Hmong Traditions – Parenting & Children

Most Hmong children learned to babysit their younger siblings and help with other chores at a very early age. Usually at the age of 6 the children may go with their parents in the fields to help out what they can. As they got older they were expected to contribute to the welfare of the family. The elders in the Hmong community believes that if you have children you need to be good parents and to be a good parent you must be effective parents and being effective parents you need to be effective managers of your children. They believe that you are to teach your children everything and they also believe that the child’s character formation and cultural appreciation begins at home.

For example, here is a basic breakdown of the family structure that begins at home: Teaching the child obedience (by training them through setting limits and not going over them), teach the child responsibility (by training them through participation and housework tasks), teach the child discipline (by teaching them that if they do wrong is unacceptable and will get punished), teach the child nurturance (by training them to be helpful to other siblings and dependent people in the family), teach the child achievement (by training them through competition of standards of excellence), teach the child self-reliance (by training them to take care of themselves and to be independent of the assistance of others in providing for their needs) and general independence (by training them to learn to act without being dominated or supervised too often). They say “Parents who demand absolute respect and obedience from their children only makes one side win, the parents”.

The elders say that the young parents should look after the future of their children and teach them to accept who they are by knowing their language and culture because this is what gives them their identity, self-respect and confidence in their own abilities, future and future of their children but many parents feel they are facing a range of conflicting rules and values between their own culture and the western lifestyle. It is not uncommon in the Hmong community to beat a child. It was seen as a way to control behavior, to teach misbehaving children between right and wrong. However, the “American Society” teaches that if you discipline your child you are using a form of child abuse so therefore Hmong parents fear that they will lose their children. Many of the older Hmong generation feel that “America” has stripped them from their parental rights.

The Hmong elders say that the younger generation children are the focus of the integration of cultures between the Hmong culture and the American culture. The Hmong culture has changed and the Hmong children have changed. The younger generation blends in well with the American culture and they are at risk of losing touch with their own heritage. One of the major changes in the Hmong community is the Hmong children are gang-banging, willingly dividing themselves into groups, wearing different colors and killing each other and the Hmong elders do not know how to stop it.