A slew of student suicides recently has highlighted the issue of study-related stress in Hong Kong.
While teachers and social workers can do more to ease the problem, a change in Hong Kong-style parenting can also help.
It’s hardly unusual to see tiger moms coaching their kids anytime, anywhere.
I have seen kids being asked to do maths in a lift or recite science equations on the MTR.
Spelling quiz is also very common. Some parents even ditch Cantonese for English when conversing with their children, making use of every opportunity to improve their children’s foreign language proficiency.
When experience overseas has proved that engaging kids in problem-solving and creative activities is a far better approach to education, local parents seem to be still obsessed with the information-feeding and outdated, there-is-only-one-correct-answer mindset, which I very much doubt will help their kids “win at the starting line”.
Perhaps parents should ask themselves if super successful people such as Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing, Tesla founder Elon Musk or Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg can be made by imposing tons of extra homework and endless drills on youngsters.
Perhaps by taking a step back, parents can help children learn more efficiently and become more adaptive to this fast-changing world.
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RA