Mozart in the womb, Baby Einstein DVD’s for newborns and i-pad learning apps for toddlers. From the moment the umbilical cord is cut, today’s parents feel trapped in a never-ending race to ensure their child is the brightest and the best. But while it’s completely natural for us to want our kids to reach their potential, at what point does too much competition become damaging? With constant testing in schools also raising the stakes, how can we tell when hot-housing children is actually doing more harm than good? In Taming the Tiger Parent, award-winning journalist and parenting author Tanith Carey presents the latest research on what this contest is doing to the next generation.
I’m liking
There is some sound research in here and Carey does give some practical tips to help parents in danger of letting loose the inner-tiger (and I guess there’s a wee bit of that in all of us). I thought the section on choosing schools was particularly good – choose based on what’s best for your child, not what others say is a ‘good’ or ‘best’ school. Couldn’t agree more.
Things that made me go hmmmm
Carey spends a lot of time telling us why tiger-parent is bad and giving illustrations, examples and anecdotes to illustrate this. For those of us who are already fairly convinced, there was a lot of get through before there was anything in the way of help or suggestions.
The conclusion
I’m quite sure who the audience is for this book. If you’re a tiger parent, I’m not sure that you’d pick up this book and if you’re not, there’s a lot of unnecessary convincing that goes on.
