An Analysis of the Differences of Family Education Between China and America

关键词：Family education independence interest differences家庭教育独立性兴趣差异AbstractChildren are the hope of a nation, and family Education is the elementary education for children. Many serious problems have appeared in our education system in recent years. Almost everyone has realized the importance of solving these problems and many people have presented a lot of valuable suggestions. There are many types of Family education in the world and each of them shows distinctive features and is closely responsive to its culture. And American family education is the most famous one among them. There are great differences in the concepts of education, methods of education and results of education between American family education and Chinese family education. This paper will analyze those differences from the three aspects, and will mainly analyze of the differences on cultivating children‟s independence, interests, creativity, psychological health, fame and the relationship with their parents between the two kinds of family education. The author hopes to find a satisfied family education method through comparing the differences between American family education and Chinese family education. At the same time, the author hopes this paper can provide some helpful suggestions for family education.摘要儿童是一个国家的希望，家庭教育是儿童教育的基础。

近年来，我们的教育出了很多严重的问题。

几乎每一个人都认识到了解决这些问题的重要性，并提出了很多有价值的见解。

世界上有很多类型的家庭教育，并且各自都有其鲜明和独特的特点，反映了其独特的文化。

而这些类型的家庭教育中，尤其以美国的家庭教育最能代表西方主流文化。

中美家庭教育在育儿观、教育方式和教育结果方面都有所不同。

本文将从这三方面来对比中美家庭教育，重点分析两种教育方式在培养孩子的独立性、兴趣、创造力、心理健康、名利观以及与父母关系方面的差异。

通过比较中美家庭教育，作者希望能找到一种比较科学优良的家庭教育方式，进而为我们的家庭教育提供有利的帮助。

Introduction“Children are the expectation of their parents and the hope of a nation. Family education is not only an important component of education but also the first lesson to a child, which will be remembered forever.” (Zhao Zhongxin, P1, 1991) Family education has a direct influence on the qualities of talents. In the 21st century, international competition is becoming fiercer. And it is a competition for talents fundamentally. Thus, each country should pay more attention to family education in the education projects. The issue has been becoming a hot topic in our country, and it aroused great concern of our government and all walks of society, in particular the education sector. However, many people think that schools and universities have the main responsibility for these problems which appeared in education in recent years. Schools and universities are to be blamed, but their parents are more to be blamed. “If the love of the g ood, the beauty and the truth had been implanted properly in their mind in early years, if they had been trained to use their minds at the very beginning, they would not live so foolishly.” (Karl Weter. P5, 2002) In order to find a better way to educate ou r children, we should study other countries‟ experiences. There are many types of family education in the world, and American family education is the most famous one. So it is necessary and significant to make a comparison of the differences of family education between America and China. This paper is to comparing Chinese family education and Americanfamily education superficially, which may offer some lessons to family education.I.Two Conceptions of Family EducationA. American Family Education In Ame rica, parents‟ aims are to train their children to have the ability of adapting to environmental variety and the ability of living independently. Based on this concept, most American parents emphasize more to train their children‟s ability of independence once they are born. They generally believe that children‟s growth must rely on their own experiences, because they think that children should form a self-supporting will and the capacity to live independently since their childhood. And the capacity comes from the training in the early age. The so-called training contains many aspects, such as work, temper will, patience, the spirit of hard work, etc. However, the most fundamental training is the ability of adapting to hard conditions. Through the process of work, children will form the labor sense, learn some work skills and form a habit of labor. Besides, children can learn how to overcome difficulties, temper their willpower, develop their talents and skills, rich their knowledge, and form a habit of hard work and thrifty by working in hard conditions. It is just in the unconsciously process that children will obtain the independent survivability and take the responsibilities for the society.B. Chinese Family Education Compared with American, Chinese parents have a very different concept of children‟s education. Some parents in China only care about whether the children have a promising future, a good job, a good life or not. Based on these expectations, the majority of parents feel that their responsibility for their children is to create as good conditions as possible they can so that the children will not worry about anything in the future. Chinese parents would like to provide everything what they can for their children in the process of children‟s grow th. In short, they would like to sacrifice anything if their children can live better with their help. Therefore, in the process of children‟s growth, the most important thing the parents concerning is to developing their children‟s intellect, except for caring children‟s daily life. In order to make their children have a good performance in study, become outstanding, or even become a famous person in the future, they would not let children do anything except studying. As for the children‟s independence, civic awareness and their ability adapting to the society in the future, they consider little or not at all. From these aspects we can find the obvious differences of family education between America and China.II. Two Different Kinds of Ways of Family Education.A. Differences in Cultivation of Children‟s Independence Because of a fundamental difference on parental concept, there are two completely different ways on cultivating their own children‟s independence.1. The Cultivation of Children‟s Indepen dence in America First and foremost, Chinese family education and American family education vary in the attitude towards independence. Most American parents think that the child is an independent individual since he is born, who has his own willing and characteristic. Neither the parents nor teachers have priorities to determine and restrict their children’s behaviors. The Declaration of Independence says: “All the people are born equally; they are endowed with holy rights including life, freedom and pursuit of happiness."