There was a bit of an incident today at Chinese Club that left me stunned and disappointed.
(Stick with me, this one is kind of long.)
As the kids at Chinese club have become more comfortable in the class, their behavior has deteriorated. The teachers have tried various methods of incentivizing good behavior with mixed results. They haven’t punished the kids yet, probably because the moms of about half the kids in the class are sitting right there. You know, that would probably be just a leeeetle awkward.
Last week, the kids got so carried away, one of the teachers nearly cried.
At the end of the next class, without any forewarning, the teachers gave a prize to the kid who had behaved the best. The kids were duly impressed. The next class, all the girls got a little rowdy during Ba Luo Buo game and knocked each other down. Not surprisingly, the boys all got a prize and the girls didn’t.
After two classes and no prize, two sisters in the class started to cry.
After that class, the mom of those kids called the teacher and asked what her children had done wrong that they didn’t get a prize. The teacher explained that the boys got prizes because they behaved better than the girls. The teacher also mentioned that her kids have their hands in their mouths chewing their fingers and fingernails* during the entire class. The mom was really annoyed and thought finger-chewing was none of the teachers business.
In that phone call, the mom demanded the teachers end to the competitive prizes. She insisted that each kid get a prize for “achieving their personal goal” for the class, because the “Kids don’t understand why some kids got prizes. It wasn’t fair to them, it just seemed random.”**
She was explaining this to the other parents today, as if we were all going to agree with her.
As she was explaining, I tried to point out that her issues are largely cultural. All the teachers are Chinese. Chinese schools are VERY competitive, so the teachers probably don’t see why there would be any problem having a good-behavior competition. I said something like “You know, a lot of the kids have been kind of disrespectful even under American standards, so if you try to imagine it from a Chinese point of view, they are REALLY misbehaving.”
I explained about the girls being rowdy the week before so they didn’t get a prize. The mom said “Well, the TEACHERS shouldn’t play a rowdy game if the kids are going to be punished for getting carried away!”
The mom said “My kids haven’t been misbehaving, have they? What have they done?”
In rather convenient timing, the kids in question were doing handstands against the wall of the grown-up professional office where the classes are held. “Well,” I said, “I don’t know. I guess doing handstands in the classroom could be viewed as disrespectful and misbehaving?”
“Well, then, the TEACHERS should set CLEAR RULES!” said the mom. (Seriously, do we need a rule that says no handstands in the classroom?)
One more time, I tried to talk about the cultural differences. That Chinese kids would never DREAM of back-talking the teacher, riding around the class on each others’ backs pretending to be horses, or even chewing off their fingernails in class.
“I think we have to understand that the teachers come from a different culture, so there are going to be cultural issues that come up.” I said.
“WE ARE IN AMERICA!” said the mom, “THESE ARE AMERICAN KIDS! They need to respect that!”
At that point, my jaw dropped. I was stunned into submission.
What. the. FUCK.
Oh, and did I mention that this mom’s kids are adopted from China?
After the class, I stayed behind and apologized to the teachers. I let them know that I thought they were doing an awesome job and I didn’t think they needed to change anything. I also apologized for letting M get away with too much while I was sitting right there. (M gets away with much less than the other kids, but sometimes I get caught up in socializing and forget to ride her ass.)
I am embarrassed to be associated with that kind of disrespectfulness that mom showed those Chinese teachers, both as a parent in general and as a white adoptive parent of a Chinese kid.
I mean, it goes without saying that the reason I want my CHINESE AMERICAN KIDS to learn CHINESE is so they can begin to gain some cultural competence, right? And that I think it is particularly important for adopted Chinese kids to respect and understand cultural differences?
Seriously, I am speechless and boggling.
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*This issue has come up before and I asked another teacher about it. Apparently, it is a cultural thing and considered very rude for a kid to do that while a teacher is addressing them –maybe kind of like nose-picking? I didn’t know that before, but I had passed on word to the other parents.
**For the record, I asked M why she didn’t get a prize last time and she explained about all the girls being to rowdy. She is at least two years younger than the kids in question, so I am pretty sure they all have the capacity to understand why they didn’t get a prize.
i have said it before, I will said it again, most people shouldn’t be allowed to adopt!
may I ask why they let the moms stay? In my experience, the teachers have much better control when the kids aren’t near the parents. And if M is younger than everyone else, I really don’t understand why THOSE parents have to stay, i mean, who wants to watch their 8 y.o.’s class?
