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Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior By Amy Chua

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There are many different methods of how learning develops in children. The two authors show different ways that parents approach encouraging their children’s potential and ability to achieve success. In Amy Chua’s essay “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” she writes a memoir of how she raised her two daughters following her interpretation of the Chinese culture. She limited her daughter’s extracurricular activities and forced them to perfect every subject in school in order to be successful academically even though her method was harsh. She made every decision thinking in the best interest for her daughter’s future. Those thoughts about the future are counterfactual thoughts of what possibilities that may happen in the future, according to …show more content…

Western parents allow their children to do what they are truly passionate about and do it on their own. Children do know what is best for themselves and their future. Western parents give their children their own space to do things, but still provide the support they need. The Western parent’s children still have them as their backbone to encourage them in any way to stay on track and to help them with any problems they have to face. Learning how to face one’s problem helps with one independence. Dealing with situations as they come help the children to face them and find a solution. Children do have the ability to face a problem and find a solution on their own. In the “blicket detector” experiment, Gopnik observes how the child is able to solve the blicket block with the casual knowledge given. As Gopnik observes the children she realizes, “Once the children start to discover which blocks make the machine go, they can use that information to envision new possibilities and make new predictions, including counterfactual predictions”(180). The child is given information on the blicket block and is expected on how does the blocks work. When trying to figure out the blicket blocks, he opens new possibilities to solve it. On his own, he was able to do that thinking leading to making his own predictions about what would happen. This example that Gopnik presents is how Western parents, according to Chua teach children to think on their own. As the children learn to

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