( Huang Shaoxiang，P12, 1979) In order to let the children recognize that they are the masters of themselves, American parents will give their children enough freedom and will not make decisions for them in most cases. American parents willing to respect and understand theirchildren‟s feelings, thus, they always think carefully about their words and choose the appropriate time to educate their children. The famous basketball star, Michael Jordan once said, “I admit that our children will inherit some good traditions, but I don't think we should make rules to teach them what they can do, because I think even if they do, they will not be happy. () His words may represent the thoughts and attitude of most American people in family education. In order to cultivate th e children‟s ability to enjoy independent life, American parents take the measures as follows. Firstly, they try to give them enough opportunities and conditions which allow them to be fully trained in various settings since they were born. The common way the parents used is to let the children do some self-service work according to children‟s ability in different ages, because this method will develop their children‟s love of working and talents. For example, “There are three children, which are primary sc hool students, in an American family. All of them have their own roles and abilities. The 12-year-old girl cured all kinds of delicious snakes according to different formulas; the 10-year-old boy helped his father to mow, water flowers and clean court; the 8-year-old little girl can weave cup mat in various colors.” (Jennifer Tin, P107, 2005) This is the result of practices from their childhood. It is not an isolated phenomenon in America. This kind of examples, such as primary and middle school students doing part-time job, are too numerous to cite. According to the America Newspaper Stands Selling Federation‟s convey, there are thousands of newsboys in America. The phenomenon of elder students working in society can be seen here and there, and they are supported by their parents. An American said: “Parents encourage their children to work and earn money in their free time. On the one hand, this will save some expenses, and more importantly, on the other hand, it will develop children‟s self-awareness at an early age.” (Jennifer Tin, P127, 2005)Children will understand the meaning of treasure and know that treasure can only be gained through working, and then, they will know why we should cultivate saving and other good habits. Secondly, American parents would like to see their children experience all kinds of difficulties rather than to live in an over- comfortable environment. They pay great attention to training their children‟s mental ability so that the children can face all kinds of setbacks and can survive hard circumstances. So, we can see the following example, in a cold winter morning, the American children get up to deliver newspapers while our children are still sleeping in the warm blanket. Many Chinese parents probably think that it is unacceptabl e, or even think that is “cruel” to children. Thirdly, American parents have stringent requirements and regulations on children‟s pocket money, although their economic conditions are better than the majority of Chinese families. The principle, how much money they should give their children as pocket money depends on children‟s ages and actual demands and the income of the family. What American parents do is to cultivate children‟s awareness of frugality. Moreover, they do not award their children by giving them pocket money, and they let their children understand that the purpose of study is to help them to become a valuable person in the future. According to a survey, it is found that “About 54 percent young students have no pocket money in America, and there are fewer chances to get money from their parents as their ages increase. It is also found that 68 percent American students earn pocket money through doing part-time job in their spare time.”(Tin Jennifer, P51, 2005) Rockefeller was one of the richest men in the United States and the first man earned one billion dollars in the world, but his children have little pocket money according to the regulations which printed on the title page in his family book. “The pocket money of the 7-8years old children is 30 cents per week; that of the 11-12years old children is one dollar per week; that of the over 12 years old is three dollars per week. The mostimportant thing is that the children were asked to record every expenditure. If the account is clear and their expenditure is used for legitimate purpose, they will receive additional 5 cents in the next week. Rockefeller said: …Too much wealth will bring disaster to their generation.‟ ” (James Dobson, P175, 2004) His words contains a profound philosophy, it is worth of thinking carefully.2. The Cultivation of Children‟s independence in China Compared with American parents, Chinese parents hold a very different attitude toward children‟s independence. In China, most parents require their children to be obedient to them. On one hand, most of Chinese people hold the idea that there should always be a law in a certain community. That is the reason why almost every Chinese family has its law both as an illustration and an evidence of the education of children. The law might be either formally written down on papers or announced orally. The law will be used to give instructions to the children who have done something wrong. Apparently, this is very helpful for children, but in fact, it is unfavorable to c ultivate children‟s ability of living independence. Because there are so many restricts in their lives