I think they let the moms (and our various toddler children) stay because it didn’t occur to them to keep us out at the beginning. They are very uncomfortable with direct confrontation, so I doubt they will ever ask us to leave. We sit quite a ways away from the class, so the kids don’t seem to notice we are even there (thus the misbehavior problems!)
I stay because the class is 1.5 hours long – just long enough to make it not worth driving 20+ minutes to go home but too short to get any errands accomplished unless they are very close by. The families are from all over the city, so I assume their circumstances are similar. The class is in an office building, so there isn’t even a hallway where we could wait outside the room they are in. I also originally stayed to make sure M behaved herself. Now I stay to try to exude some Mom juju on the other kids who are misbehaving. One of the kids’ dad is the boss of all the teachers, so that also probably makes them reluctant to discipline the kids.
I’m embarrassed and I don’t have children. I’m stunned, really.
wow.
Boy howdy, if my kiddo were to be doing handstands against the wall while they were in class…um…boy howdy. (Not that she wouldn’t *try*, but if I were to either catch her doing that or see her doing that or have another parent tell me she was doing that, she’d catch it when we got to the car.) And I don’t need someone else telling me that behavior like that is disrespectful and rude.
Just wow!
*Cringe* This is horrifyingly embarrassing. I hate ugly American attitudes but when they come from adoptive parents it’s so much worse.
WOW. Good on you for trying to counteract that ignorance, and I can’t imagine how things are going to go forward when that one parent is so obviously entrenched in her clueless entitlement. Maybe next year there’ll be a ‘no parents’ edict from the beginning.
“Be respectful” IS a clear rule – learning what’s respectful and what’s not is often hard when there are cultural impediments to being confrontational, but handstands clearly aren’t part of it. (Barring, of course, it being a phys ed or recess portion of the day, neither of which seems to be part of the Chinese Club curriculum.)
Wow.
It sounds as if they don’t understand it is inappropriate whether in ANY classroom in America or beyond. It reminds me so much of the ignorance around here–the reason we no longer associate with these folks. Chalk it up to you tried and the one mother in particular exhibits pathetic parenting skills and the rest I can’t say, but it sounds like your education fell on deaf ears.
Unfortunately, this is a trend that all teachers are seeing….lack of respect shown by kids and parents no matter what their cultural background. Rude and disrepectful behavior by parents and kids toward any adult associated with school.
I don’t really see the cultural thing-if these are 2nd, 3rd graders-and they don’t know that they don’t get rewarded for being rowdy in class?
But then, J stopped teaching, after 10 yrs, when he moved back to the US. Couldn’t deal with the lack of respect for learning.
I completely understand where you are coming from…and yet it bothers me that my daughter’s Chinese teacher compares Amelia to a little girl who is year older (who has been taking Chinese a year longer), she constantly talks to that little girl’s mom about how she should be doing better with her characters and then shows her Amelia’s papers. 1st, Amelia has always drawn well – so characters come naturally to her. 2nd, all kids learn differently and at different rates. The other thing that bothers me is that the kids rate each other’s papers for neatness and creativity each week – this all goes right along with the competitiveness you mentioned. This is a cultural difference, something that I’m not used to, but something that I respect.
There are many adoptive parents who have started their kids in Chinese school and they haven’t lasted 3 months. I don’t know if it is the time commitment or the difference in teaching.
I will say that Amelia’s teacher only allowed me in the room for about 5 minutes the first day of class – then I was shuffled out. I stayed in the building for the first 4 weeks and then found a coffee shop to sit in or errands to run:)
Ah, yes. Why, when I have kids, we’re staying in China until junior high.
Not that Chinese kids aren’t spoiled monsters outside of the classroom, but in it they’re still disciplined and worked hard.
The “self esteem revolution” of the 1990s had its good points, but I swear it is proving the undoing of America. It is a nation of the entitled and the oblivious, every time I go back I am shocked at how much so.
It’s particularly bad in this situation (cultural differences AND having adopted children from that particular culture) but I see this type of parent in many many areas…they drive me nuts. They will make excuses for their kids and not do what they need to do to make sure their child learns to respect. I get the whole “no competition” thing but honestly…it has gotten out of control in our current culture…now we can’t make ANYONE feel bad so we celebrate mediocrity and give awards or cerficates just for breathing and god forbid you make little Johnny feel like any less because he didn’t get a prize for coming LAST…ugh…makes my head hurt.
