It's early evening and the roads are filled with 5 o'clock traffic. The crowd is on the way home to the kitchen and children after a long day at work.
Parenting is a job for the brave and the bold and if there is concern for the outcome of children attention to detail is essential.
In the 2000 United States Census, 4.2 percent of the population identified as Asian or Asian-American. Yet, when we examine data from 2002, they were nearly a quarter of the students in Ivy League colleges; and after college, they made more money than people in other categories by more than $10,000.
In "Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers - and How You Can Too", authors Dr. Soo Kim Abboud and Jane Kim explore why Asian-Americans outperform their peers. Their primary conclusion was that parenting was the major factor.
It's a topic that is reiterated and stressed at parent teacher meetings worldwide. The authors argue that Asian children are not just concentrating on video games and comic books, but schoolwork.
Of course, this is not a behavior limited to Asian-Americans. It can be found in any home with parents who understand that their children are students first.
Glenn Lightbourn, principal of Inagua All Age School, said from a young age parents influence how their children learn.
"Basically what they deliver to school is what has already been shaped by the role of the parents at home," he said.
"Once they are in the school, when it comes to academic achievement it has been proven that parents who are involved with the students and the schools have the successful children."
Lightbourn emphasized that parenting requires effort.
"Parents have to approach parenting as if it's a job," he said.
"If you want to raise your children to be well rounded and healthy and safe, raising them should be a priority.
"Parenting has to be a conscious effort at all times."
In her address on ways to expand the National Parenting Programme, Minister of Social Services Melanie Griffin said good parenting is not easy or innate, but rather something that has to be learned.
Joseph Baptiste, a Haitian-Bahamian, said when he was growing up his mother made sure she went to every event at his school.
"She would come to PTA meetings and check my homework every night and if my grades were falling I would get it," he said.
"She was rough on me I felt, but I realize now why she would sit with me and watch me do my homework."
He credited his mother with his success in high school and later in college.
Lightbourn said one doesn't have to be an academic to help children.
"What I find interesting is I've heard stories of parents who couldn't read but because they were interested in their children they had them read to them," he said.

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