Untigering: A Gentle Approach to Parenting

Iris lives in America with her two boys, aged 11 and 13, and her husband. Her book, Untigering: Adventures of a Deconstructing Tiger Mother is out now.

“The term ‘tiger mom’ comes from the 2011 book written by Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Her book is a memoir about raising two daughters in a very authoritarian, strict fashion.

This high-demand style is common in Chinese immigrants in the USA. My peers, second-generation immigrants, grew up with parents who had very high expectations about grades, lots of rules about what you could and couldn’t do. Our parents had looked around to see the requirements needed in order to succeed in this country and then pushed their kids into those.

My sons, however, grew up in China; my husband and I moved there from America. It was an unusual choice for people of my generation; my parents had come over here to leave some of the oppressive policies and turmoil behind. But they were surprisingly supportive. We left Silicon Valley and went to China as English teachers, as we wanted to do something meaningful and connect with people.

However, I was a tiger parent. I spanked my children and was demanding. The pivotal point for me was attending a parenting workshop run by a friend from out of town for local families. At that point I thought that I had parenting down. I was there to support her and encourage other families, but I didn’t realise how much I needed it too.

She showed brain scans of children, of a ‘normal’ brain and what it looked like when they maybe came from a very harsh environment where the parents yelled and were very punitive. It was a big ‘aha’ moment for me because I had labelled my child’s misbehaviour as being wilfully disobedient. But that day, I realised that it wasn’t that they didn’t want to, it’s that they couldn’t, that they physiologically, neurologically, were having trouble. And that I needed to provide support instead of more judgment, anger and punishment.

My writing about untigering and unschooling started as a blog, but soon it started to resonate with more and more people. Two years ago we returned to the States, and I self-published my book. I didn’t pitch it to any publishers; I wanted to take the reins and didn’t want somebody else’s permission to tell my story, which was a very untigering approach!

As I wrote, it was really important for me to be honest, to reveal those shameful moments because I wanted to encourage tiger parents, to let them know it’s never too late to change. Shame keeps us in cycles where we’re unable to grow. I felt vulnerable sharing, but it was important, and part of the growing process, we are re-parenting ourselves! So when we make mistakes, we don’t just follow that critical voice in our head, but instead we extend grace and compassion and understanding and try to recognise our triggers.

I advocate give-and-take parenting. Mainstream parenting is very much an authoritarianism hierarchy, but I think that our children have something to give as well. So how can we enter into a partnership where we share power equitably? Parents have responsibility to protect and have more experience, but how do we use our power? We empower our children, find spaces for them to share their voices and emotions and problem solve together.

I use the phrase ‘our stripes are our wounds’, using the metaphor of the tiger. A tiger’s stripes evolved to protect them, as camouflage to keep them safe. We use our ‘stripes’ to protect us; we received messages from the world about how we needed to behave, we morphed ourselves to feel safe. A lot of our patterns, whether it’s anger or needing to control, we’ve developed to protect ourselves. Yet, maybe those patterns are not helpful moving forward, and especially when we use them against our children.

I was pleasantly surprised by the response to my book. I thought it was very niche, that the Chinese words and Chinese culture would only appeal to a small group. But people could really relate to it, regardless of their culture. I’m very glad that it spoke to a lot of people. I think there’s something in how universal things are when you share intensely personal stories. I get messages and emails every few days about how impactful the book has been, and I feel so grateful.

My family haven’t read the book; my father passed away before it was published, my mum’s English isn’t great, my sister has a very different parenting style and my brother is busy with his three kids! However, they have all been really supportive. One of my children loves reading it; he skims through and looks for his name and I think they recognise what a big difference it’s made in their lives; they’ll often make comments promoting my book when we’re out!

I’m still on my untigering journey, and competition is something I still need to resist, especially as my children are getting older. We’re unschooling, and it’s easy for comparison to creep in, when you see what other children are doing at the same age. I know that I just need to quiet myself down and pay attention to those fears and those triggers, but not give in to them. I see the pressure there is on children to perform and achieve and get into a good school and ultimately it just makes me sad. For all those families for whom that’s the only way; a lot of them are stressed and traumatised because of it. There is a style of parenting in China that’s even more intense than tigering and I just feel a lot of compassion and sadness that parents feel like they have to push their kids to do all these things.

If I had to give someone advice at the beginning of their untigering journey, it would be to remember what it was like for them to be a child, to remember their own experiences, positive and negative. There were so many experiences we had where we had no autonomy, no voice, no say or control, and how did that make us feel? We need to reparent, to heal some of our inner child wounds so we can be more aware of how we’re perpetuating those same patterns on our children. To resist that and be more respectful, to see them as whole human beings who deserve dignity, love and respect.”

READ Untigering: Peaceful Parenting for the Deconstructing Tiger Parent - Iris Chen

DISCOVER Find more from Iris at untigering.com