof Chinese versus European American parenting traditions. Theadvance publicity for the memoir drew national and internationalattention to parenting in Chinese and Asian American families.The public reaction to Chua’s description of her methods of“Chinese” mothering drew vehement criticism both from main-stream media and from ethnic studies scholars. The former decriedthe use of strict parenting practices seen as promoting achievementat the costs of child self-esteem and emotional well-being; thelatter abhorred the promotion of stereotypical model minorityimages of Chinese American families. Both camps objected toChua’s claims about the merits of so-called Chinese parenting,based on her family experience rather than rigorous research. Yet,her memoir has achieved the effect of organizing a new andvaluable nexus of research centered on this topic. The articlesincluded in the current issue represent a collection of articles thathelps us advance our understanding of Chinese and Asian Amer-ican parenting.

Chua’s proclamation of the merits of tiger mothering was metwith two strands of outrage. First, there was objection to thestereotypic depiction of Chinese parenting as harsh and relent-lessly demanding. Second, there were wrenching testimonials ofAsian Americans who suffered personal distress in the wake ofbeing parented in this very manner. Frank Chi (2011) spelled outboth objections, decrying Chua’s perpetuation of stereotypes andher glorification of shared childhood traumas of Asian Americans.On the face of it, these two grievances are somewhat at odds witheach other. Does Chau’s characterization reflect a false general-ization about cultural differences in parenting? Or are these dif-ferences observable at the aggregate level and have they harmedAsian American children collectively? This commentary integrates

the original research in this special issue to deconstruct threeclaims that Chua makes in the Battle Hymn: (a) compared withEuropean American parents, Asian-origin parents favor tiger par-enting marked by harsh control and emphasize achievement overemotional and social developmental outcomes, (b) differences inparenting between European American and Asian American par-enting are attributable to culturally shaped values, and (c) tigerparenting results in high levels of achievement and well-being.

Cultural/Ethnic Differences in Parenting

The first and most straightforward of Chua claims asserts a maineffect of culture or ethnicity such that, compared with Westernmothers, Chinese mothers place greater emphasis on children’sachievement rather than social adjustments and positive parent–child relations. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods,researchers in this special edition debunked widely held stereo-types of Chinese (American) families and the ways in whichparents exert control and discipline. Cheah, Leung, and Zhou (thisissue, pp. 30–40) discussed the acute awareness of first generationChinese immigrant mothers in understanding the nuanced differ-ences in American and Chinese contexts for parenting. Cheah, etal.’s respondents described the respective strengths of each ap-proach and highlighted aspects of Western parenting they admireand appreciate. For example, while mothers stated that they gen-erally prefer strict discipline to enforce children’s compliance, theyreported valuing the use of praise and encouragement in buildingconfidence and fostering children’s social development. Contraryto Chua’s claim that Chinese mothers tend to focus exclusively onchildren’s scholarly achievement, a majority of immigrant Chineseexpressed dismay at a perceived overemphasis on childhood aca-demic success. Most mothers discussed holistic attention to thechildren’s social, moral, and personality development.

Such findings echo narratives from Way et al.’s (this issue, pp.61–70) study of Chinese mothers of middle schoolers in Nanjing.While all mothers believed in the importance of academic suc-cess, they all placed equal if not greater emphasis in raisingchildren to be socially skilled, happy, healthy, and autonomous.Mothers were acutely aware of the amount of pressure placedon their children and some disapproved of the amount ofhomework assigned. The mothers spoke about the need for theirchildren to have good communication skills, demonstrate inde-pendence, take initiative, and assume leadership. Motherswished to be intimate friends with their children rather than

Anna S. Lau, Department of Psychology, University of California, LosAngeles; Joey Fung, School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary,Pasadena, California.

Preparation of this article was supported by grants from the UCLA AsianAmerican Studies Center, the Patrick and Lily Okura Foundation for AsianPacific American Mental Health, and the Foundation for PsychoculturalResearch (FPR)—UCLA Center for Culture Brain and Development.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anna S.Lau, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles,Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563. E-mail: [email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 71–75 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0032120

71

merely authority figures and strived to give their children thefreedom to make decisions about activities, prioritizing chil-dren’s personal happiness over success. The theme of motherand child as friends also emerged in the narratives from Lam-born, Nguyen, and Bocanegra’s (this issue, pp. 50 – 60) study ofHmong American adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers.Most Hmong adolescents described feeling loved and acceptedby their mothers, some even naming their mothers as their bestfriends. Furthermore, contrary to notions of tiger parenting thatis primarily hierarchical in nature, most Hmong adolescentsdescribed being able to talk candidly about problems with theirmothers who were a major source of emotional support.

