Heads up: This post is 12 years old. My thinking may have evolved since then — read it with that in mind.
5 Things You Mustn’t Do If You Don’t Want To Ruin Your Child’s Life#
External Command (dictating your child’s life with reward and punishment, especially when using the withdrawal of parental care and concern as a threat.)
Intensive Input (book studies, piano lessons, violin lessons, swimming, mandarin, phonics, Kumon math… all scheduled by you.)
School-admission oriented (learning for the sake of school interviews and entrance exams.)
“Certificate-sization” of everything.
Virtual Learning (no real life experience, learned everything through books and computers.)
7 Things You Must Do For Your Child To Live Life To The Fullest#
Field Learning (hands on, get their hands dirty, learning through mistakes, accidents and uncertainties.)
Explorative (give your child time to get bored… don’t schedule things for him every waking minute.)
Nature (full of surprises, learn to deal with surprise situations. Develop healthy body.)
Labor Intensive (Learning is hard. It takes commitment to overcome hardship in order to learn something good. No pain, no gain.)
Individual Long-term Involvement (Many kids today just follow their parents’ herd mentality. Let them follow their own interests to learn something by herself, form her own personal opinion.)
Stable Relationship Environment (an emotional story at Make a Difference.)
Encouragement from Significant Persons (a mentor who’s not one of the parents.)
Dr. Chan gave a humorous lecture today at Chinese University, the long blog post with a parent’s summary is here.