Anyway…at least you made an effort to reach out to the teachers and your girls will be all the better for having an appreciation of both worlds and knowing how to behave around others. I “swim” in and out of my own Hispanic culture (in terms of cultural differences) and I’m appreciative that my parents taught me how to feel comfortable in both.
Ugh.
It’s really too bad about the logistics, because I bet that SOME of the kids would change their tune if the parents weren’t in the room. It’s so much easier to accept the idea that rules are different in different places, when you are listening to different adults.
Then again, kids who are comfortable doing handstands against an office wall might just be beyond help, at least for now. Uff da.
Jaw-droppingly shocking. Oh my lands. What is so very sad is that this type of behavior is flourishing all over the US, but this specific example is particularly embarrassing because of the situation.
The Tongginator is… well… a Tongginator. She didn’t earn her nickname for nothing. Once, her Chinese teacher told her she wouldn’t be able to return the following week if she didn’t shape up. Which worked like a charm (I realize this wouldn’t work for everyone – some kids might cheer at that). But even THE TONGGINATOR would not imagine knocking people over during a song or executing handstands against a classroom wall.
And when something happens at school or elsewhere that requires discipline from another adult, you can be darn sure I back up that adult every! single! time! and sometimes even provide additional reinforcement at home. Believe me, I’ve had LOTS of practice with that one.
Disrespect can mean different things in different cultures, but some behavior screams disrespect to the world.
Maybe she should get a prize for being the most obnoxious parent of the year. I’d respect that.
It sounds to me like this mother is also being disrespectful to her own kids by deciding that because her kids are growing up in America they can’t help but be badly behaved in class (worse than that it almost implies that they should misbehave in order to be American). Doesn’t she want any better for them than that? You’re encountering such bizarre attitudes I am so sorry you have to deal with it. I bet the teachers really appreciated your support.
Oh goodness. That is terrible. I work in a large university admission office. Every year there is a very small number of students who flunk out at the end of the first semester. Day after grades come out one girl called me 5 times to talk about why she needed to be here the next semester. On her 5th call she said – I don’t think you understand, this is going to hurt my self-esteem. It was hard not to laugh. I explained that flunking out should probably hurt yourself esteem and it normally takes hard work to achieve true self esteem. It at least kept her from calling back a 6th time.
Everything (except the nail biting) her children did should be considered disrespectful in the U.S., even without the Chinese context. I mean, I can see her point if she’s going to say “My children didn’t know biting their nails was disrespectful; they should have been told to stop long ago.” Because there *is* a cultural difference here, and a child growing up in America isn’t going to automatically know everything her Chinese teacher expects of her. But some things she *should* know (like back-talking the teacher), and if she doesn’t, her parents certainly should.
These parents should be mortified not defending. I will defend my kid if it is the appropriate situation but back-talk, wild physical behaviour etc. is not acceptable. This whole self esteem thing is counter-intuitive. The real world is a game and there is heavy competition and parents are doing their kids a disservice letting them always win. We don’t buy into that philosophy.
I have encountered this type of rude/self-centered/bizzaro parenting at every single activity the girls have been involved in. No please or thank you, being wild in public and out of control kids whose parents are on their phone.
I let my first kid get away with all kinds of disruptive behavior, and I’m very embarrassed about it now. She is profoundly hyper, and sometimes I wanted to go places, and I didn’t know how to control her. And sometimes I got mad if other people objected. I was kind of an idiot, in retrospect. Sigh. However, she is still challenging at eight years, but she is very polite to other adults, so we must have made an impact at some point, but it was hard. OTH, I did have some limits. Once, we were standing by a flower bed at a mall, and a mom told her boy who was trampling the flowers, “I’m not comfortable with you doing that. Those are not our flowers.” Then she ignored him as he continued to do it. I still laugh when I think about it. She’s not comfortable? When my child tried to trample the flowers I removed her, kicking and screaming. I had some standards!
I’m not excusing this woman’s terrible behavior, I’m just confessing on the Internet my own bad behavior. I wonder why she is having them learn Chinese? She seems to be missing one of the main points.
While in China, I volunteered to teach English in the Chinese local school. (2 to be exact before I resigned due to severe bronchitis and it was frigid in there)
My class were in year 4 and these are the points I remember the most:
1. The classes were absolutely frigid – no heat. The kids didn’t seem to mind but they were in a thousand layers of clothing.
