WITH Chinese parents obsessed about their children’s education, they are starting to ask questions, like, what kind of qualities they would like to cultivate in their children? What kind of role should they play in their education?

Yu Minhong, CEO and co-founder of the New Oriental Education and Technology Group, said at a recent conference that whatever parents do, they should help their children develop global level competitiveness.

He pointed out that nine qualities were very important for a child’s growth: sincere and noble personality, open mind, diligent and positive attitude, independent and brave spirit, courage in accepting failures, communicative capability, to think creatively, wisdom to solve problems, and skills that they can live on.

“Parents should love children but not indulge them, respect children but not fear them, set rules but not harm them, encourage rather than mock at them,” he said.

He also said some parents were indulging children as pets, rather than human beings, and were wrong while not insisting on principles and rules.

“Raised without principles, children will not follow principles when they grow up and are likely to be frustrated everywhere in the society. That will lose their sense of security and ambition,” he said. “Meanwhile, parents without principles will also lose respect of their children.”

But he explained that principles did not mean no freedom. “Principles should be based on the right values and leave enough space for children’s personal development. For birds, principles mean right direction in flying, not cutting off their wings.”

Yu encouraged parents to criticize or punish children in “constructive ways,” rather than “destructive ways.”

Encouragement

“Nowadays, many educators advocate education by encouraging or insisting on incentive styles,” he said. “Encouragement is very important, but it does not mean no punishment. I think we should punish children when they make mistakes, but we have to make sure that they will not fear mistakes due to punishment.

“Many Chinese parents encourage or praise children based on their achievements,” he added.

“Encouraging education is not to cover children’s disadvantages, but to ensure they can face up to their own shortcomings and work hard,” Yu said. “A good way is to recognize the efforts children have made, which they can control by themselves. For me, encouragement should focus on process and efforts while praising the results.”

Yu also said that China lacked talents in aesthetic, creative and empathic senses — the three abilities that all people with development potential should possess.

“Aesthetics enables you to see or understand something other people cannot; creativity helps you analyze and solve problems and create new concepts and things; empathy enables you to subtly sense and influence other people’ feelings,” he explained.

He quoted Chinese educator Zhou Haihong and said many Chinese parents paid too much attention on gaining knowledge and having children run after school tests, but sacrificed the cultivation of perceptual wisdom. Zhou had said it might help children win at the starting line, but they would very likely lose in the end; they may win in school tests, but lose in social competition; they may win by scores, but lose in life.

Yu said perceptual wisdom can help people enjoy life, allowing them to gain happiness from love, artistic conceptions, poems, music and other things.

He also said parents should help children develop reading habit, adding that his mother bought books for him since he was only 4 years old and had wanted him to become a teacher.

He said the reading habit had benefited him all his life. He confessed he was depressed as he could not speak standard mandarin. But he read a lot, which helped him overcome the complex gradually. He said he still read about 100 books a year even now.

Yu said parents should accompany children effectively rather than merely walking besides them.

“Teachers teach children knowledge, while parents cultivate their life-long personality and strength,” he said. “And reading is a good way. If you spend half an hour every day on reading with your children, they will form the habit after they are 8 years old.”

Yu was shocked that Chinese people were losing the reading habit while every Jewish family he knew still possessed about 2,000 books on average.

He also suggested that parents should let children make their own decisions based on their interests.

“Chinese parents like to make decisions for their children. But forcing children to learn what they do not like is not wise,” he said. “The wise practice is to find their interests, encourage them to develop the interests with enthusiasm into creativity.”

Wu Zijian, the headmaster of YK Pao School, offered several successful examples from his career.

He said one of his former students had disassembled the water tank of a flush toilet at school because it was different from the one at his home.

His parents also confessed that he was interested in structure of things and had disassembled many things at home, including his father’s watches.

After hearing about the incident in school, his father bought a toilet similar to the one in school to let him study the tank.

“I was really impressed by the father’s efforts in protecting his child’s curiosity and creativity,” he said. “And it paid off. The boy later won the first prize in an international Lego competition.”

Another student had hacked into the school’s website because he was interested in Internet technology and wanted to test his ability and the security level of the website.

Wu did not punish him, but invited IT teachers and his parents to have a meeting. They encouraged him to go on with his interest and the teachers also recommended him some materials for studying information technology.

He later developed an environmental monitoring system, which was used by the school. He became a computer major at Fudan University later.

Wu concluded that educators and parents should keep a balance between correcting children’s behaviors and protecting their creativity.