that they have no chances to learn from the daily life. On the other hand, because of the influence of traditional culture, one should respect his parent s absolutely in most cases. So, many parents do not concern their kids‟ feeling, because they think that what they do for their children is just their children‟s needs. It is well known that in the later of last century, for the sake of sustainable and harmonious development, our country has carried out the one child policy as family planning, for this reason there‟s an increasing number of families with one child, and Chinese children, since long ago, have been considered as the apple in their parents‟ eye s. Based on the above reasons, parents tend to over-indulge their children in a surprising way that seems absurd to westerns. It is not surprising to see that Chinese parents always try to do almost everything for their children, such as helping them to washing, cooking meals, bathing, etc. In short, many Chinese parents, especially the parents with one child, arrange and decide everything for their children or even become the substitution of their children almost in all aspects of life. Therefore, the children have no chances to experience and contact with the society. The serious consequence is that many children cannot do these things what they should do in their age. For instance, the three-year-old children cannot wear by themselves, the six-year-old ch ildren cannot tie their own shoes. “In the city, the primary school students need their parents to accompany with them to go to school and go home, and they let their parents take bags for them; manymiddle school students cannot wash their own clothes; the most serious thing is that many university students need their parents to accompany them to enroll at the first year.” (Qi Xin, P58, 2005) In a word, many parents finish everything for their children. Besides, they protect their children excessively in social activities. Many parents fear that their children will face a lot of difficulties or become bad boys in the society; they always reduce their children‟s chances to contact with society or do not let them go to the outside alone. Once there is a dispute or an unpleasant thing happened between their children, they usually do not like to learn the truth but only accuse others. That makes the dispute into a seriously conflict or a dispute among parents. These parents always are proud of what they did for their children, because they think that they have safeguarded the interests of their children. But, in fact, they do not realized that what they did for their kids have a negative effect on the children‟s growth because these behaviors have deprived of thei r children‟s right and opportunities to experience the life what they should learn in the early age. And they maybe have no chances to learn how to distinguish between right and wrong. At last, they are always laissez-faire to their children on economy. Ma ny Chinese parents are obedient to their children‟s any requirements on economy.Both rich families and poor families are likely to fulfill their children‟s requirements without preconditions, because they hope their children have a superior sense when compared with others in material conditions. They save money from each expenditure or borrow from others to meet their kids‟ demands. The serious result of these parents‟ behaviors is that children can not understand the difficulties of life and do not know why they should save. The worst consequence is that many children do not like to do their own work, but ask others to do it for them by the means of giving others money. We can see this kind of phenomenon here and there in our daily life. This is the direct consequence of the laissez-faire on economy.B. Differences in the Cultivation of Children‟s Interests The attitude on children‟s interest is also very different between American and Chinese. In the United States, children are encouraged and induced to developing their interest and do the things what they are interested in. American parents will not prevent their children from doing what they like to do, and will not they enforce their children to do what they do not like either. For instance, Jefferson, a fifteen-year-old child of a common family, likes to play basketball, "I wanted to make him become a lawyer, but he became interested in playing ball when he was young. We don't like him to give up his study, but after a long talk with him, I felt that he had his own idea of life, perhaps he should become independent, and so I gave up my mind.” ()His father said. Maybe at the beginning the parents have requirements for their children, but at last their own choices are the most important, in the United States. But in China, many parents never consider or respect their children‟s interests. Because of historical and traditional reason, almost everyone thinks that scholars should be respected without any doubts and have high status in the society. So they pay great attention on their children‟s studies because they believe that knowledge can change onesfate. In fact, scholars are respected by people in most time. Hence, the parents hope that their children can obtain the same honor like the scholars in the future. Without thinking carefully and researching, we can conclude from practices in daily life that some Chinese parents, if not many, have been strangling their children‟s interests in a way that is elusive to American. To be concrete, under the current Chinese family education, most children are arranged with assorted extracurricular classes where they are taught to learn playing piano, drawing, singing, etc., partly because parents wish their children to develop in all-round way and have a head-start in studies than other children. The fact, however, is that children may show the least interest in these classes that seem dull and boring in their minds. In this way, children are deprived of the freedom to dip into things what they are interested in and children are bereft of ebullience and creativity in studying. We also can find that Chinese parents do not care about children‟s interests from a survey. According to the survey made by Women's