Emic descriptions of family socialization processes havemoved the field forward in understanding parenting in a waythat avoids the pitfalls of the comparative, superior-inferiorlens. Choi, Kim, Kim and Park (this issue, pp. 19 –29) describedan indigenous parenting construct, ga-jung-kyo-yuk (family so-cialization and processes) to capture family processes that arespecific to Korean American families. Their description ofga-jung-kyo-yuk yields a more nuanced and detailed under-standing of one variant of Asian American parenting that in-volves directive control (e.g., emphasis on family hierarchy,demonstration of respect for and the use of appropriate etiquettewith parents and the elderly and family obligations) as well asreasoning, warmth, and a close parent– child bond. Indeed,endorsement of ga-jung-kyo-yuk was found to be positivelyassociated with both the Western concepts of authoritative andauthoritarian styles, suggesting that Korean American parentsare likely establishing bicultural parenting in which they retaintraditional cultural practices that serve families well in the localcontext while adopting certain more American-identified prac-tices and values that promote family adaptation.

Perhaps most to the point of the question of whether the monikerof tiger parenting applies to Chinese American parents is Kim,Wang, Orozco-Lapray, Shen, and Murtuza’s (this issue, pp. 7–18)novel study leveraging the utility of latent class analysis forempirically laying out a typology of Chinese American parenting.To assess parenting profiles using an expanded model of parentingdimensions that may better reflect the parenting practices of asample of Chinese Americans, Kim et al. identified four parentingprofiles in Chinese American families based on multiple positive(warmth, reasoning, monitoring, and democratic parenting) andnegative (hostility, control, shaming, and punitive parenting) par-enting dimensions. Contrary to the common perception, tiger par-enting (high positive and high negative) was not the most typicalparenting profile in Chinese American families, regardless ofinformant. Supportive parenting profile (high positive and lownegative), on the other hand, was the largest group, constituting ahalf or more of the parents sampled.

The studies collectively suggest that Asian parenting is muchmore dynamic and multifaceted than suggested by the tigermother brand. Parents of Asian descent in America and in Asiaappear to be constantly negotiating and balancing emphasesfrom both East Asian heritage cultures and migration and glo-balization influences. Data also suggest that most Asian parentsappear to have relinquished certain domains or types of control,seeking to cultivate emotional closeness with their children andfoster their independence and autonomy in contexts that increasinglydemand individuation and self-expression. While most parents con-

tinue to express a desire for their children to succeed academically,they are often aware and vigilant of the negative emotional conse-quences that are associated with academic pressure and thus refrainfrom exacerbating these demands. As such, a concern about theiracademic or career future is often balanced (or at times substituted) bya concern for personal happiness and well-being.

Attributions of Cultural/Ethnic Differences inParenting

A second related assertion made by Chua is that differencesbetween Chinese American families and European American fam-ilies are attributable to something about culture or culturallyshaped personal values. Indeed, Chua locates the origin of herreliance on tiger mothering in her Chinese ancestry and associatedcultural practices and values. Yet, she also acknowledges thatanyone can be a Chinese mother (e.g., a Ghanaian father), and thatsome ethnically Chinese mothers (usually born in the West) do notengage in Chinese mothering, by choice or otherwise. May-LeeChai (2011), for one, argued that Chua’s perspective is grosslyessentialist, ignoring how the extremes in child rearing recountedare related more to class privilege than ethnicity or culture. Forexample, Chua’s investments in her daughters’ success are af-forded by human and financial capital enabling such driven devo-tion to child achievement. Thus, Chua’s assertion of tiger parent-ing as a product of static cultural mores fails to take into accountthe power of broad ecological, economic, and social conditionsthat shape what is important in the everyday world of families thatdrives choices and habits in parenting.

To this point, Chua’s categorization of Chinese parenting fails totake into account the context of rapid societal changes in Chinathat holds important implications for parenting ideology and prac-tices. Child rearing practices as well as the level of parentalsupport and investment are largely impacted by resources associ-ated with social context and class. Chua’s family assets, classprivilege, and high income allow her to invest in her daughters’schooling and academic success in ways that most Chinese fami-lies cannot. Indeed, there are important differences among familieswithin the Chinese diaspora that can be understood withinpopulation-level changes in social and economic societal contexts,and individual-level transitions in the social and economic prior-ities of families. Greenfield (2009) has articulated how changingsociodemographic ecologies alter cultural values and the resultantsocialization and development of children. Globally, developingsocieties show increased movement from rural residence, informaleducation at home, subsistence economy, and low-technology en-vironments to urban residence, formal schooling, commerce, andhigh-technology environments. These societal developments to-ward urbanization tend to shift cultural values in an individualisticdirection and developmental pathways toward more independentsocial behavior and values. To that end, contemporary Chineseparents have had to contend with an expanded repertoire of desir-able characteristics to cultivate in their children.

