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Warnings about a mollycoddled generation
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WU Haiyan, deputy principal of Hangzhou Dongyuan Primary School, became something of an Internet phenomenon after she urged parents and grandparents to stop spoiling their children.
Her appeal came several days after a rainy morning, when parents and grandparents taking children to school almost blocked the front gate. Most of the adults were carrying the school bags of the pupils on their own backs, holding umbrellas in one hand and the children in the other.
Things then went from bad to worse, in Wu’s opinion.
As she was moving chairs from a classroom into the hall so children could remove their rain boots while sitting, a father nearby chastised her for being so slow. “Is this how schools should be run?” he snapped. The teacher asked him to help her, but he rudely declined.
As the students sat down on the chairs, parents and grandparents knelt to change their footwear. As his grandfather crouched to lace up sneakers, a grandson complained that the shoes didn’t fit well.
“Why you bring this pair?” the lad asked churlishly.
“My fault,” answered the old man.
Wu was so upset that she intervened to tell the child that he was behaving in an impolite manner. But the grandfather kept muttering, “My fault. My fault.”
Wu returned to her office and wrote out a new rule, banning parents from entering the school on rainy days. Then she compiled a long phone message about how children should be able allowed to do things for themselves and sent it to over 600 parents.
She got only two replies.
Failing to get the response she had hoped for, Wu posted her story on social media. It quickly became a hot online topic, drawing comments from tens of thousands of people.
Most of those commenting agreed that modern Chinese parents spoil their children too much. Other said the principal was creating a tempest in a teapot.
Wu said that small habits cultivated in childhood can influence a person’s whole life.
“Spoiling children will result in ‘adult babies’ who don’t take responsibility for themselves and have no sense of gratitude,” she said.
That concept has become popular of late in China after the publication of a book entitled “Giant Baby Country” by noted psychologist Wu Zhihong.
Wu argues that Chinese parents interfere too much in the lives of their children, running the risk that the children will never really “grow up.”
A survey by the All-China Women’s Federation in 2015 found that 70 percent of Chinese parents helped their children do homework, but children rarely helped parents in simple housework chores.
Wu’s story led to debate among professionals.
“Family education should be about parents and children learning mutual respect and how to communicate with each other effectively,” Xiong Bingqi, vice director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, was quoted as saying by the Xinhua News Agency. “But that is not the reality of modern child-rearing.”
In 2016, the China Children and Teenagers’ Fund released a report concluding that many Chinese parents don’t understand the full meaning of love. Instead, they convey feelings of fear, greed and vanity to their children.
Chu Chaohui, a researcher at the National Institute of Education Science, said “parents are giving their children passive personalities.”
He suggested that children need to learn to take more responsibility for their lives and their actions.
“Chinese students are very passive in the classroom,” John F. Larner, principal of Marco Polo International School in Hangzhou, told Shanghai Daily.
Larner, who has been working in high schools in China for 10 years, said the Chinese education system is partly to blame. He cited the example classes he has taught in the Western-style of education. Chinese teachers passing by were surprised that students were talking and moving around.
“Chinese teachers are more like orchestra conductors, trying to make sure that everyone plays the correct notes,” said Larner. “Western teachers want students to know that making mistakes is okay and may even show progress.”
He added, “Children need to learn to accept responsibility for their actions. Teachers and parents cannot always be there as a child grows older.”
The Internet debate heartened Wu. She said many parents came forth to support her ideas.
“If you really love your children,” she said, “you need to cultivate personal responsibility in them. Let them carry their own school bags.”
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