Federation of Tangshan Municipal, in Hebei province, we find that “About 10 percents parents absolutely agree that everything is not important if their children study well. And most parents agree this view thoroughly. There is only 27 percents of par ents do not think so. As for the other opinions, that the children have a healthy body and a good spirit is more important than study well, only 5 percents of parents agree with it completely, but there are more than 32 percents of parents said they don‟t agree with it completely.” (Qi Xin, P96, 2005) All of these r eflect that most Chinese parents are more concern about children‟s study than their interests. In other words, most Chinese parents do not care about their children‟s interest.C. differences in the Cultivation of Children‟s Creativity As for cultivating children‟s creativity, there are also great differences between China and America. American parents encourage theirchildren to innovate and surpass their predecessors in all fields. They think that children, like adults, have the independent ability of st udy, and they hold a tolerant attitude to their children‟s creativity. They encourage children to explore and provide very different views on some problems and let children solve these problems through their own efforts. Even if children cannot get a posit ive effect, the parents would not to interfere their children‟s work; instead, they would let their children to aware of the problems gradually in the process of developing and then correct their faults by themselves. Chinese parents are always just satisfied with their children to imitate others. They always hold a negative attitude on children‟s exploration activities, and these activities are always stopped by their parents. For example, the children who demolished an alarm clock in the United States families will not be blamed by their parents. Sometimes, they will work with their children to repair the clock when the children cannot do it. They will even encourage children to demolish the clock again and reinstall it. (Tin Jennifer, P97, 2005) But, if the same things happened in Chinese families there would nobody dares to tell their parents what they did even though they have installed it back. The children‟s creativity is usually ruined by their parents‟ strict supervision in the early age.D. Differe nces in the Cultivation of Children‟s Psychological Health Psychological studies have shown that the psychological health is very important for the children‟s growth and the shaping of healthy personality. American parents pay much attention to cultivate c hildren‟s psychological health. And they are willing to exchange their thoughts with children. Happy Education is considered as an important and necessary component of education. Children are respected by their parents, so, they like to tell their feelings and thoughts to their parents. What American parents did is very favorable for parents and children to learn each other. However, many Chinese parents‟ behaviors are the opposite of American parents. In daily life, they only care about children‟s physical needs and do not like to cultivate child‟s psychological health and temper child‟s will because they think physical health is more important than psychological health. The serious result is that many children cannot face the difficulties in the daily life. They may be frustrated, decadent, self-destructive, even run away from home when they meet some setbacks. Such incidents are frequently reported by media in recent years, and we can find some evidences that it is caused by low quality family education and low level of psychological health. In another word, this is the result of parents neglect to cultivate children‟s psychological health.E. differences in the Cultivation of Children‟s Fame In addition to the above all, there are differences on children‟s fame between China and America. Most of American parents are not too concerned about whether their children will become a famous man in the future or not and they think that children should have their own choices. So they don‟t pay much attention to arra nge the children‟s future, but create the best conditions for their children to grow freely. They only hope that their kids can become persons who can face various difficulties and environments, and can live independently. In China, many parents hope that their children become a rich man or an officer when they grow up, because these people are regarded as the symbol of success and can win respect of others. Hence, in the process of their children‟s growth, they always require their children to do many thin gs which beyond their children‟s actual ability. And the most important thing what parents should do is to care about children‟s study, except to care about their children‟s life. In order to make their children to enter a famous university, they will not let their children do anything except study. Study is a panacea in their eyes. From this we can find the reason why the parents ignore their children‟s ability of independence, mental health, morality and civicawareness. Parents do almost everything for their children, such as cooking, laundry, etc. In their own opinion, what they did for children will increase their children‟s opportunities to succeed in the future. In fact, they do not realize that what they do will neither let children become talented nor get happiness, because the competition happens not only between knowledge and wisdom but also the willpower and psychology.F. Differences in the Cultivation of Children‟s Relationship with Parents The relationship between children and parents is also very different in America and China. In American education, parents are friends of their children, they are equal at home. If the children do something wrong, parents and childrenwill discuss democratically, at first the parents get to know the children's minds and then communicate with them. By this way the children will understand the truth and won't make the same mistake again in the future. It is very clear in the Declaration of independence that the American people also pursue democracy. “The Declarati on of Independence says that all the people are born equally; they are endowed with holy rights including life, freedom and pursuit of happiness.” (Mike Yorkey, P11, 2005) This is also manifest in American families. Parents never think that they have priority to order their kids, and they believe that children have the right and ability to decide something by themselves. On the one hand, children should experience the life so that they can obtain what they can get only through their own work. On the other hand, children will gain happiness from working. In a word, parents and their children are equal at home. In China, children should obedient to their parents at most times. Why the relationship between children and their parents is like that? We can find the explains from ancient history. “An ancient in China named Zhou Gong once said that one can do nothing successful in lack of a warm family.”