I’ve had some eye-opening experiences during the past few days and wanted to share a little bit about the expectations of Korean children as they are growing up.
During a discussion at the language group I attend, some of the Korean members began talking about the way parents micro-manage their children. Most are very strict and put a great deal of pressure on their kids to do well in school and not act out or experiment during their formative years.
According to the Koreans I spoke with, there is not much room for learning from your mistakes or trying things on your own. The parents do not want failure and don’t want their children to do anything that will bring them shame. One of the women told me that her mother told her that if she had sex before she was married, her mother would die.
Now, Koreans are not the only people to impose this kind of guilt and control on children. It happens all over the world, all the time, especially, in my opinion, in religious households. Not all, but many – and if not in the households, then certainly in the religious teachings. But that’s a subject for another post.
Another person at the meet-up noted that children here are micro-managed well into adulthood – first at home, then they go to university, and they are required to serve about two years in the military. “By the time they’re finished with all that, they’re 26, 27 years old,” he said. “And then it’s too late to change their thinking, they are set in their ways.” I’m actually planning to go further into this topic in another post, but I just wanted to note it here so that anyone reading this will have an idea of what the children are up against.
I realize that I am very critical of the parents when writing these posts, although I don’t think it’s without good reason. I don’t think it’s unnatural to want your child to be happy and well-adjusted and successful. However, holding them to impossibly high standards that you impose on them is harmful, no matter how well-intentioned you claim to be.
The point is, there is a tremendous amount of pressure placed on these kids. One of the students I teach (not one of my homeroom kids, though), frequently bursts into tears if she does not immediately understand a concept. Her English is quite good for just having started at the school and she understands more than most of her classmates, but she completely melts down if she does not immediately understand something.
The other teachers and I talked about it and we think she probably would understand what’s being taught if she calmed down enough to look at it and listen again, but it takes quite some time for her to relax and stop crying. I feel a good deal of sympathy for her because I was a lot like that when I was younger – I took it very hard if I didn’t understand something and would get embarrassed or upset and feel like I had failed if I didn’t grasp a concept. My schoolwork was quite important to me and there were plenty of times that I cried over it.
I’ve recently started acknowledging how much I still exhibit that behavior – if I read something I don’t immediately understand, or something that seems somewhat unfamiliar and complex, a wall goes up and a voice says, “you can’t do this, this is too much for you,” and I feel a sense of shame and start to panic. Now that I recognize it, I’m trying to work through it and figure out why that happens, but the point is, I think I can understand how she might be feeling.
But I wonder why she feels so much pressure to perform well in school and why she takes it so hard when a concept doesn’t immediately click for her. I’m concerned that this will plague her for the rest of her life, and that she will only stick to “safe” subjects, rather than feeling confident in exploring things she doesn’t know.
I guess that’s something that’s possible with all of the kids. Someone recently informed me that Korean high school students have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, particularly in their senior years, because “everything is riding on it.” Based on a parent-teacher conference I had today, I’m beginning to understand why.
One boy’s parents came in, and at first, the conference seemed to be going well. They told me that their son lacks confidence in his ability to speak and write in English and that they worry that that keeps him from trying. I can definitely see this, because he’s very chatty with his friends in class, but if I try to talk to him one-on-one, a “yes” is about the best response I can hope for. I was glad they told me and said I would keep that in mind when working with him from now on.
Then they started asking questions and seemed to be quite critical of their son. While some parents were very concerned about their children’s social interactions and overall happiness, his parents seemed disappointed that he doesn’t like to sit and practice writing his letters when he’s at home, or that he is not one of the top students in the class.
He’s five. That’s what I told them. He’s a five-year-old boy and he is bored by practicing writing, and wants to play and watch TV. He isn’t slow or abnormal, he’s a kid. And it’s healthy that he has other interests and is exploring things for himself, so you shouldn’t harass him if he doesn’t want to perfect his writing technique.
I wasn’t bothered so much by the questions as I was by the tone and the look of disappointment on their faces. There was a part of me that felt small and intimidated during the five minutes I talked to them. I can’t imagine having them as parents.
The other thing is, the curriculum is really advanced, especially for ESL students. Some of the kids can’t even write in Korean or speak it that well, but they’re learning English at the same time. I’ve heard that it is much easier to learn a language as a young child, so I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. But the books that we use would be too advanced for a kindergarten child growing up in the United States, let alone a pre-schooler here.
So the kids have a lot going on. There’s nothing wrong with encouraging your kid to work hard and want them to be successful, but so much pressure so early on cannot possibly be good for them. Helping them develop a health sense of motivation is great, I’m all for that. But if you push a child too hard and force him to do things that make him miserable or impose your own goals and desires and images for his life onto him, that can only hurt him in the end. Maybe he will become the wealthy, academically successful, ideal person his parents have in their minds but…happy, well-adjusted, with a strong sense of freedom and independence? Probably not.
