tim's experiment

Have you read the controversial Mrs Chua’s book on motherhood? I thought not. Nor should you. Writing a newspaper article claiming that American mothers are no good and that is why California’s universities are full of Chinese kids is a provocation. To do it as a way of promoting a book is OK if that is what the book says. But apparently it isn’t. The book is comparatively boring. Mrs Chua was just trying to pull a few people’s short hairs so that her book sales could surf on a wave of public controversy about “tiger mums”. This is dishonest. Unless she wishes her kids to be Hong Kong real estate salesmen when they grow up, she is setting a bad example.

In any case, having been a parent myself, I think people should be strenuously discouraged from offering amateur advice on the subject, especially if that advice is based only on their own experience. Families are different; schools are different; children are different. What works in one set of circumstances will not work in another. My mother was not a tiger, but she believed in encouraging any constructive interest that came along. Finding that I asked many questions about signs and newspapers, she decided to teach me to read at the age of about three. For me this was a complete success. I had read the complete works of A.A. Milne by the age of 5, those of C.S. Forester by the age of 11. I was omnivorous and no doubt in the long run this helped. My twin brother did not share the interest so he was allowed to wait until he learned to read at school with everyone else.

I am sure Mrs Chua is right in supposing that, other things being equal, children whose mothers encourage them to do their homework will do better at school than those whose mothers do not. but the difference is probably not that great, compared with the influence of genetics and peers.  And this certainly does not justify the current enthusiasm for stories about supermums whose kids, at an improbably early age, can play the harpsichord, ski down Mount Everest on one foot, and are going to Cambridge to start a Mathematics degree. I understand the enthusiasm for extra-curricular activities. In Hong Kong, where the parks are miniscule and the streets are death traps, you cannot let kids out to play with their peers. The alternative to piano and Kumon is that your offspring are shut up in the usual tiny flat with little alternative to watching TV.  Still, taking these things too seriously is counter-productive.

I meet many students who have studied the piano. This is so common that it is generally not mentioned on applications at all unless the young lady (men do not generally do journalism) has reached Grade Seven.  Yet when put in a room with a piano, very few of these advanced learners have actually aquired a taste for playing, or a repertoire of pieces that they enjoy, and can entertain other people with. In the old days the point of learning the piano was that you could tinkle tunes which the people could hum, and the whole family would gather round the piano to sing them. In Hong Kong it’s just another string of examinations. After the last exam, nothing.

Sport is a healthy thing for young people. And I have noticed that even four decades after I graduated, when I turn up at reunions those of us who wasted much of our youth on the river have lasted rather better than most of our more conscientious contemporaries. But here again there is a danger that what is compulsory will eventually be dropped with a sign of relief when freedom arrives. Kids should do things they enjoy, if you want to establish a habit. I was distressed to see in one of the superkids stories that the brats concerned were getting up early every day for swimming training. Swimming has always seemed to me the least mind-expanding of sports. You go up the pool, turn round and go down the pool. Then you do the same thing again, and again, and again…. God knows football is not an intellectual pursuit but it involves choices and some social skills.

So if your kid is playing Mozart, starring in the minirugby team and getting top marks for spelling, good for you. If your kid isn’t, don’t beat yourself up over it. Youngsters proceed at different paces and will find their own interests if encouraged. Years ago they had an exam in the UK called the 11 plus, which you took at the end of primary school. This was supposed to pick out people of promise. I did very well in this exercise. On the other hand my university room-mate had failed it.