* Ridiculous hours of study/practice.
I've tutored fifth graders whose parents had them enrolled in classes from the moment they woke up until tuck-in time, because American school days are clearly too short and intended for lazy people. That's Chinese immigrants carrying on the same learning model as in China, where kids spend an average of 8.6 hours a day in school and only 4 in 10 have friends to play with. Yes, the crazed "isolated loner" kid in the USA would be commonplace there.
It seems like the basic mistake is the assumption that this is the only way to get achievement out of your kids. If I can again use myself as an example, I stereotypically learned algebra on the side in 4th grade, and I liked it (I was pretty crap at it, but I liked it). And I did it, not because of a string of screamed Chinese insults, but rather because my dad, the "cool," non-yelling parent, taught me. I was proud that he thought I was smart enough to learn algebra so young, even though I couldn't even pronounce it right ("a-LEG-bra." Come on, I was 9).
Not only did he avoid the mistake of browbeating me into it until I hated it, but also the other mistake of thinking, "We shouldn't ask too much of her." Dad treated me like I was great, and also like I could do better, and the result was a kid that liked algebra.
Also known as a nerd.
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