Book Description

You don't need to be a Tiger Mom to take control of your kids' education and get them into Stanford. In "Our Entitled Children: An American Tiger Mom's Story," visionary educator Susan Tatsui-D'Arcy reveals a more practical approach to raising the kind of children that Ivy Leagues covet. Everyone wants to raise successful, high-achieving children, but for many parents today, America's predominant style of coddling, helicopter-style parenting seems like a recipe for just the opposite. As a third-generation Japanese-American, Susan scrutinizes the American instinct to entitle one's child to a life of as little hardship and failure as possible. She offers a provocative analysis of where our parenting culture has gone wrong, as well as a wealth of insight on how we can fix it. As an American Tiger Mom, Susan departs from the classic Tiger Mom approach in many ways. She encourages her kids to socialize and to adopt personal interests, hobbies, and causes, in order to build self-confidence and promote empowerment. Rather than force her daughters to play the violin for hours on end, she embarks on a journey to start a top-notch private school - Merit Academy - just for them. Susan's story crackles with witty observations and charming anecdotes as she details her quest to provide her daughters with a world-class education. She explains how she was able to give them one-on-one class sizes, pair them with passionate teachers, expose them to amazing leaders of science and industry, encourage them to make a difference by doing Projects, and more - without paying for any of it herself. Always affable yet frank, Susan seeks to help America's beleaguered parents by giving them a thorough account of her attempts to raise her daughters the right way. Through it all, she looks back and wonders if she has ultimately been successful, or if her girls, as highly accomplished as they both are, have turned out to be entitled despite - or perhaps because of - her best efforts. More than just an inspiring tale of old-fashioned American ingenuity and entrepreneurship, "Our Entitled Children: An American Tiger Mom's Story" paints a remarkable portrait of the modern American family, and is an invaluable resource that any parent can take something away from.