Indeed, evidence suggests that cultural ideologies and parentingare changing rapidly in mainland China as a reflection of the rapidsocietal changes in China over the past three decades. From Cheah,et al.’s (this issue) qualitative interviews, Chinese immigrantmothers described that while academic attainment is important,they became more flexible and relaxed when they realized that the

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72 LAU AND FUNG

larger academic environment is not as competitive in the UnitedStates as it was for them in mainland China. With the realizationthat there are multiple pathways to success, mothers are in factmore open to having their children choose their future academicpaths or develop their own interests even when they are differentfrom the parents’ expectations. Furthermore, narratives from Wayet al.’s (this issue) study of Nanjing mothers also highlight that,attributable in part to publicly salient negative outcomes associatedwith academic pressure (e.g., the news of adolescent suicides),mothers are now resisting the high academic pressure in China andseeking to provide a more balanced home life with the goal ofraising children to be socially and emotionally well-adjusted. Thisis in line with cultural studies that suggest that child shyness-sensitivity, which once was an indicator of peer acceptance andmaturity in China (Chen, Rubin, & Sun, 1992), may have becomeincreasingly unsuitable for the demands of the changing society.There appears to be a shift to qualities such as independence,assertion, and self-confidence as valued socialization goals in thenew social environment (Chen, Cen, Li, & He 2005).

Likewise, the studies by Lamborn, et al. (this issue) and Suppleand Cavanaugh (this issue, pp. 41–49) of Hmong American ado-lescents highlight the historic context in which Hmong immigrantfamilies were situated. Because of the military conflict in Vietnam,first generation Hmong families who migrated to the United Statesfaced a great deal of social and economic hardships as most ofthem came as refugees either directly from traumatic experiencesor after years in refugee camps. The unique contextual demandsand challenges placed upon immigrant parents often result in theirdesire to advance the family so that the children could attaineconomic and educational mobility, which then leads to the use ofstricter discipline and higher levels of parental control. Muchearlier, Sue and Okazaki (1990) discussed the concept of relativefunctionalism promoting academic achievement as the single at-tainable avenue for socioeconomic advancement among AsianAmerican groups in the 1970s and 1980s. When the early post-1965 generations of Asian Americans migrated to the UnitedStates, Asian American youth may have been steered towardhigher education for upward mobility because other avenues to-ward advancement were largely blocked to them. However, latergeneration parents having attained greater social capital may mod-ify such a single avenue plan as the landscape of opportunity andneeds for survival and advancement are perceived to change in thelarger societal structure. As such, with reduced stress to gainupward social mobility, parents may relinquish some control andgrant greater autonomy to their children.

Beyond the larger socioeconomic and political contexts in un-derstanding parenting behaviors, Kim et al.’s (this issue) studyhighlights the importance of examining parenting behaviors in thecontext of development across adolescence. In her three-wavelongitudinal study spanning 8 years, Kim et al. showed that par-enting styles evolve within Chinese American families. The pro-portion of so-called tiger mothers decreases across waves andvirtually disappears when offspring reach young adulthood, whenparents relinquish control. While previous studies have shown thatautonomy timetables are delayed among Chinese families com-pared with European Americans (e.g., Stewart, Bond, Deeds, &Chung, 1999), Kim et al.’s findings reaffirm that the expecteddevelopmental endpoint of offspring autonomy is shared amongChinese American families.

Developmental Correlates of Parental Control

The third claim asserted in Chua’s Battle Hymn is that strictChinese parenting results in high levels of achievement and self-efficacy among children. She argues that the tiger mothers’ impo-sition of relentlessly high expectations for achievement is rooted inthe fundamental belief in the ability and resilience of her children.While most would characterize the punitive nature of certain ofChua’s methods as detrimental to children, there is a healthydebate about whether the effects of parental control vary accordingto the larger social and cultural context in which it occurs (Pomer-antz, Ng, & Wang, 2008). This body of research examines howparental control dimensions relate to other aspects of family ad-justment, as well as child academic and emotional development. Interms of family adjustment, Choi et al. (this issue) found thatcertain aspects of ga-jung-kyo-yuk (Korean parental virtues andenculturation of familistic values) were positively associated withpositive parenting dimensions (warmth, acceptance, monitoringand communication) and were not significantly associated withharsh parenting (rejection and negative discipline). This findingharkens other research demonstrating that indigenous East Asianforms of parental behavioral and psychological control are asso-ciated with family affective climate among Asian families in waysnot observed among European American families (e.g., Chao &Aque, 2009; Fung & Lau, 2012). Supple and Cavanaugh (thisissue) also found that parental behavioral control in the form ofclose monitoring buffered the negative emotional correlates offamily cultural conflict among Hmong American adolescents. Inthese respects, data from the special issue suggest some support fora cultural relativism in the associations between parental controlstrategies and family relational climate for Asian American ado-lescents.

