Specifically, tiger parents push their children to attain high levels of academic achievement or success in high-status extracurricular activities such as music or sports.
The origin of the concept, term, and neologism traces its roots in ancient Confucian teachings articulated through classical anthologies such as the Analects of Confucius written more than two millennia ago.
[8][6][9] The concept is influenced by Confucianism, an ancient Chinese philosophy developed by the philosopher Confucius in the 5th century BC that promoted attributes such as filial piety, family values, hard work, enduring hardship, honesty, and dedicating oneself towards academic excellence through the pursuit of knowledge.
[18] Tiger parents emphasize not only academics, but also non-academic pursuits, such as music and sports, that involve opportunities for awards, rankings, and similar forms of recognition.
[25] Use of violence within parenting is common in many Asian cultures, including China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Severe forms of violence may include spanking or slapping the child with an open hand or striking with an available household implement such as a belt, slipper, cane, clothes hanger, meter stick, hairbrush, paddle or bamboo feather duster.
[26] Chua cites her parents' newfound immigration experience in the United States and intense struggle to set their roots in a foreign land as the reason inevitably prompting them to adopt a more utilitarian approach towards raising their children.
Critics of the tiger parenting argue that this approach will restrict their children's ability to discover their individual talents and passions thus denying the child a sense of belonging, self-esteem, and purpose.
Some argue that this approach encourages uniformity while eschewing creativity, questioning, student participation, self-determination, autonomy, diversity and critical or independent thinking.
In various Asian societies, a higher education level is perceived as a guarantee of promising career prospects and as a tool to climb up the socioeconomic ladder or to lift a family out of poverty.
As academic success is often a source of pride for families and within Chinese and Asian society at large, tiger parents typically view "success" as graduating from a top university such as Harvard, or other Ivy League institutions as the ultimate marker of prestige, granting high socioeconomic status, promising marriage prospects, and a highly respectable lucrative white collar career path such as becoming a high-end neurosurgeon for Mayo Clinic, a high-powered lawyer at a top law Wall Street law firm, a software engineer in Silicon Valley, a management consultant for Boston Consulting Group, or as an investment banker working for Goldman Sachs.
[33] Tiger mothers also incorporate classical music training or extracurricular enrichment activities such as joining a sports team, including those with competitive structures and awards systems to bolster their child's university entrance application.
[33] Advocates suggest a strict approach to parenting produces an exceptionally high proportion of top performers – children who display academic excellence across the board with great musical ability and professional success later in life.
Children raised under tiger parent households may experience negative mental health outcomes as a result of the large amount of pressure they are placed under from a young age.