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Go from Parent-Centered Parenting to Child-Centered Parenting
By Tom Kagy | 18 Jul, 2025

Parts 2 and 3 of Goldsea's popular Asian American Parenting series shows the problems of parent-centered parenting and lays the foundation for the sincerity and joy of child-centered parenting.


Hello, this is Tom Kagy with Unconventional Wisdom.

Today I'm going to continue a podcast I did a couple of months earlier about Asian American parenting. As I mentioned then, I think too many Asian American parents are focused on what I think of as parent-centered parenting. In other words, they're essentially laying down an agenda that favors the parents' own personal preferences and objectives over what is good for the child.

To help move away from that type of parenting, which is really a form of oppression, I've distilled some lessons that I've drawn from my own experiences in raising three extremely well-adjusted, successful children. And yes, I am bragging, but I'm also telling you the truth. These are methods that I found are very effective. ⁓

In the first part, I provided an introduction to what child-centered parenting is. In part two of this article, which was written decades ago when I was in the midst of raising our children, we talk about how to get to child-centered parenting.

Sincerity, that's the essence of our strategy for raising great kids. Not only in saying what you mean, talk is cheap and isn't the best proof of sincerity, but in the sense of doing what you sincerely believe to be in the best interest of your kids. That isn't always easy, as I'm sure you'll agree.

What makes it more difficult is that in parenting, as in anything, the good is the enemy of the great. There's no shortage of good parents who raise good kids. Asian-American parents hardly need help in being so-called good parents.

Most of us have had ample opportunities to absorb the litany from our own parents, relatives, friends, neighbors, and professional colleagues. Push your kids to get straight A's, to play with the right kids, to acquire culture by taking piano or violin lessons, to pick up rudiments of Asian traditions, to get into a prestigious university, preferably an expensive one, and find a desk job with some big company after graduation. Then marry somebody just like themselves.

Sadly, that just about sums up the parenting philosophy of four out of five Asian American parents, not to mention probably three out of four white American parents. It's a great strategy if your parenting goal is to earn your stripes in the eyes of other parents just like you.

Unfortunately, making yourself look like a good parent comes at a steep price. And I don't mean the costs of piano lessons, prep schools, and college tuition. I mean the price your kids pay when they come to understand, at around the age of seven, that their parents really want them to be someone else.

" hear John gets straight As. Why can't you be like John?"

"Mary always plays with the popular girls."

"Why don't you do that? I wish you'd be more athletic instead of playing those stupid computer games all the time."

In a nutshell, that's the dynamic behind the relationship between good parents, quote unquote, and their never good enough kids. Parents who never forgave themselves for having failed to live up to expectations foisting off the same guilt, inadequacy, and debilitating pressures on their own kids.

Remember when you swore never to do that with your kids? And yet, before you know it, you find that your relationship with your own child has been poisoned by the same kind of insincerity that fuels the vicious cycle of good parenting. Study hard and get good grades. Why?

Here's an aspect of the parent-child dialogue too often poisoned by insincerity. "So you can go to a top college and become successful and happy."

"What if I hate studying?"

"I don't care what you hate. I want you to study harder and get better grades so you can be happy later on."

At this point, most kids simply clam up and beat a sulking retreat. After all, the parent is bigger and stronger and holds the purse strings. The parent feels like he's done his duty by laying down the law. In fact, all he's done is confirm the suspicion that his interest in his child's happiness is insincere. The kid doesn't have to be a genius to finish out the dialogue in the sound stage of his own mind.

"But I thought you said it was for our own happiness and well-being."

"It is."

"But I told you, I hate studying. It doesn't make me happy."

"I don't care. I want you to go and study. I know what's best for you."

The dialogue always ends on the same note, a parental assertion of superior wisdom and authority. The kid is forced to come to grips with the ultimate no-win proposition. He must study and get good grades, even though he hates studying and isn't smart enough even to know what's best for himself.

Yet in essence, this is precisely the one-sided dialogue between good parents and their hapless kids with regard to every area of life, school, friends, sports, music, sex, money. It all boils down to the bald assertion that the parent knows best and the kid must obey or else. What makes it galling is the parent's insistence that it's all for the kid's own good.

Most parents fool themselves into believing that their kids believe this nonsense.