Yet, the forms of parental control that appear most ameliorativefor youth functioning do not resemble the extreme demanding andshaming tactics described in the Battle Hymn. For example, Way,et al. (this issue) and Cheah, et al.’s (this issue) qualitative datafrom Chinese mothers reveal beliefs that the use of praise andencouragement helps foster child self-confidence and curiosity,which ultimately promote achievement. Furthermore, most moth-ers interviewed by Cheah, Leung, and Zhou believed that usingupward social comparisons creates pressure which is unproductivewhereas pointing out children’s strengths and offering encourage-ment bolsters the confidence needed to persist. Way, et al. notedthat none of the mothers in her sample reported using shaming toshape their children’s character or behavior. In fact, some mothersstressed that criticizing their children would not only be ineffectivebut also potentially damaging.

Two quantitative studies that link data on parental control toyouth outcomes support the wisdom of these maternal beliefs.Supple and Cavanaugh (this issue) found that parental monitoringand support were positively associated with achievement motiva-tion and self-esteem among Hmong adolescents. Moreover, Kim etal. (this issue) found that a supportive parenting profile (highpositive and low negative), which was most common, was asso-ciated with the best developmental outcomes, followed by easy-going parenting (low on positive and negative), tiger parenting(high on positive and negative), and harsh parenting (low onpositive and high on negative). Contrary to what Chua suggested,tiger parenting did not result in better educational attainment;

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73PARENTING AND FAMILY PROCESS

rather, it was associated with lower GPA and levels of perceivedpressure that was as high as that associated with harsh parenting.Furthermore, tiger parenting was associated with lower sense offamily obligation and higher levels of depressive symptoms andalienation. Contrary to the notion of an achievement/adjustmentparadox in which Asian American youth may demonstrate highlevels of educational attainment, but poorer emotional adjustment(Qin, 2008), Kim et al. found achievement and adjustment wenthand in hand. Regardless of the parenting profile, academicachievement was always associated with emotional wellness;whereas low academic achievement was associated with low levelsof adjustments. These prospective findings provide strong evi-dence refuting Chua’s claims that restriction of autonomy andhostile control promote achievement and adjustment.

Chua acknowledges that all decent parents want to do what isbest for their children, but have vastly different ideas about whatis best. She argues that tiger parenting is rooted in her faith that herchildren can rise to challenge. In the face of subpar performancethe solution is to ‘excoriate, punish, shame’ and then pursuesupplemental study/practice until performance meets standards. Incontrast, Chua criticizes Western parents as being too anxiousabout their children’s self-esteem so that they “constantly try toreassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding amediocre performance” (p. 52). She argues that, “there’s nothingbetter for building confidence than learning something you thoughtyou couldn’t” (p. 62). Instead, she sees Western parents as respect-ing their children’s individuality and providing positive reinforce-ment as children pursue activities, suited to their talents andinterests. As with the rest of Chua’s claims, aspects of this mantrahold water empirically. From Hong, Chiu, Dweck, Lin, and Wan’s(1999) seminal work, we know that instilling an incremental viewof intelligence or ability promotes child persistence and achieve-ment, which can indeed grow a sense of self-efficacy. Likewise,there is support for the notion that Asian and Asian Americanparents endorse greater mean levels of parental behavioral andpsychological control than European American parents (Kelley &Tseng, 1992; Wu et al., 2002). And indeed, there is some datasuggesting cultural variation in the associations between parentalcontrol and child developmental outcomes (Kornadt, 1991; Olsenet al., 2002). Yet the trouble with the tiger mother portrait is thatit takes sound tenets regarding motivation and the importance ofcultural context to the extreme resulting in reductio ad absurdum,which can have the unfortunate effect of leading people to rejectotherwise important principles of cultural relativism and diversity.The excellent data provided in this special issue bring us back onsound footing to better understand Asian and Asian Americanfamily process.

References

Chai, M. L. (2011). Mother tiger trope masks class privilege. Retrievedfrom http://mayleechai.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/mother-tiger-trope-masks-class-privilege/

Chao, R. K., & Aque, C. (2009). Interpretations of parental control byAsian immigrant and European American youth. Journal of FamilyPsychology, 23, 342–354. doi:10.1037/a0015828

Cheah, S. L., Leung, C. Y. Y., & Zhou, N. (2013). Understanding “TigerParenting” through the perceptions of Chinese immigrant mothers: CanChinese and U. S. parenting coexist? Asian American Journal of Psy-chology, 4, 30–40.

