Overbearing Parents

[Wawa]

I have the same situation as you, but not nearly as severe. My parents are both immigrants from China. They really don't like the idea of me staying after school for 4-5 hours every day to do robotics, and it only gets worse because me and my sister take the robot home every weekend to work on it some more. My parents think I should be focusing more on my SAT, ACT, and AP because I'm not perfect yet (AKA, I passed all 5 of my AP exams before my junior year, but I didn't get straight 5s). Also, the support dips down even more because I'm a girl and girls are supposed to stay at home and not go around trying to be an engineer (my mom has also told her friends on the phone while I'm around that I'm into that "boy" stuff). Fortunately, my two oldest sisters were in FIRST when they were in high school so the disapproval has kinda mellowed by now. Even with the mellow down, I'm still expected to get into an Ivy school and spend more of my dedication toward academics instead of robotics and playing video games.

I'm a junior like you so I can't give you the best advice. What I can tell you from my family is that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I learned that from watching my sisters and then finally experiencing it myself. It's going to be stressful right now, but trying to convince stubborn Asian parents is basically the same thing as trying to convince a wall. If you've managed to get to this point, you can keep going. The way that I see it is you just have to please your parents, but don't give up what you love. Chinese parents are mean and I'm pretty sure that's their way of motivation. I don't know if this will work, but if you can get someone really successful (preferably Chinese and from the same part of China as them) to talk to them and tell them how much FIRST is going to help you, it might just get you a little more support. The way that my parents work is they just compare me to other Cantonese people who are extremely successful. I don't know if your parents are the same, but if they are, you might have some luck showing them how big engineering is going to be. My mom found out about STEM a few months ago and wouldn't stop telling me how big it's going to be and that we all need to study STEM. Kinda made me feel like she didn't even know it was my third year in robotics.

Most of the time I just shrug all the disapproval off. It's hard to ignore the fact that your parents aren't supporting what you do, but it's important that you don't let them hold you back or give you more stress. This might be a little different between you and me, but my parents never got past the equivalent of high school so I normally use that to remind myself to not take what my parents say too seriously.

Make sure they see you studying and working hard in what they hold as important.

^Words of wisdom. If you play, make sure your parents don't see that. They'll take off with that information. I found it very useful to keep my door open when I'm working so they can constantly see that I'm studying and doing homework when I'm not at robotics.

Best of luck to you!

P.S. If you figure out a way to get your parents' support, please let me know.

[brynnanotbrenda]

I'm blessed with a father who is an engineer, so luckily for me I didn't have to worry about this. However, I would like to offer advice, despite not being in the same boat.
Try going from the other angle. Instead of trying to convince them that robotics isn't going to hinder your chances of getting into a good college, try telling them that not being in robotics could hurt your chances of getting into a good college. In the US, the ACT's and SAT's are being taken less and less seriously. Instead, colleges are looking at extracurricular activities, and the compitition is feirce. FIRST is great for college applications, because it shows ambition as well as intelligance and stuff. Not doing anything but focusing on your core acidemics can accually hurt your future. It's not that doing robotics can help your future, it's that not doing robotics can harm it.

[dradel]

First off respect their view point. Wether it makes sense or not isn't the problem.
As a parent, and a mentor I see the positives of first first hand, I also see the negatives of it.
As a father I would want my son to show me all the scholarships available, and also the practical experience you can gain from it. It is also very important that they also know extracurricular are very important to schools!! One of my sons friends that graduated last year scored perfect on the sat and was not accepted to his top two schools due to the fact that he had no extracurriculars.

[prismiko]

I agree with some of Wawa's and others' suggestions but would also add this: if you can, find some alums from your team who are Asian/Chinese and can speak to your parents at some team get-together. Or even better, find their parents. Sometimes the best way is find good examples of successful alums to show your parents how robotics can be beneficial.

If not, are there any other kids on your team with more supportive parents who can "compare notes" with your parents?

I am a 2nd generation Chinese parent and mentor and I worry too about the school/robotics life balance for my son and the other kids on the team. I think it's most important to show that robotics can help you reach the same goals that they want for you but following an alternate route and ultimately, don't they want you to be happy?

Good Luck!