I have found a nice youtube video that shows how positive attitude can bring difference.
It is a simple video called "With one line (of words), you can make a gifted kid feel stupid. With one line (of words), you can make a stupid kid feel smart."
It was a clip highlighted with two sentense, and with some play around a bit with the Chinese characters in order (but with exactly the same words), the meaning changes totally.
(Please bear with my English translation. I am trying to keep the same words as many as possible to display the same idea).
The first sentense is like this:
Original order: "You are nothing compared to others. No one is as useless as you are."
Rearranged order: "No one can be same as you. Nothing should be compared with others."
The second sentense goes like this:
Original order: "You have tried this question so many times. You are so stupid."
Rearranged order: "You are not stupid. You have to try many times for this question."
And both videos ended with the same tag like:
"A change in your attitude can make change to your kid's life."
Since the term Monster Parents origins from Japan, let's start talking from monster parents in Japan.
The word "monster" was used to describe the "non-human" (irrational) side of the parents. The keyword on Monster Parents, is COMPLAINT (クレーム). In Japan, monster parents is describing the phenomenon that parents directly confront teachers/school principals etc. and launch (often unreasonable) complaints against them, sometimes give instructions (often on things that are out of teachers' work).
The reasons behind the parents acts can be:
1) They find teachers the blame for (if not all, most) troubles their kids are getting into;
2) They believe as customers, they have paid for such "service" and become demanding on teachers' role;
3) The economic downturn in Japan has put much pressure on the parents, lowering their faith in school education.
In fact, as a copycat effect brought by the parents, their children started to pick up such attitude and the terms "Monster Students" and "Monster Children" become noticible in mass media in recent years.
In fact, a TV drama, also named as "Monster Parents" was made and was broadcasted from 1st July 2008 to 9th September 2008. Regardless of the over-exaggerated storyline, this drama has certainly made the term "monster parents" known in Japan and in Asia (Japanese TV Drama are popular in Asia countries, especially in Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan).
Below is a link to a sample clip from the TV Drama series:
In extreme cases, this trend has become one of the causes for an increase in teachers/students committing suicide due to pressure. In fact a movie, "Suicide Club" was made in Japan, which exaggerates the impact of social-pressure on tendency to the act of suicide. Below is an extract from the movie (cautious - beware of violent image - it is a horror movie):
This is surely an overly exaggerated image of the real life situation, but it cannot hide the truth behind the increase in violent and suicide rate in Japan. The below figures clearly reflects so:
The top chart represents the no. of children violence at school (top down: Primary School, Secondary School, High School and Total) while the bottom shows the number of suicide in Japan (top down: Primary School, Secondary School, High School and Total). In 10 years, the number of school violence in secondary and high school have doubled. But the most worrying increase belongs to the three-fold in primary school - which hints that there is tendency in school violence (or bullying) happening in earlier age. In fact, bullying can be said as a cause and also outcome of Monster Parents.
I will further discuss on this in upcoming blogs.
Reference: Hirao, K. (2007). Contradictions in maternal roles in contemporary Japan. In T. W. Devasahayam & B. S. A. Yoh (Eds.), Working and mothering in Asia: Images, ideologies and identities (pp. 51?83). Singapore: NUS Press. Yamamoto, Y., Holloway, S. D., & Suzuki, S. (2006). Maternal involvement in preschool children's education in Japan: Relation to parenting beliefs and socioeconomic status. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 21, 332?346.
What is Parenting? According to Martin Davis, parenting can be defined as " the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood."
Parenting style has evolved over years, especially in the past twenty years, with current economic growth, integration in technology and wealthier living has brought changes to parenting styles. It has been generally said that parenting style has become over-protective, more contraining and controlling due to over worry and over-caring. In fact, several terms have newly appeared in decribing such parents:
Helicopter Parents: origined in the U.S., first used in the book "Parenting With Love And Logic" by Foster W. Cline, M.D., and Jim Fay, which was a term used to refer to Parents who are "hovering overhead" of their children.
Monster Parents: First used by Japanese Educator Mr. Onoda Masatoshi in 1990s, who used the term Monster Parents to describe parents who complain on teachers to put pressure on them, with the purpose of maximising benefits of their children. The term is later exported to the Western world and is used to describe parents who are "over-controlling" and "over-protective" of their children.
The Major differences between the two, besides the origin countries of the terms, it would be the targets (or victims, I rather) of the two - Helicopter Parents put pressure on their kids while Monster Parents put pressure on the teachers (and educators).
From today onwards, I will update the blog on a daily/bi-daily basis to explore on this topic, and the possible psychopathological effect it brings to different parties, the parents, the children and the teachers.
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