Willpower

parents might have seemed cold and rigid by American standards, but their children were flourishing both in and out of school.
    The contrast with American notions showed up in a study of women in the Los Angeles area who were the mothers of toddlers. When asked how parents could contribute to children’s academic success, the mothers who had emigrated from China most frequently mentioned setting high goals, enforcing tough standards, and requiring children to do extra homework. Meanwhile, the native-born mothers of European ancestry were determined not to put too much pressure on children. They most frequently mentioned the importance of not overemphasizing academic success, of stressing the child’s social development, and of promoting the idea that “learning is fun” and “not something you work at.” Another of their chief concerns was promoting the child’s self-esteem—a concept of just about no interest to the Chinese mothers in the study, or to Amy Chua, who has become the most outspoken (and entertaining) advocate of what she calls “Chinese parenting” in her bestselling book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
    Chua’s version of parenting—no sleepovers, no playdates—is too extreme for our tastes, particularly the three-hour violin lessons. But we admire her insight into the problems with the self-esteem movement: “As I watched American parents slathering praise on their kids for the lowest of tasks—drawing a squiggle or waving a stick—I came to see that Chinese parents have two things over their Western counterparts: (1) higher dreams for their children, and (2) higher regard for their children in the sense of knowing how much they can take.” Chua’s basic strategies—set clear goals, enforce rules, punish failure, reward excellence—aren’t all that different from the ones being imparted to American homes on Nanny 911 by Deborah Carroll, the member of the “team of world-class nannies” who gets assigned to the truly hard cases, like the Paul family portrayed in that “Little House of Horrors” episode. In her dealings with American children, Carroll says, she’s simply applying the lessons of her own youth in Wales.
    “When I was in school,” Carroll recalls, “it was such a big thing to get a gold or silver star. It was so important to have a sense that I worked really hard to achieve something. When I ironed my grandfather’s shirts, he insisted on paying me because I did it so well—he told me I did it better than my grandmother, and I loved that feeling of accomplishment. That’s where your self-esteem comes from, not from being told you’re the greatest.” Like Amy Chua and the Kims in North Carolina and so many other Asian immigrants, Nanny Deb independently arrived at the same educational conclusions as the Association for Psychological Science’s review panel: Forget about self-esteem. Work on self-control.

Nanny Deb and the Triplets
    When Carroll arrived at the Pauls’ home near St. Louis, she wasn’t particularly worried about the hellions she’d seen on video climbing the walls, spitting on the floor, and swinging from light fixtures. She knew that four-year-olds could be a handful, especially when there were three of them running wild. But she had had enough experience with other American houses of horrors to realize that there were bigger problems to deal with.
    “In homes like this, the children are very, very easy,” Carroll says. “They’re looking for structure. They’re looking to feel safe, for someone who can tell them: ‘I’m in charge. Things are going to be fine.’ It’s much harder to get the parents to stay on track. They have to learn how to get control of themselves to control the children.”
    Carroll had been dealing with parents like this since becoming a full-time nanny at the age of eighteen. One of her first jobs in London was with an American mother, married to a Briton, who would watch helplessly as her child went berserk. “The toddler would be literally spinning on the coffee table in a tantrum,” Carroll recalls, “and the mother would just say to her, ‘You’re in a really bad space, honey.’ There’s nothing wrong with a toddler having a tantrum. It’s natural. It’s our job to teach them other ways to deal with it.”
    The Pauls weren’t as mellow as that mother, but they seemed just as helpless when it came to discipline. When the father, Tim, came home from the office to find the living room