Tiger mom book sparks debate on Chinese parenting

There's good reason why Chinese kids excel in music, math and all academia, argues Amy Chua in her controversial new book: they were raised by "tiger mothers" who pushed and ridiculed them into success.

"Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" argues that "Tiger Moms" expect nothing but the best from their children, and scoff at such Western-style time-wasters as sports and play dates.

According to Chua, the Chinese mother believes:

1. Schoolwork always comes first.
2. An A-minus is a bad grade.
3. Your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math.
4. You must never compliment your children in public.
5. If your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach, you must always take the side of the teacher or coach.
6. The only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal.
7. That medal must be gold.

Chua, a professor of law at Yale, relates how she has raised her two daughters, Sophia and Lulu, now 18 and 14, using the strict Chinese child-rearing model her own parents used.

She forbids her children to go on play dates and sleepovers so they can spend more time studying. They are required to study the piano and the violin, but play no other instrument other than the piano and the violin.

They cannot be in a school play, nor complain about not being in a school play. They cannot get any grade less than "A" and they cannot not be the No. 1 student in every subject (except gym and drama).

And perhaps this one doesn't even have to be said, but Chua's children cannot watch TV.

While others have endorsed strict parenting, Chua admits she relishes a certain "extreme parenting" style. She admits she once called her daughter "garbage" when she'd been disrespectful, and once hovered over her then-seven-year-old daughter for hours, yelling threats at her until she mastered a tricky piano piece.

Chua's book has been on bookshelves only a few days, but it's has already sparked a huge firestorm. It's pitting those who argue that the book endorses an unreasonable and maybe even dangerous style of parenting, against those who say as a handbook on old-school strict parenting, it was long overdue.

An excerpt that appeared on the Wall Street Journal website has attracted more than 3,500 comments and has been "liked" on Facebook close to 190,000 times.

While Chua clearly endorses "Tiger Mothers," she says she been relaxing her parenting in recent years, following an outburst in which she feared one of her daughters would leave. But she says she has few regrets about the way she's raised her daughters so far, and she thinks her girls are the better for it.

"Looking at my daughters now, I am incredibly proud of them," she recently told The Globe and Mail. "It's not just that they're good students. It's that they're really kind, generous, confident, happy girls with lots of friends and huge personalities."