Amy Chua claims that she raised her children to become successful through one way. Her secret: "To get good at anything, you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preference" (Chua 29). Amy Chua wasn't overexaggerating when she used the term, "override" (Chua 29). She made her daughters practice their instruments for ninety minutes everyday, including the weekends, and on lesson days they had to practice twice as long, and finally, they had to memorize everything (Chua 27-28). Despite their time consuming practices, despite their aching fingers, despite their tears of frustration and despite their occasional feelings of disappointment and doubt, Sophia and Louisa obtained superior ratings and earned a well-applauded audience through their hard work and persistence from their mother. In the end, Louisa and Sophia felt a sense of gratitude and pride for their mother (Chua 216-229).
Going on with my point, Sophia and Louisa are not the only ones who feel this way. Elisa Itakura, a well-rounded, excellent student of Stoney Creek High School, a winner of the silver-key award in the Scholastics Writing Program, a key club officer, a club member of the National Honors Society, a high-ranking karate apprentice, and a musically talented guitarist expressed her undying pride and admiration for her own hard working mother. Being apart of the Asian culture, Elisa described how she can understand how and why Amy Chua did what she did. Through her point of view, also being a child of a tiger mother, Elisa explains that though many tactics sound harsh and unfair, she understands that her mother's parenting style has encouraged her to be more understanding, appreciative, and respectful. This in turn, encouraged her to make her parents proud by working hard and succeeding in school (Itakura).
However, this is flawed because no parenting style will ensure whether a child would become academically succesful or not. For instance, all people are different, children included. Children have different ways of dealing with certain situations and obstacles due to their personality. Some children are born bold and confident, some children are born meek and insecure, and some children are born with a mix of both ("What is Authoritative Parenting?"). Knowing this, if anyone wanted to try and influence a stubborn, fiercely independent child with the authoritarian parenting style, what would the outcomes be? It wouldn't even be the parent controlling the child, but rather the child controlling the parent. Brown even stated that "(t)here is a power struggle. We all have a need for power (even our small children), but here the parents take all the power for themselves. This can push the child, who will react in one of two ways. Either the child will be overly passive, complying in robot fashion, or like a coiled spring that is held down and released, the child may rebel with a force that is out of proportion" (Brown). Brown explains that not all children react that same way as each other. Some children may grow to appreciate and learn from the authoritarian parenting style, and some other children may grow to detest their parents.