2. The classes were packed with at least 40 kids to each room that should have held only half that. There was barely room to walk between rows of desks.
3. The children DID NOT speak without raising their hands.
4. The children recited their English together aloud perfectly.
5. The children were extremely well-behaved and happy to be there.
It was quite unsettling to me, actually. I was used to the informal atmosphere at the orphanage where the kids would run up and hug me, and tug at my backpack of goodies. Still, I was very impressed with their manners and commitment to their studies.
I agree with you 100%. I have been asked before how I get my kids to behave- and to use their good manners. I have always maintained that my kids know it is not an option. They understand what kind of behavior is expected- and what I will tolerate.
People kill me – my girls are 4- and they would understand that good behavior gets rewarded- and bad behavior does not.
Good for you and shame on that other mother.
I guess this is the new hot trend. This mom:
http://thelifewaiting.blogspot.com/
http://thelifewaiting.blogspot.com/2010/01/this-is-year-of-expanding-mom.html
has been dealing with the bullying-at-the-playground equivalent of your incident.
Not even getting into the cultural issues/differences…GAH! This is why I cringe at parents of our generation.
Ouch. Poor kids. They’re too young to realize their mom is such a douchebag. One can hope that her kids will continue not to win prizes and DBmom will pull them out of the class in protest. Til then, keep your distance.
Riding around on each other’s backs pretending to be horses? And the moms see that going on? If my kid did that, it would be naughty spot time.
As a mother, I do very much like watching a class so I know what is going on. As a teacher, I like it because it pushes me to do a better job.
This is a great post – clearly showing the issues w/ our “american” parenting and educational norms. I love my hapa kids Chinese School. Where they tell her to her face she is not the perfect little smart kid she is told to be at her regular school! I love that they have contests and some one actually wins and the rest are freakin’ losers! The kid has learned a lot in the 5 years she’s been there (one being that she can actually lose/not be the best at something and deal with it). Also that there are different ways of doing things including teaching. We love to get her to imagine what Nainai and Yehyeh must have faced at school.
You were cool with talking to the parent who had a hard time of it – I would have been a lot nastier.
A few years ago another mom from my child’s handwork class got very fired up with the teacher because her 8 year-old son was asked to go sit at another desk, after the teacher had asked him repeatedly to stop talking to his neighbor and he didn’t stop. This mom felt that teachers should not address kids’ misbehavior directly, but should wait until after class and talk to the mom. It was “too upsetting to the child to be reprimanded in front of others.” Oh, hell no.
I think this brings up a great issue of this generation. Two generations of people including the kids and young adults now, and their parents has changed attitudes towards elevating self-esteem to a really high level, higher than the importance of gaining a good education and respecting authority.
Growing up as an American-born Chinese (ABC) has given me a bicultural view and I can see where it’s good to praise our children for their good work, but I still feel very uncomfortable when children don’t behave and when parents make excuses.
I’ve seen this in my own Sunday school class, when I teach younger ABC’s (or children from China) they behave quite well. As I’ve taught the same kids through middle school they get more rowdy. Part of it is acculturation and being like the rest of the kids in their school. Then part of it is just growing up, and all the energy that pours off of them.
So…it’s not just adopted children of China, it’s all the kids, ABCs, other Americans.
I think it’s great that adoptive parents continue bringing their kids to Chinese school. I hated it. Every ABC hates it. But it’s good training, both for the language and to learn a culture that still values highly respecting authority and not being on equal footing with authority.
If they are ‘AMERICAN” why was she bothering with having them in a “Chinese Class”?!?!?!! What kind of mixed message is she trying to send “Hey kids you can be either American OR Chinese whatever is the easiest for you at the time?”
This is exactly why I went to a total of 1 Chinese Class here where I live. Those kids were out of control and the parents just sat there letting them be openly disrespectful while they felt good about imparting Chinese Culture to their kids. They were all adoptive families and I have never seen a worse group of kids- ALL girls. It was embarrassing.
We are what other folks call “tough” on our daughter. I always laugh because in a room of kids who are spoiled and indulged and never happy- she is always smiling, always notices the one person who needs something and never (well hardly ever) complains.
Whether you have bio kids, adopted kidsor kids you are just watching for someone else- they need boundaries and responsibilities to become a well rpunded adult who isn’t taken aback that the entire world isn’t going to coddle them and doesn’t actually care if they have good self esteem. That’s just Parenting 101.