Restoring Sincerity Let's see how the dialogue might go if the parent were indeed sincere. Dad, why should I study when I hate it? Son, there are many reasons. First, if you get better grades, I would feel like a responsible and successful parent. It would let me brag to the guys at work who are always telling me about their kids' great report cards. And later, when you're an adult, you might have an easier time getting a job.

So you won't be a financial burden on me and your mother who, after all, will be nearing retirement. And who knows, you might even like being successful. You mean if I get good grades it would make life better for you? Yeah, that's it. ⁓ okay, Dad. I'll see what I can do, though. I still hate this math and English bullshit. The sincere parent doesn't insult the child's intelligence by trying to force feed him patent lies is for your own happiness. For another, by admitting what parental success means for himself, he elevated the kid's sense of self-worth and importance. What's more, he injected some meaning into at least the outcome of his studies, helping his parents, if not into the process itself.

Not a bad first step for a parent determined to break the vicious cycle of, quote, good parenting, unquote. Before we move into an orderly review of our parenting strategy, let's follow the dialogue a step further. If the parent is sincerely interested in his child's welfare and happiness, it may have continued thus. Thanks. But if you don't mind me asking, why do you hate math and English so much?

Asked with a proper degree of sincere interest, a question is the critical second step in salvaging a relationship from the slippery slope of insincere, self-defeating, parent-centered parenting and returning it to the more effective and satisfying child-centered parenting. Principles of Child-Centered Parenting As I said earlier, sincerity is simple, but most certainly not easy. In a nutshell, here are the key precepts we will be exploring in part three. Start with absolute honesty. They can handle it. Focus on what your child feels, not how you look. Provide strength, not stress. Provide choices, not rules. Teach love, not fear.

If you've managed to listen this far, you're either deeply skeptical and are merely driven by morbid curiosity, or you see the advantages of building parent-child relationships on the goals that matter, equipping your kids for a healthy, productive, and meaningful life, even if it means giving up long cherished notions of parenting.

In either case, you care enough about parenting to admit to some doubts about the conventional precepts that have produced the Joes and Janes who people our world. Let's get started. One, build on a bedrock of honesty.

You kids don't believe you're a perfect being who always knows what's best for them. Not if they're normally bright kids past the age of seven. So if you're basing your parent-child relationship on that woeful premise, you'll quickly find yourself slamming against a painful dead end at around the time they turn 12. In fact, we believe that most of the trauma our society imputes to adolescence is brought on by misguided parenting posing as good parenting.

Let's face it, you don't always even know what's best for yourself, much less what's best for another human being. You can't claim the role that so many parents seem bent on claiming, that of all-knowing God of their kids' lives, that role must be ceded to each child at the earliest possible opportunity. Usually that's around the time they start screaming at the top of their lungs while squeezing tears through their tightly shut eyes. That blessed event occurs, in my experience, seconds after they have exited the nirvana of their first home.

Yes, we firmly believe that parents must cede sovereignty over their kids' lives and forego centrality in decisions that affect them from the moment the little creatures exit the womb. Instead, for the first 10 years of their lives, they should expect to play thoughtful hosts showing new guests around. Remember who invited the new being into this world?

Our philosophy turns the conventional notion on its head. You didn't give them life for the simple reason that they didn't ask to be born. You invited them.

Like any good host, you want to see to it that they have the best possible time for the longest possible time. If you're okay with this premise, we're halfway there. Forget that self-defeating notion of parental authority. There's no such thing. Never was, never will be.

It's like talking about using a hammer to program your computer system. It's a concept born of a time when people had to scratch for survival in a harsh land and has no place in an age when the best yardstick of future prosperity is the kind of self-assurance and dynamism needed to fuel creative energies.

You aren't a drill sergeant toughening up a recruit for battle or a warden keeping order among hardened criminals. You're a host who invited your guest to come as she is. Like any good host, you want to make sure your guest doesn't hurt herself by tripping over that pesky tree root in the backyard or slipping on that slick patch and falling down those concrete steps. You want to make sure there's ample food and drink, a warm place to sleep, a variety of amusements. Most of all, you want your guest to enjoy herself so much that she'll want to stay forever.

Stop laying down silly rules or force-feeding hypocritical nonsense about how they have to live with arbitrary restrictions because, well, because you care about them. That's bull. The truth is, parents who lay down a lot of rules are just trying to make life easier for themselves whether they're conscious of it or not.

