The dilemma of Asian parenting in the 21st century : a conceptual and empirical review

• Main Authors: Tan, Jessica Yu Ting, How, Shi Ying
• Other Authors: Ho Hau Yan Andy
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/65697
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The increasingly globalised and technologically laden world of the 21st century has contributed to more than just unprecedented economic and financial developments. It has also led to a widespread transference of ideas, values, and beliefs across national borders, especially between the West and the East. This paper investigates the influence of globalisation on parenting practices, and in particular, the interplays between Western individualistic ideals with Eastern collectivistic traditions, as well as their effects on parentchild relationships in the Asian context. To be precise, this paper focuses on the East Asian contexts of countries of the Confucius Heritage Culture (CHC) such as Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Japan. It also aims to shed light on the common concerns faced by Asian parents in raising children who have been heavily influenced by Western ideologies, and examines whether traditional Eastern parenting practices can still be effective in highly modern societies. Moreover, three prominent contemporary parenting dilemmas including: 1) Technological Connection and Segregation, 2) Globalisation of Education, and 3) Changing Nature of Filial Piety are presented, with a critical review that deliberates their contributions to the widening of generation gaps as well as parents’ inability to connect with children of the digital age. Finally, this paper discusses the need for a new parent-child relationship paradigm and proposes an open-bilateral model of communication between parents and children, one that fosters mutual understanding and bridges intergenerational divide for meeting the parenting challenges and demands of the modern era.