Chinese parents are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the US or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will either learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes that will give them a head start in life. The Chinese believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is. So parents will spend unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy computers for their sons or daughters.
However, what most parents fail to see is that the best education they can give to their children is usually very cheap.
Parents can see that their children’s skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize though, is that today’s children lack self-respect and self-confidence.
The reasons are that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents are not teaching them the most important skills: they need to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing other housework.
Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life. Cooking demands patience and time. It is an enjoyable but difficult experience. A good cook always tries to improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually finish his job successfully. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of confidence. These activities are not only teaching a child to work, but rather to think, and to use his mind. And that is more important.