Tigers and Logic...or Logical Tigers???

I've just finished two totally opposing books about child-rearing methods...The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Parenting with Love and Logic. While many of the tenets of the Tiger are easily dismissed as insanely incompatible with my child-rearing beliefs, there are a few that I believe to be valid and worthwhile.

I think my mom was at least half Chinese, she certainly had goals for us and always let us know that her expectations were very high - because she knew we were capable of meeting those expectations. A few examples? A "B" on the report card was cause for grounding until it was back up to the "A" she knew I was capable of achieving. She also forced me to continue piano lessons until I was a teenager (I can't remember exactly how old I was when she finally let me quit). Choir was a must in my curriculum throughout high school, no discussion allowed. (My brother didn't have to go the choir route, she let him choose debate and that became his "must" - although I think debate became his entire reason for attending school, so the "must" wasn't quite so forced.)

In any case, because I appreciate the way I've ultimately turned out and the regard I think some of these things forced me to develop for my own abilities, I agree with certain aspects of being a "Chinese mother." I do believe that it's important that I have "higher dreams for my children" and "higher regard for my children in the sense of knowing how much they can take."

Then I read "Love and Logic." Some of our recent forays into the temper tantrum arena and watching how much better Dylan listens to his Oma on certain things ("come back here" when playing outside being primary), I decided it was time to check out this fad that so many of my friends are raving about. And it makes tremendous sense to me (pretty sure the half of my mother that wasn't Chinese was logically loving). I'm thinking that Love and Logic agrees with a lot of the instinctual parenting I've already been doing. (And I've gotta say that I still think we're a little too young for a lot of the techniques - I'm keeping myself open to the possibilities and may give the "Uh Oh song" a whirl to see if he's ready for that one yet or not.)

At the end of the day, I'm having a little trouble combining what I liked about each of the two into a cohesive whole in my mind. On the one hand, yes - the report card is ultimately the child's and the problems which result from a poor report card are the child's to deal with. Where I get iffy is those in between grades that don't have natural consequences. There are a lot of letters between A and F, ya know?

There was a line in Tiger that really resonated with me (probably because it's currently relevant with my stepdaughter): "[Western parents] just keep repeating things like 'You have to give your children the freedom to pursue their passion' when it's obvious that the 'passion' is just going to turn out to be Facebook for ten hours..."

And I guess what I'm trying to say is less about Facebook itself (because we're one of those families with a 'zero TV in early childhood' policy and have no qualms getting rid of all the computers/televisions/video games in the house if it becomes too much of an issue) than about encouraging, or potentially forcing, a child to push himself past his comfortable limits...About expecting excellence and making executive choices for your child - like whether they'll play the piano or not.

So I suppose I'm currently wrestling with myself to determine how to create logical consequences (or significant learning opportunities or whatever you want to call it) for something like a "B" on a report card...or wanting to quit every sport/activity tried before the season's over. I'll let ya know once I've figured it all out - in about 30 years, say?