It's easy enough to intimidate them into putting up with restrictions that may spare you some annoyance and convenience, discomfort and effort. But consider the price you pay when you bully in the name of love. It's ironic that America is always carping at China and other nations about, quote, human rights, quote, quote, democracy.

When there's so much oppression, arbitrariness, and emotional cruelty in so many American homes, you don't have to look much farther than that for all that teen anger and angst.

Parental bullying, we believe, is the original sin of parenting. It injects the poison of hypocrisy into the parent-child relationship. In its wake follows dishonesty, mistrust, resentment, and ultimately alienation and self-destructive rebellion. It probably won't happen when they're seven, eight, or nine. Maybe not even when they're ten or eleven. But bully your kids under the rubric of parental authority. Then compound the sin by calling it love. And sooner or later you'll have turned that beloved little guest into an irksome, even a hateful burden.

Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, you're thinking, how do you teach your kids to grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted, productive and happy adults if you can't even lay down any rules? The short answer is that those aren't things that come from teaching the way knowledge of math can come from teaching.

We get into the subject of rules versus choices later in the article. The purpose of this section is to lay down the foundation for a constructive, effective, and rewarding relationship. The first rule is not to base it on a dangerously misguided notion of parental authority. Push that notion completely out of your head, even though it may have been pounded into your head by your own parents.

You'll spare all concerned a lot of futility, frustration, and rage. Always remember that any exercise of parental authority is merely bullying. And bullying has no place in raising a great human being.

You're probably imagining all the impossible situations that will run amok if you give up the right to come down hard on bratty behavior. I told you it would be difficult. But rest assured, there are ways to lead your guests toward happy maturity, much better ways, as you'll soon see. But that all depends on laying a foundation based on absolute honesty.

Honesty demands that you not force on that newcomer the false notion that you are still all-knowing and therefore have the right to resolve awkward situations by bullying. But start with honesty and you will be able to establish a framework that will grow stronger as your child grows and will let you play a key role in helping your child build the best possible life for her own unique strengths and weaknesses.

If you succeed in doing that, everything else will fall easily into place. A relationship that began with much bawling, tyranny on one side and continual sacrifice on the other will, almost before you know it, mature into the warmest, most mutually gratifying relationship you can imagine. So let your child know from the outset that you aren't God and that you don't know what's best for her, but that you want to do everything in your power to help her discover the really important answers for herself. After all, your real goal is to help that little guest become a confident, capable settler who embraces life with the maximum amount of joy. The only way to do that is to let her feel from the start that it's her life.

That fundamental truth learned early in life forms the rock-solid foundation for every lesson to follow. If not, everything will be built on quicksand. Two, focus on what your child feels, not on how you look.

Who enjoys more universal approval than a good parent? Virtually no one. So, of course, it's only natural to aspire to that title. Unfortunately, it's based more often on appearances than on results. And that focus on looking good can make you lose sight of the goal of parenting. Just because you happen to be within earshot of someone who might pass judgment on your worthiness as a good parent, you might be tempted to scold your kid when you'd rather laugh with her for that bit of innocent impishness.

You might deny her that second ice cream bar when you know that letting her become responsible for her own eating habits will be far healthier in the long run. You might push her to get better grades despite doubts about adding to the pressure built into our social system. In short, you might lapse into treating her like a dim-witted, burdensome intruder rather than your most cherished guest. We've already seen how that will put your relationship on a self-defeating track.

The temptation to court social approval at your child's expense can be resisted if you consciously weigh it against what effect such betrayal would have on your child. What would it do to her to see that her parent

values the approval of others over preserving an honest, mutually respectful relationship with her. Would it instill doubts about your honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness? Would it make her question the sincerity of everything you say and do? Of course it would. The thought of that price will keep you honest with your kid.

Even though you might feel your face warm a little as your child casually tears the wrapper off that third eskimo pie in front of other parents who cut eyes at you for standing by like some Neanderthal while all that sugar, fat, and cholesterol wreck your offspring's delicate metabolism. It isn't easy or pleasant to suffer the silent clucks of other parents. Yet if you are to spare your child and yourself the awful consequences of "good" parenting, that's exactly what you must do time after time, especially during the first 10 years of your child's life.

Take comfort in the knowledge that it gets easier with each passing year, especially once the benefit of your farsighted parenting approach begin manifesting themselves. More on that next time.

This continues with part four and five, which you can read on goldsee.com.

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