“If you get a C or lower, I’ll buy you a present”
In my experience, asian parents tend to vastly underestimate the importance of genetics that predetermine a child&#x27;s strengths and dispositions. Kids that are born with some combination of great working memory, processing speed, and abstract reasoning ability will do fine at math and science with an order of magnitude less effort than others. For these kids, being pushed to perfection in school can be beneficial. For others, the expectation that they need to do as well as the other kid on the SATs or in engineering or medicine or whatever often leads to the problems the author describes (suicidal ideation, depression, etc...). Sure, everyone should be encouraged to try their best but there needs to be more focus on cultivating everyone&#x27;s unique strengths. Often times the people getting perfect SAT scores aren&#x27;t studying any more than others (in my experience, less), yet asian parents will tend to believe that their kid&#x27;s imperfect score is due merely to a lack of effort.