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Understanding Controlling Parenting
Florrie F.Y. Ng
by Professor

Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Psychology

When an excerpt of Amy Chua’s book “Battle Hymn in children’s lives reflect their love for kids. The team also found that the more they
of the Tiger Mother” appeared in the Wall Street see their children as their report cards, the more they show negative emotions
Journal in 2011 under the provocative title “Why towards them when the latter perform poorly in school, even though they, the parents
Chinese Mothers are Superior,” it caused an uproar themselves, may not be aware that they are showing these negative emotions.
in the United States. Many American parents were This suggests that parents who see their children as their own report cards may
appalled by the way Chua coerced her daughters adjust their emotions toward their children as a way to pressure them to improve
to meet incredibly high achievement standards, in the future, with evidence that this ultimately dampens children’s academic and
finding her practices unthinkable, to say the least. emotional functioning. Moving forward, Professor Ng plans to examine what makes
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Chua’s some parents more likely to see their children as their report cards and what can be
book stimulated more discussion than debate among done to support these parents to develop a healthy boundary between themselves
Chinese parents in Asia, who tended to be more and their children.
sympathetic even if they found Chua’s controlling
approach a bit too extreme. There is an implicit but widely shared assumption in Chinese societies that the more
parents care about their children, the better they are as parents. Yet, this programme
Compared to the West, Chinese parents have been of research reveals a dark side of “good parenting”: When parents fail to maintain
known to be more involved, if not outright intrusive a healthy boundary with their children, they may become controlling and end up
and controlling. At the same time, Chinese children hurting their children, even though their involvement may be motivated by love.
tend to be more submissive and accepting of their
27 parents’ exertion of control over their lives, raising 28
the question of whether controlling parenting is parents’ controlling practices, Professor Ng has
harmful at all to Chinese children in a cultural conducted a series of studies with hundreds of
environment unlike the West. However, research has children in primary and secondary schools and
shown that such parenting is detrimental to Chinese their parents in Hong Kong, Mainland China, and
childrens’ emotional functioning and may even lead the United States in collaboration with colleagues
to academic and behavioral problems. from these places. Using laboratory observations,
daily telephone interviews, and longitudinal surveys,
In spite of evidence that Chinese youth suffer when her team has identified parents’ tendencies to base
their parents exert control over them, controlling their sense of worth on their childrens’ achievement
parenting remains prevalent in Chinese societies, as a factor that may drive parents to exert control
especially when dealing with achievement. Tactics over their children, with Chinese parents showing
include using guilt trips and acting cold when children a stronger tendency to do so than their American
fail to meet the parents’ expectations as means to counterparts. For both Chinese and American
pressure them to apply themselves to their studies. In parents, the more their sense of worth is contingent
Hong Kong, the last decade has witnessed a surge of on their childrens’ achievements – seeing their child
distressing practices for promoting achievement, such as their report card – the more they tend to exert
as sending young children to two half-day preschools control over their child, presumably to ensure they
and signing them up for dozens of extra-curricular will perform better.
activities outside of school. Such phenomena raise
the question of why Chinese parents are more likely Professor Ng and her collaborators are exploring
to pressure children and exert control over them in the antecedents of this tendency for parents to
comparison to Western parents, a question that has see children as their reports cards as well as its
received limited empirical attention to date. downstream consequences. So far, they have found
evidence that such a tendency may develop, in part,
To understand factors that may underline Chinese due to Chinese parents’ beliefs that their involvement