China education: amid coronavirus and tutor ban parents use boot camps to learn how to teach children themselves
- Child-parent education courses, long a fixture in the West, have come to China as more parents find themselves teaching their children at home
- China’s double reduction education policy and the coronavirus mean many parents are often their child’s primary educator
As China’s culture of various aspects becomes increasingly competitive, children’s education is a top priority for many families. Worried Chinese parents are enrolling themselves in various communication boot camps on parent-child relationship to learn how to interact with and teach their children better.
Ming Xu, 42, mother of three children, aged 3 to 10, felt concerned and perplexed after her second child’s kindergarten teacher warned her that her son, then five years old, easily lost his temper. Xu enrolled in a boot camp on parent-child relationships after conducting extensive research.
“After attending the classes, I realised that my child’s emotional problems were caused by a temporary lag in the development of the brain area responsible for emotional control, due to preterm asphyxia,” Xu said. “I was able to better accept his emotions, be more patient with my children, and provide a calming environment for them as a result.”
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The boot camps Xu participated in are called Zhang Yiyun’s Emotional Intelligence Studio and are run by Zhang Yiyun, a Chinese psychologist who focuses on emotional intelligence research and promotion. Due to the pandemic, Zhang relocated her in-person summer boot camp programmes online two years ago.
The “children’s emotional intelligence education guide” training session is their main course. They also offer four-day beginner boot camps on parent-child communication. According to Zhang, sign-ups for these camps have been around 200 people per programme.
The four-day programme includes topics such as emotional intelligence, child comprehension, and effective communication. According to the course website, the communication camp costs 299 yuan (US$47) per participant.
Most participants are mothers having difficulty controlling their temper when communicating with their children. There are also a few fathers who are frustrated by their children’s refusal to communicate with them due to their busy work schedules and lack of a strong connection with their families. In some cases, grandparents who want to learn how to bridge generational divides also attend the course.