Chen, X., Cen, G., Li, D., & He, Y. (2005). Social functioning andadjustment in Chinese children: The imprint of historical time. ChildDevelopment, 76, 182–195. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2005.00838.x

Chen, X., Rubin, K. H., & Sun, Y. (1992). Social reputation and peerrelationships in Chinese and Canadian children: A cross-cultural study.Child Development, 63, 1336–1343. doi:10.2307/1131559

Chi, F. (2011). Amy Chua: Manipulating childhood trauma and Asian-American stereotypes to sell a book. Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/blogs/the_angle/2011/01/amy_chua_manipu.html

Choi, Y., Kim, Y. S., Kim, S. Y., & Park, I. J. K. (2013). Is AsianAmerican parenting controlling and harsh? Empirical testing of relation-ships between Korean American and Western parenting measures. AsianAmerican Journal of Psychology, 4, 19–29.

Chua, A. (2011). Battle hymn of the tiger mother. New York, NY: PenguinBooks.

Fung, J., & Lau, A. S. (2012). Tough love or hostile domination? Psycho-logical control and relational induction in cultural context. Journal ofFamily Psychology, 26, 966–975. doi:10.1037/a0030457

Greenfield, P. M. (2009). Linking social change and developmentalchange: Shifting pathways of human development. Developmental Psy-chology, 45, 401–418. doi:10.1037/a0014726

Hong, Y. Y., Chiu, C. Y., Dweck, C. S., Lin, D. M. S., & Wan, W. (1999).Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 588–599. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.3.588

Kelley, M. L., & Tseng, H. M. (1992). Cultural differences in child rearing:A comparison of immigrant Chinese and Caucasian American mothers.Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 23, 444 – 455. doi:10.1177/0022022192234002

Kim, S. Y., Wang, Y., Orozco-Lapray, D., Shen, Y., & Murtuza, M.(2013). Does “Tiger Parenting” exist? Parenting profiles of ChineseAmericans and adolescent developmental outcomes. Asian AmericanJournal of Psychology, 4, 7–18.

Lamborn, S. D., Nguyen, J., & Bocanegra, J. O. (2013). Hmong Americanadolescents’ perceptions of mothers’ parenting practices: Support, au-thority, and intergenerational agreement. Asian American Journal ofPsychology, 4, 50–60.

Kornadt, H. J. (1991). Aggressive motive and its developmental conditionsin Eastern and Western cultures. In N. Bleichrodt & J. D. Pieter (Eds.),Contemporary issues in cross-cultural psychology (pp. 155–167). Am-sterdam, the Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger.

Olsen, S. F., Yang, C., Hart, C. H., Robinson, C. C., Wu, P., Nelson, D. A.,. . . Barber, B. K. (2002). Mothers’ psychological control and preschoolchildren’s behavioral outcomes in China, Russia, and the United States.In B. K. Barber (Ed.), Intrusive parenting: How psychological controlaffects children and adolescents (pp. 235–262). Washington, DC: Amer-ican Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/10422-008

Pomerantz, E. M., Ng, F. F., & Wang, Q. (2008). Culture, parenting, andmotivation: The case of East Asia and the United States. Advances inMotivation and Achievement: Social Psychological Perspectives, 15,209–240.

Qin, D. B. (2008). Doing well vs. feeling well: Understanding familydynamics and the psychological adjustment of Chinese immigrant ado-lescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37, 22–35. doi:10.1007/s10964-007-9220-4

Stewart, S. M., Bond, M. H., Deeds, O., & Chung, S. F. (1999). Intergen-erational patterns of values and autonomy expectations in cultures ofrelatedness and separateness. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30,575–593. doi:10.1177/0022022199030005002

Sue, S., & Okazaki, S. (1990). Asian-American educational achievements:A phenomenon in search of an explanation. The American Psychologist,45, 913–920. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.45.8.913

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Supple, A. J., & Cavanaugh, A. M. (2013). Tiger mothering and HmongAmerican parent–adolescent relationships. Asian American Journal ofPsychology, 4, 41–49.

Way, N., Okazaki, S., Zhao, J., Kim, J. J., Chen, X., Yoshikawa, H., Jia, Y.,& Deng, H. (2013). Social and emotional parenting: Mothering in achanging Chinese society. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 4,61–70.

Wu, P., Robinson, C. C., Yang, C., Hart, C. H., Olsen, S. F., Porter, C. L.,Jin, S., Wo, J., & Wu, X. (2002). Similarities and differences in mothers’

parenting of preschoolers in China and in the United States. Interna-tional Journal of Behavioral Development, 26, 481–491. doi:10.1080/01650250143000436

Received January 7, 2013Revision received January 15, 2013

Accepted January 18, 2013 !

