Parents Get Tough With "Tiger Mom"

MIAMI (CBS4) - It's a question that has puzzled parents and experts alike for decades – "what's the best way to raise a child?"

A relatively new book which presents one point of view, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother," has been getting a lot of attention. In it author Amy Chua redefines what it means to be a strict parent.

As a second generation Chinese American Chua doesn't let her daughters have sleepovers, forces them to play the piano and violin, and expects only "A"s in school. The Yale law professor even admits to calling one daughter "garbage" in an attempt to motivate her, it was something her father once did to her.

"My blunt reaction was 'Oh my God, this is just like my upbringing'," said Chua.

Strict rules and high expectations were also a part of Lisa Hu Barquist's upbringing. As a Chinese American who went to school in South Florida, Barquist was the Salutatorian of her high school class; her twin sister was the Valedictorian.

Barquist recalls one time when she got a 96-percent score on a test and the only comment she got from her mother was to why the score wasn't higher. She's raising her daughter Clarissa, a 5th grader at Carrollton, with some of that same Tiger Mom mentality.

"I believe in a dictatorship. I want her to push herself and compete against herself and by competing against herself she's going to have high expectations of herself," said Barquist.

In addition to Chinese language classes and tennis, Clarissa is also taking piano lessons so she can be like her mother who is a classical pianist.

"I view a child like a rubber band. The idea is as a parent, as a mother, you want to stretch that rubber band as far as you can, to challenge that child but don't have that rubber band break," said Barquist.

Clarissa said her parents are a lot stricter than her friends' parents. She said while she has lots of homework and no TV during the week, she doesn't mind.

"I think I'm a little bit smarter and I think I'll know more when I grow up," said Clarissa.

Parenting expert Maggie Macaulay often works with the teachers at Summit Questa Montessori School in Davie. She and the teachers don't agree with Chua and Barquist's way of raising children.

"She does all the things I strive not to do as a parent which is yell, threaten, punish, call names, belittle," said Macaulay.

At the school, teachers believe in involving children in decisions

"The children really respond well when they feel like they have a say in what happens to them rather than just being told what to do all the time without any input from them," said teacher and mom Dina Solano.

Macaulay said there are three general parenting models. Authoritarian which is the 'tiger mom'; Passive where parents aren't very involved and kids have a lot more power and Democratic where the parents are in charge but the children have a voice. She said parents need to remember it's all about the relationship with their child.

"The more connected they are with their children, the more effective they are," said Macaulay.

To learn more about Maggie's parenting classes visit WholeHeartedParenting.com.