So much is being said lately about the "Tiger Mom" approach and whether we could learn something from pushy parents who set exorbitantly high expectations and cajole their kids to reach them.
I bet more than a few of us have had this internal debate: yeah, sure, I would love for my kids to get straight A's and virtuoso violin, but there's no way I'm going to continuously hound them and deny them the simple pleasures of Wii Super Mario Galaxy, not to mention Super Mario Galaxy 2.
But the answer is ridiculously easy, and I'm surprised that I have to be the one to point out something so obvious:
Team sports.
You want your kid to learn discipline? Mental toughness? How to stick it out through adversity? How to handle both success and failure?
Put that child on a team sport with a good old-school, hard-nosed coach and tell the coach you've got his or her back all the way.
Coaches make excellent Tiger Moms. They can yell at you, make you run stadium steps and do push-ups, and even (when I was in middle and high school) paddle you for wrongdoing. (I received this punishment from my 8th-grade basketball coach and never acted out again).
Coaches can be the bad cop to your good cop. The best part is, your kids will be better off for having played a team sport. If, like me, you're way too soft to put your kid in a position where they're really in distress and really have to plumb the depths of their own being to find a way out, just let the local coach have at it. Everything important I know about working hard and being mentally tough came from team sports. A playing field is an excellent classroom.
