When I moved to the U.S. from India, I was in the first grade. The school environment, teachers and classmates seemed completely different from those back home. I remember conversations about “my mother made me wash dishes last night” or “I have to make my own bed.”I never realized I didn’t participate in any of these conversations. I couldn’t say my parents made me do household chores like the other kids because they didn’t.Instead, I would come home and my mother would have a set of mathematics problems for me to attack before the night was over. Everyday home had more work than school.This type of pressure is not limited to Indians, but exists in most Asian households. Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Indian kids can compare parents and understand one   another’s problems because the situations are similar. Instead of parents demanding “do your best,” it is always “be the best.”Teachers in these countries have to deal with demanding parents as well.Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is enacting a new program that renews teachers’ licenses every 10 years. Teachers must complete 30 hours of training and pass an exam, as reported in a Jan. 17 article in The Mainichi Daily News.As a part of this training, new classes are added to inform teachers on the exact protocol to take when dealing with what the article calls “monster parents” or “complaining parents who make unreasonable demands on schools or teachers.”Parents in Asian countries do not tolerate mediocrity. The typical Asian parent’s dream is to brag about his or her child’s academic or athletic invincibility. “Asian students are socialized to value education and consider it a filial duty. The learning context in Asian countries is characterized as being highly authoritarian, teaching methods are expository and praise is seldom used,” wrote Farideh Salili in the Journal of Psychology & Developing Societies.Math and science subjects are emphasized more in secondary and post-secondary schools than other subjects.  At LSU, “most Indian graduate students are either in the College of Engineering or College of Basic Sciences” says undergraduate senior student Axita Gupta. There are comparatively few total Indian graduate students in comparison to other demographics.  Because everyone wants the same careers, a competitive attitude is ubiquitous. Competition comes at a price—the price is stress and dissatisfaction. Therefore, Asian parental ideology needs to change. Parents need to let go.Eastern culture is steadily becoming more westernized. The demands on children need to become westernized as well.Instead of coercing kids to believe in their definitions of success and failure, parents should reinforce children with the confidence to pursue unique and individual dreams. Condemning a child for becoming an artist or writer should be abolished. Instead, he should be encouraged to be the best Van Gogh he can be.Asian kids unable to obey parents are caught in a world of emotional chaos. To mitigate such problems, a more liberal outlook must be adopted.  People may argue that just because the educational philosophy should change, it doesn’t always need to be — considering the academic success rate of most Asian students. But, from an Indian student’s perspective, the stress levels caused by the loads of pressure are not alleviated by any amount of success. A child’s dreams should not be sacrificed for parental bragging rights.Only the future will determine how educational philosophy, along with cultural and social values, will change in the eastern world. ——Contact Dini Parayitam at [email protected]