(Dong Xiaochuan，P24, 1999) His words also indicate that children should respect their parents completely. Xizhou, a dynasty of slavery, the morality required people should support their brothers and parents. There was a saying "all the soil and subjects belong to the emperor.”(Dong Xiaochuan，P27, 1999) . Although Xizhou had been ruined, the virtue has been passed down. As a result, many people inherit the thoughts and demand their children to be obedient to them unconditionally. In parents‟ minds, they have the priority t o decide their children‟s life without considering their children‟s feelings. As a consequence, there are always a gap between parents and children for lack of equal and effective communication way. In short, the relationship between parents and children is obedience. Except the differences above, there are still many differences in family Education between America and China. We can find a lot of examples in daily life.III. The Different Results of the Two Kinds of Family Education.Because the concepts and the methods of family education are different, the educational results show some obvious differences. The children and youth in the United States show the following characters when they are young.Firstly, their ability of independence is very strong. They do not depend on their parents or families from 18 years old. They often do some part-time jobs to supply their consuming requirements. Even many students from rich families also do part-time jobs.Secondly, they have the capability adapting to the market economy. The children in America begin to manage the finance when they are young, which let children deeply understand that it is not easy to earn money, and help them to form a good habit. For instance, “There are two brothers (one is 12 years old, the other is 14 years old) in New York, who establish a company of washingcars independently under the affection of their parents. They work very hard and ask for little payments. In order to reduce the cost and get more customers, they would rather walk to the stores where the price is lower to buy tools, wax scours and so on.” (Locke John, P85, 2005) Thirdly, they have the abilities adapting to social environments, because they have experienced the life through their own work. Many teenagers in America are not afraid of bitterness and have the perseverance of overcoming difficulties. They can face difficulties calmly and live harmoniously with people around them; they also have the confidence and courage of being independent as a member of the society. These qualities and skills form the foundation of their future development. On the contrary, Chinese children show the following characters. Although their schoolwork is better than that of American students, they can not living well independently for lack of independent consciousness. They strongly rely on other people and are passive in doing things. At the same time, they lack the abilities adapting to environment and face emergency. What‟s worse, they only want others to care about them, and lack of sy mpathy and the ability to help others. At home, they don‟t want to care their parents; and in society, they lack social responsibilities. Supposing if a person only cares about himself, what responsibilities for the society can he take? It is not difficult for us to distinguish the two kinds of family education which one is better.ConclusionIt is very obvious that the future of a nation depends on the quality of young people, which needs to improve family education because family education is the foundation of the whole school education and social education, and it can‟t be substituted by oth er forms of education. According to our country‟s special circumstances, the number of one-child family is becoming larger, so family education must be improved in the project of educational reform and development and family education must be combined with school education and social education. Therefore, it is necessary to change traditional family ideas.First, parents should educate their children in social environment, in other words, they should not only teach their children the knowledge of survival, but also the responsibilities for the society.Secondly, they must cultivate their children‟s consciousness of independence, self-support, cooperation and the spirit of caring for others. And developing the qualities of person requires parents, especially the families with one child, to completely change the wrong ways which they used in the past. Therefore, much can be learned from the ways of family education in the United States.AcknowledgementsMy idea for the thesis sprang from the enlightenment of Mr. TanJie, my tutor, to whom I owed great gratitude and appreciation. He gives me invaluable institutions and encouragement. Moreover, I am deeply grateful to those teachers who gave me much help these four years, such as Mr. Deng Xingyi, Mr. Yuan Bin, Mr. Zhou Ronghui, Mrs. Huang Tianhong, Mrs. Zhang Yihua and Mr. MaDong. They benefited me a lot with sparkling ideas in their lectures. My indebtedness also goes to my parents, who, as the supporters of my life and studies, try hard to keep me strong physically and intellectually. Finally, I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to those who spend their precious time in reading this thesis.。