Tiger Kids!

So much has been said of late about the Tiger Mothers, those harsh disciplinarians with their draconian ways of raising their children, but how about those Tiger Kids, a distinctive class of over-achieving nerds, who think their parents aren't doing enough for them or aren't pushing them harder towards success? Trust me, there are such children around, and the parents have a tough time slowing them down or teaching them that there's more to life than consistent 'A's or that sometimes one needs "street smarts" in addition to "book smarts" as well. These kids orbit the stratosphere in terms of academic excellence, will never settle for anything less than an 'A Plus' ( which, of course, HAS TO BE a perfect score!) in their subjects at school, will carry over the same fierce competitiveness from studies to a mere game at home with family members, and who obsess about always being on top of the game in whatever they do! They leave middle school and are already googling for admission requirements to Harvard and MIT! Sounds like any mother's dream, doesn't it, and I bet Amy Chua would've been thrilled had her kids been like that! Or it could be less then a dream, then we would hear more about the "Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Kid And The Bewildered Parents" instead!

Take, for example, the kid who knew the multiplication tables up to 13 by age 4 and was solving word problems in Grade 1, leaving his peers behind in the dust, which made his teacher remark, "I would really like to see what this child grows up into. I would love to see what he becomes in the future!" Or the kid who could read by age 3 and was reading the newspaper headlines by age 4 and whole articles by age 5, and whose parents were singled out by the School District official who congratulated them and predicted that this child would definitely be heading to Harvard or Princeton or Yale, only when the kid was in Grade 1! And looking back at his childhood, the kid goes, "Age 3 is too late! Why wasn't I taught earlier to read and to do Math?" ... and all his mother can do is roll her eyes in private, and then turn to him and reassure him that all's well with his abilities and that he's on the right track with the developmental stages of his life.

The child grows into a teenager, socializes with friends, hangs out with them, plays video games online with friends, is into social networking, downloads songs and music videos on the iPod, plays basketball and the sax, reads a lot, and does other things that teenagers do, but when it comes to academics, the nerd kicks in, and the fierce, competitive monster comes to the fore. One lost mark could mean asking the teacher for a good reason why that mark was deducted, or convincing the teacher to award that mark. If the teacher had a good reason, then the kid would beat himself up about his carelessness and obsess about making it up in the next test. The unnerved parent would then have to intervene and say it's OK, that it was just one mark that was lost, that he could definitely ace the next test, and so on, at which the kid would turn on the parent and say, "How can you say it's OK to have lost a mark? What kind of a parent are you? It's not OK! My percentage will go down because of this! ...blah ...blah ... blah!"

Now do you get what I mean by a Tiger Kid? Tough job parenting one, let me say!