[quote author="Mcdonna1980" date=1256197973]I'm a little skeptically. I certainly can't speak from any area of expertise. But from my own observations I find many Asian families take the "do as I tell you" parenting approach. Could it just be, on average, Mexican parent's commands are not academic centric?</blockquote>
More than anything I see a culture that doesn't encourage children to think logically and problem solve. Before anyone gets all over my case for being racist, I grew up with Mexican grandparents and a Mexican mother. We were raised to have everything done for us until about age 11 or 12 when we were magically supposed to have learned how to do it all ourselves (cleaning, picking up after ourselves primarily). I see a lot of coddling of the younger kids and the older kids being left to fend for themselves. I don't see the way that I was raised as a process in the way that most of us view raising children and it leaves the kids with very few problem solving skills. This may not seem to be related to the article, but I really think it is another aspect of the intellectual development of Hispanic children that could be explored.
Speaking of my experience with Asian kids, I see that they have actually worked in their parents businesses and been encouraged to do well academically and along with that comes a great amount of problem solving. I'm not sure if that's the difference, I'm sure it's just one of the differences. For the record, when I ran the "Economics Club" for 10 years at my school, the participants were nearly 100% Asian and those kids can really let loose when they are at school. Sometimes I felt as though their participation was encouraged by their parents and they loved it because it gave them many hours a week after school to truly be themselves, have a little fun and get out of numerous hours of piano lessons.
Regarding the article and the direction of commands. I think that many times the command comes with no explanation of the benefits or the reasoning. This does not give the child a chance to ask questions and understand why something is in their best interest. If you let children come up with reasons why it's better to not go to bed right now, they hear your reasons why it isn't better and can in turn, experience the benefits of what you say for themselves. In other words, their life becomes about critical thinking skills which they can then apply in school settings.