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75PARENTING AND FAMILY PROCESS

COMMENTARY

“Tiger” Parents, Other Parents

Kirby Deater-DeckardVirginia Tech

The current special issue tackles its goal, to evaluate the tigermother “type” of parent with creativity and rigor, by investigatingthe potential causes and consequences of this type of parentingwhile generating new insights into the developmental processeslinking parenting and child development in Asian-heritage familycontexts. As the articles demonstrate, the “discovery” of the tigermother by Western popular media presents a golden opportunityfor family scientists and practitioners to ponder more deeply thevery nature of parenting and child/adolescent development. Mygoal is to use this commentary to share a few ideas, inspired by thisopportunity and this excellent collection of studies.

As I read the articles, my thoughts landed on three basic points,phrased below as questions about culture, parenting, and childdevelopment. These points are about (a) integrating universal andculture-specific, as well as dimensional and categorical, ap-proaches to studying parenting; (b) building consensus about howto validate the most relevant dimensions and categories; and (c)tackling within-family (sibling differentiation) as well as between-family variation in these dimensions and categories.

Universals and Specifics, Degrees and Types

Individual differences develop over the life span, driven bycomplex transactions between the individual and her or his envi-ronment. These transactions operate in ways that are species-typical (i.e., “universal” parenting behaviors that seem to have thesame causes and consequences in all cultures), group-specific (i.e.,“culturally distinct” parenting behaviors that seem to have differ-ent causes and consequences, depending on the culture in ques-tion), or both (i.e., some parenting processes may have universaland culture-specific subcomponents). Furthermore, studying theseprocesses requires simultaneous consideration of qualitative dis-tinctions like the tiger mother (i.e., different “types” of parents) aswell as quantitative distinctions (i.e., differing “degrees/levels” ofparenting behaviors) that contribute to developmental outcomes.Too often, emphasis is placed on universal versus culture-specific,or qualitative versus quantitative, at the expense of integratingknowledge from different frameworks and methodological ap-proaches. In the end, a fuller and more useful understanding ofAsian-heritage child rearing and development, as well as under-standing of human development more generally, requires us to

incorporate knowledge of universals and culture-specifics, andtypes as well as dimensions/degrees.

Therefore, “unpacking” tiger mothering involves identifying thethings that distinguish this qualitatively distinct type of parent (ifshe truly exists) from other types—in Asian-heritage families aswell as in other cultural groups. The most rigorous approach alsoinvolves identifying the underlying quantitative dimensions thatserve to define the tiger mother type and any other theorized typeof parent. So, here is my first question: How do we use the tigermother, as well as other types of parents, to generate and testcompeting hypotheses that move us toward a clearer understandingof the categories/types and dimensions/degrees of child-rearingbehaviors that operate in Asian-heritage and other culturally dis-tinct groups of families?

Categorical and dimensional views and empirical methods oftenseem so distinct from each other. It is easy to forget that, withinpositivist quantitative approaches like those used in most of theresearch in the current issue and in our scholarly disciplines, it isoften the statistical interactions between the continuous underlyingdimensions of parenting behaviors or cognitions that, only incombination, define the types of parents that interest us. Thus,when it comes to any human caregiving attributes that vary be-tween individuals within and between predefined groups or pop-ulations, those multiple dimensions are the same things that we useto identify qualitatively distinct types of caregivers. This is exem-plified in the many theories of human thought, emotion, andbehavior that use a Cartesian coordinate system to simultaneouslyquantify between-individual variations on two dimensions, andidentify qualitatively distinct types within that two-dimensionalspace. (It is plausible, though obviously more complex, to usethree or more dimensions.) In our fields of developmental andfamily sciences, the most influential example of this is Baumrind’s(1966) parenting style typology; it appears explicitly or implicitlyin nearly all of the current articles (see Juang, Qin, & Park, thisissue, pp. 1–6). Baumrind’s authoritarian, authoritative, and per-missive parenting styles are distinguished and often interpreted asrepresenting distinct types of parents, yet these types represent andare defined by the interaction of the underlying dimensions ofparent demandingness/control and responsiveness/warmth.

As the special issue demonstrates, focusing attention on childrearing in Asian-heritage families leads to important insights aboutways in which demandingness/control and responsiveness/warmthcan be articulated, and how such dimensions of caregiving co-occur in those cultural contexts (see Cheah, Leung, & Zhou, thisissue, pp. 30–40; Choi, Kim, Kim, & Park, this issue, pp. 19–29).Such inquiry provides potential innovations in the ways that we

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to KirbyDeater-Deckard, 109 Williams Hall (0436), Blacksburg, VA 24060. E-mail: [email protected]

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Asian American Journal of Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 76–78 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0032066

76

measure, test, and interpret data on cultural niches in ethnicallyhomogeneous and heterogeneous populations. I emphasize “poten-tial” innovations, because their real value will be realized onlywhen applied more broadly to studies of multiple cultural groups inmultiple populations while examining dimensionally distributed vari-ables and categorically distinct groups (e.g., in large internationalcomparison studies of dimensions and types of caregiving behaviorsand constructs, such as Bornstein et al., 2012, and its correspondingcollection of articles). Eventually, the integration of targeted empiricalinvestigations like those in the current issue, with broad internationalstudies of multiple cultural groups, will be necessary to identify theinterplay between dimensions and discrete categories of parenting—and, more importantly, how their distributions/prevalences vary be-tween meaningful subgroups of families. Tiger mothers may existsomewhere in that mix, as scores on dimensions of control andwarmth and as a discrete type of caregiver that very likely resides(perhaps unrecognized) in multiple cultures.

