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Understanding Our Youth

Brenda Sing-Ota, MS Professional Clinical Counselor, Asha Asher, MA (OTR/L), FAOTA, M Ed (Sp Ed)

How would you know you succeeded as a parent?

Culture Differences

Identity

• Acculturation

• Parenting Styles

• Stages of Identity

Education

• Expectations

• Extra Curricular Activities

Community

• Social Relationships

• Communication

Cultural DifferencesAsian Values Host Country Values

Family Centered

Restraint of feelings

Well defined patterns of interaction

Nuclear Family

Verbal/Emotional behavioral expressiveness

Transitional

Sue & Sue 1990

Acculturation Continuum

Assimilate Marginalize Separate Integrate

Farver 2007

Parenting Styles

Authoritarian

• Many rules and demands

• Few explanations

• Little sensitive to child’s needs or perspective

• “Because I said so.”

• Obedient, proficient. Tend to rank lower in social competence, self esteem, happiness

Authoritive

• Reasonable demands

• Consistently enforced

• Sensitivity to Child

• Acceptance

• Happy, capable, successful

Permissive

• Few rules or demands

• Little attempt to control child’s behavior

• Indulgent

• Problems with authority, perform poorly ins school.

Uninvolved

• Few rules or demands

• Insensitive and inattentive to child's needs

• Little communication

• Lack self control, low self-esteem, less competent than peers

Maccoby, E.E. and Baumrind, D

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Erickson’s Stages of Development

Age Challenge Focus Virtue0-2 Trust vs. Mistrust Caretaker Hope

3-4 Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt Parents Will

5-8 Initiative vs. Guilt Family Purpose

9-12 Industry vs. Inferiority Neighborhood Competence

13-19 Identity vs. Identity Confusion Peer groups Fidelity

Young Adult Intimacy vs. Isolation Male & Female

Job, Acquaintance

Love

Adulthood Generativity vs. Self-Absorption Family Interaction Care

Mature Age Integrity vs. Despair All of Mankind Wisdom

Education

A: Average - Asians must always “earn” that A+ or extra credit point on the Calculus test.

B: Bad –

C: Crap –

D: Death –

F: Don’t go there…

Education

42% of all Asian American adults have at least a college degree

Education ExpectationsAsian Host Country

High standards

Academic achievement to high socioeconomic status

Promising fields: medicine, engineering, hard sciences, business

Little room for negation

Doing one’s best

Pursuit of happiness

Contribute to society

Negotiation

Kao & Hebert 2006

Extra Curricular Activities Social Relationships

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Social Relationships Lai Lei (2008).

The Glass Ceiling for Asian Americans: How Perceptions of Competence and Social Skills Explain Hiring Differentials. H. JOHN HEINZ III SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY AND MANAGEMENT. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213

Communication

Asian American Host Country

Speak Softly

Avoidance of eye contact when listening or speaking to high status person

Interject less

Mild delay

Low-keyed, Indirect

Speak loud/fast to control listener

Greater eye contact when listening

Head nods, nonverbal markers

Quick responding

Objective, task oriented

Sue & Sue 1990

What you can do now?

Seek to understand your child’s world

Validate your child

Equip them for their future

A Tough Mom’s Standard, NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor

yId=129305738

Questions? Recommended Reading “Third Culture Kid Experience. Growing up among

Worlds, “David C Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken (1999)

The Five Fundamental of Effective Parenting, John Rosemond

How to Really Love you Child, Ross Campbell

Life Strategies, Doing what works, doing what matters, Phillip McGraw

7 Habits of High Effective People, Steve Covey

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References: Dasgupta, S. D. Gender roles and cultural continuity in the Asian Indian immigrant

community in the U.S.. Sex Roles v. 38 no. 11-12 (June 1998) p. 953-74

Farver, J. M., et. al., Ethnic Identity, Acculturation, Parenting Beliefs, and Adolescent Adjustment. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly v. 53 no. 2 (April 2007) p. 184-215

Lew, J. A Structural Analysis of Success and Failure of Asian Americans: A Case of Korean Americans in Urban Schools. Teachers College Record v. 109 no. 2 (February 2007) p. 369-90

Kao, C. Y., et. al., Gifted Asian American Adolescent Males: Portraits of Cultural Dilemmas. Journal for the Education of the Gifted v. 30 no. 1 (Fall 2006) p. 88-117

Rhee, S., et. al., Acculturation, Communication Patterns, and Self-Esteem Among Asian and Caucasian American Adolescents. Adolescence v. 38 (Winter 2003) p. 749-68

Sue, D and Sue D., Counseling the Culturally Different, Wilely-Interscience Publication, New York, 1990

www.learningplaceonline.com/stages

www.athealth.com/Practitioner/ceduc/parentingstyles.