When My Kids Wanted To

When I'm Not The Tiger Mom, I'm A Professor At Yale Law School, And If One Thing Is Clear To Me From Years Of Teaching, It's That There Are Many Ways To Produce Fabulous Kids. I Have Amazing Students; Some Of Them Have Strict Parents, Others Have Lenient Parents, And Many Come From Family Situations That Defy Easy Description.

The Fact Is That Chinese Parents Can Do Things That Would Seem Unimaginable-even Legally Actionable-to Westerners. Chinese Mothers Can Say To Their Daughters, "hey Fatty-lose Some Weight." By Contrast, Western Parents Have To Tiptoe Around The Issue, Talking In Terms Of "health" And Never Ever Mentioning The F-word, And Their Kids Still End Up In Therapy For Eating Disorders And Negative Self Image.

Parenting Cannot Just Be One Size Fits All.

I Sort Of Feel Like People Are Not That Honest About Their Own Parenting. Take Any Teenage Household; Tell Me There Is Not Yelling And Conflict.

I Think If You're A 'tiger Parent' Early On, You Don't Need To Be A 'helicopter Parent' In High School.