Validating a Categorical Type or a ContinuousDimension

The first question immediately leads to a second. Distinguishingand integrating dimensions and types of caregivers requires con-sensus on how such information is to be validated. How do wedefine the universal and culture-specific features of a dimension orcategory of child rearing—by its own attributes or characteristics(as implied by the prior question), by apparent effects on child andadolescent development, or both? Put another way, does the tigermother exist as a categorically distinct type of parent, if thevariance in and covariates with the developmental outcomesamong children of tiger mothers are similar to those among chil-dren of other types of parents (e.g., “authoritative” and “authori-tarian” parents in non-Chinese Asian-heritage families as well asother cultural groups)? This question remains largely unanswered,in part because it requires scrutiny of group differences in vari-ances and covariances, not just means. Returning for a moment toBaumrind’s parenting typology, several types of parents can beidentified by levels of parental demandingness/control and respon-siveness/warmth—two theoretically independent dimensions ofcaregiving that in theory and practice appear to exist in all of thecultures that have been studied.

However, variation between families in these parenting typesand in their underlying dimensions of control and warmth are notalways associated with child and adolescent developmental out-comes in the same way, or in ways that one would expect based onthe literature for European-origin cultural groups (see Supple &Cavanaugh, this issue, pp. 41–49). For example, in my collabor-ative research on parental discipline, we have found that thevariance in use of physical punishment is not consistently associ-ated with variance in child/adolescent behavioral and emotionalproblems when we make comparisons across culturally and na-tionally distinct groups using an etic approach to measurement(Deater-Deckard, Dodge, & Sorbring, 2005). Furthermore, part ofthe complexity arises from differences in parents’ and children’sperceptions and interpretations of “harsh” caregiving practices—differences in perceptions that may operate in part as a function ofwhether adults and youth alike believe the parenting in questionreflects loving, well-intentioned caregiving (as opposed to hostile,reactive rejection) that is deemed as culturally appropriate and

normative (see Lamborn, Nguyen, & Bocanegra, this issue, pp.50–60). This complexity can only be fully grasped by integratingetic and emic viewpoints as well as quantitative and qualitativemethods (see Kim, Wang, Orozco-Lapray, Shen, & Murtuza, thisissue, pp. 7–18; Way et al., this issue, pp. 61–70).

As a field of scholars, should we expect the variance in tigermothers’ dimensions and type to be similarly associated with hertiger cubs’ developmental outcomes, or would we expect theseassociations to vary across development and sociocultural con-texts, even within the various Asian-heritage groups and popula-tions that can be identified? The current special issue tackles thisquestion in a number of interesting ways, using quantitative andqualitative measurement as well as emic and etic frameworks.Looking to the future, our science will be even stronger andcertainly more unified if we can take findings like these and beginto build consensus around what should be the essential tests ofcompeting hypotheses regarding anticipated patterns of means,variances, and covariances in parent and child/adolescent behav-iors, emotions, and cognitions (e.g., Should strict “measurementinvariance” be required?; Huang et al., 2012).

Is “Differential” Parenting Typical?

The third and final point is quite a departure from the thrust ofthe special issue, but I raise it because it is so important to anydiscussion of child rearing and youth development. Does a tigermother (or any other type of parenting and its underlying dimen-sions) behave like a tiger mother toward all of her children? Thisfinal question is predicated on a well-established finding that agreat deal of the variance in developmental outcomes varies withinfamilies across siblings—a reality reflected in Chua’s (2011) de-scriptions of the differences between her daughters and her rela-tionships with them. This has led many scholars (particularly thoselike me who study gene!environment correlation and interactionin development) to call for thorough examination of parent–childdyad-specific parenting effects. Answering this third question re-quires researchers to unpack the tiger mother within each familythat has multiple children, to examine the degree and type of “childspecificity” that is found in these and other caregiving contexts.

