After reading your story about going back and forth with the teaching style I felt like this.

I too was told from a parent once that they don't want their kid to speak like them that their english was poor and that they did not want the kid to speak chinglish. Well, if the parents are hard on themselves of course it's gonna be hard to get the kid to be positive. Could you imagine your parent saying to you I suck now I want you to be fluent! Not very motivating especially if they are your parents saying this....

Not just in kindergarten.

Some of my former students get a lot of grief after graduating from college. For example, one girl in particular was scolded by her parents because she was only making 4,000 RMB a month (her first post college job) as an English Major. They honestly thought that she should be making at least 9,000 RMB instead.....

It's because the kid is the parents retirement plan. It's not what's best for the kid, it's what's best for the family's finances as a whole. 

Because they all think that if they ride their kid and his or her tutors just enough they'll work really hard and the kid with become a gifted. Once that happens the kid will love them that much more and will be extremely grateful to them for depriving them of a childhood. Like how Jay Chou wrote that song about his mother. 

In reality, there isn't a lot that anybody can do to improve a kid's rank score, and just about every student you teach is bound for a position in middle management at an IT company or an engineering firm, where they can expect to make around a grand a month.

That's the dirty little secret of the Chinese educational system. It doesn't create great executives, scientists, or innovators because that's not what its designed to do. What it does, and its doing it very well, is create lower middle class composed of office drones that won't complain when they have to fill out stacks of TPS reports or work on weekends. 

Since the kids you have been teaching are very little, I think the real reason probably is their parents want them to be fluent in English as something to show off .  

Imagine the parents ask their kids to speak English in front of neighbors, relatives etc, and they will get compliments such as "wow! your kids are so promising!"" They will make a big career in the future!""Your kids are so smart!" "They will become senior leaders one day!""You're so lucky to have such kids!" "Look at our kids! They are always so naughty and lazy!" After their neighbors/relatives go home, they will use what they saw to teach/warn their own children: listen! Your aunt's child now is fluent in English! And look at you! You only know how to play games! You will be doomed like this! In future their kids will go abroad and enjoy life and you will just be stuck in China! " "Look at how hard I work for you! And now you give me so poor academic performance as return for me! Where is your conscience?! Do you know how much effort I made for you?! If you don't make your scores good I will confiscate your phone!"

A typical Chinese family is just like a small version of China. And the parents, are just like authorities in charge of this country. They don't care if it's "scientific" or not to expect  their kids to be fluent in English even before they grasp Chinese as their mother tongue. What they care about, is to "look good, makes me feel You Mian Zi (have face)", and the faith that their children will have a better future. 

Ridiculously? China is a ridiculous country, with numerous ridiculous things going on everyday.

personal experience.  

I love the way parents, who can't speak hardly any English, are bloody experts on how to teach it.

And the school bows to the wishes of the parents because it's all about money NOT teaching English.

So here's some advice for you: Your first classes should be open classes for parents as well. Impress the parents, make them think you are just the best teacher they have ever seen. After that, conduct the normal classes the way you think is best. When the kid tells their parents that class was boring or we played too many games the parents, having seen the teacher in action, will know the child is lying!!!

This is exactly the problem I had after two weeks of teaching kindergarten. I bailed because it was just one giant money-making scheme for the school, and the parents were dumb as hell. I was offended, since I actually wanted to teach them.

The parents have ridiculously high expectations and, more often than not, are the reason their children will never be any good at English.

Newsflash: All schools are there to make money! The education industry has no divine right to be immune to the financial constraints placed upon any other industry.

Even in the UK post compulsory colleges have to make money or that specific course is canceled. Of course this is not true for the compulsory sector but even in the compulsory sector a school has to achieve results and OFSTED scores or face closure.

Now as to parental expectations that is also true across the world, often early in a child's life a parent realises his or her dreams (of being rich, a famous footballer, a merchant banker, whatever) are not going to be realised  and they project these dreams onto their offspring, that is in no way restricted to China. That is what is happening here (in China), only with a one-child policy (albeit with lots of exceptions) those dreams are amplified. 

What can we do as teachers? Educate; both the parents as to the realistic expectations and of course the children. But you have to 'play the game', make sure the children learn some words or phrases that they can take back to Mommy and Daddy but also give them some fun games, ideally combine the two. We're in a business, if you don't satisfy the customer then there will be no business, just remember the customer is the parent NOT the child, and to satisfy the parent (who is paying your salary) you have to achieve certain goals for the child. Of course that isn't easy, no-one ever said teaching was.

YES!!!! That is called early planning for retirement!

Hugh so sad- Wow the corrupt primitive Chinese have a corrupt primitive view of education where if you pay enough tuition you can make the teacher teach anyway you want and give you any grade you want wow news flash!  It's weird how the education influences the individual and the individual forms the society that creates the education. I wonder where our high standard of education came from in the west huh?

I think the problem is that the parents probably aren't very well educated themselves so don't really have a good sense of how education works.

A lot of people here kinda fell ass-backwards into some real estate money via farm buyouts. They'll have a cool car and high net worth but it's not because they were savvy investors or innovative people. They were just bumpkin farmers who hit the geography lottery and Panasonic thought their land would be a good factory site back in 1988 or something.

These parents, (and others who weren't so lucky to get rich but are spending a huge portion of their funds on extra classes) they know that education is really important but because they themselves are pretty dumb they have no idea how long it should take to learn a foreign language. "I paid 10,000 RMB and he can't speak english yet??? Listen buddy when I paid 10,000 RMB for my TV they installed it the next day, so what the fuck are YOU doing wrong??"

I bet it's different for a parent who speaks English, because they can remember how long it took them to learn it. I took piano lessons as a kid, like my dad before me, so he knew better than to say "it's been TWO WEEKS and he can't play Flight of the Bumblebee yet?? What the fuck is wrong with you people?!?!"

throwing money at something fixes all problems.  If they pay enough money their kids should speak like Morgan Freeman.