In studies of Western-heritage families, investigators consis-tently have found that many individual attributes of interest todevelopmental scientists, ranging from physical health to scholas-tic achievement to personality to psychopathology, differ acrosssiblings within families (Dunn & Plomin, 1991). Clearly, some ofthis differentiation arises from complex transactions between theenvironment and genetic differences between siblings. However,as Dunn and Plomin emphasized, it also is clear from siblingstudies that many aspects of child rearing vary systematicallyacross siblings within the same family. The interpretation of thispattern is that “differential” parenting of siblings reflects thedifferent relationships that one parent has with her or his multiplechildren, based in part on siblings’ different attributes and in parton the parent’s distinct perceptions of and beliefs about eachindividual child. In many families, sibling children are not treatedin the same way—particularly if you ask for the opinions of thechildren or adolescents themselves (Kowal & Kramer, 1997).

In closing, it is important to bear in mind that nearly all of theresearch on differential caregiving and sibling differences has beenconducted with families in cultural contexts that emphasize indi-

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77“TIGER” PARENTS, OTHER PARENTS

viduality and autonomy. By comparison, to my knowledge, therehas been very little research on the question of differential parent-ing within cultural groups that emphasize harmony in the family orthe group through socialization and reinforcement of interdepen-dence. Addressing the gap in knowledge about child rearing andsibling differentiation in Asian-heritage families also remains acritically important future direction in our field. My hope is that ifwe tackle this and the other questions in this commentary, alongwith those put forward by the authors contributing to this specialissue, we will move our field forward and increase the odds ofdoing research that improves the lives of children and families.

References

Baumrind, D. (1966). Effects of authoritative parental control on childbehavior. Child Development, 37, 887–907. doi:10.2307/1126611

Bornstein, M. H., Britto, P. R., Nonoyama-Tarumi, Y., Ota, Y., Petrovic,O., & Putnick, D. L. (2012). Child development in developing countries:Introduction and methods. Child Development, 83, 16–31. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01671.x

Cheah, C. S. L., Leung, C. Y. Y., & Zhou, N. (2013). Understanding “TigerParenting” through the perceptions of Chinese immigrant mothers: CanChinese and U.S. parenting coexist? Asian American Journal of Psy-chology, 4, 30–40. doi:10.1037/a0031217

Choi, Y., Kim, Y. S., Kim, S. Y., & Park, I. J. K. (2013). Is AsianAmerican parenting controlling and harsh? Empirical testing of relation-ships between Korean American and Western parenting measures. AsianAmerican Journal of Psychology, 4, 19–29. doi:10.1037/a0031220

Chua, A. (2011). Battle hymn of the Tiger Mother. New York, NY:Penguin.

Deater-Deckard, K., Dodge, K. A., & Sorbring, E. (2005). Cultural differ-ences in the effects of physical punishment. In M. Rutter & M. Tienda(Eds.), Ethnicity and causal mechanisms (pp. 204–226). Cambridge,England: Cambridge University Press.

Dunn, J., & Plomin, R. (1991). Why are siblings so different? The signif-icance of differences in sibling experiences within the family. FamilyProcess, 30, 271–283. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1991.00271.x

Huang, L., Malone, P. S., Lansford, J. E., Deater-Deckard, K., Di Giunta,L., Bombi, A. S., . . . Bacchini, D. (2012). Measurement invariance ofdiscipline in different cultural contexts. Family Science, 2, 212–219.doi:10.1080/19424620.2011.655997

Juang, L. P., Qin, D. B., & Park, I. J. K. (2013). Deconstructing the mythof the “Tiger Mother”: An introduction to the special issue on Tigerparenting, Asian-heritage families, and child/adolescent well-being.Asian American Journal of Psychology, 4, 1–6. doi:10.1037/a0032136

Kim, S. Y., Wang, Y., Orozco-Lapray, D., Shen, Y., & Murtuza, M.(2013). Does “Tiger Parenting” exist? Parenting profiles of ChineseAmericans and adolescent developmental outcomes. Asian AmericanJournal of Psychology, 4, 7–18. doi:10.1037/a0030612

Kowal, A., & Kramer, L. (1997). Children’s understanding of parentaldifferential treatment. Child Development, 68, 113–126. doi:10.2307/1131929

Lamborn, S. D., Nguyen, J., & Bocanegra, J. O. (2013). Hmong Americanadolescents’ perceptions of mothers’ parenting practices: Support, au-thority, and intergenerational agreement. Asian American Journal ofPsychology, 4, 50–60. doi:10.1037/a0031045

Supple, A. J., & Cavanaugh, A. M. (2013). Tiger mothering and HmongAmerican parent!adolescent relationships. Asian American Journal ofPsychology, 4, 41–49. doi:10.1037/a0031202

Way, N., Okazaki, S., Zhao, J., Kim, J. J., Chen, X., Yoshikawa, H., Jia, Y.,& Deng, H. (2013). Social and emotional parenting: Mothering in achanging Chinese society. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 4,61–70. doi:10.1037/a0031204

Received January 3, 2013Revision received January 15, 2013

Accepted January 18, 2013 !

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78 DEATER-DECKARD