Jayleen Chen
PTA Chairman
Dear XLIS Community,
In the new semester, the children embark on a new learning journey. On the first day of school, Mr. Lalor welcomed the children at the school gate and watched them come back to school. As a parent, I was deeply moved and inspired.
New semester, new atmosphere. On the first day of school, I visited Dr. Liu. She introduced to me the key work points and plans of the whole school in the new semester, and we visited the kindergarten Department of the school, and checked the hygiene of the dining room and kitchen.
Other members of the family committee and I also made new year’s resolutions. I’m very happy to share with you. We plan to hold a new XLIS “Ted talk” this year. If you want to share with your experience and understanding of growing up together with your children, or if you have your own opinions, ideas and views on education and parenting.Our first XLIS talk is under intensive preparation, you are welcome to our XLIS talk to share with all parents. I believe we will meet you soon.
We hope that through such activities, every parent can find an answer in our community of how to parent no matter what confusion and difficulties they encounter, so that our community can unite more closely. We also hope that all our parents can learn and grow together with their children for life.
I believe that with the joint efforts of teachers, students and parents, XLIS will make have a bright future. The youth will have great promise.
Family Parenting Book List
People often talk about parenting is also the process of educating ourselves. I always feel that what children need is not what we teach them, but how we should support them.
The Conscious Parent
If I could only recommend one parenting book, I would definitely recommend this one. It’s different from traditional parenting books. The author Dr. Sabari proposes that parents and children are partners in the journey of life, and equality and mutual assistance are the core content of parent-child relationship.
The greatest benefit of this book is that it helps me rebuild my identity as a mother. It’s a “transformation” of our identity in our personal growth, tearing apart our desire for control over our children. After all, children don’t need their parents’ opinions, expectations, authority and control. What their parents need to do is to adjust their body and mind and be harmonious with them at every moment.
The Optimistic Child
I always appeal to pay attention to children’s mental health. Nowadays, depression is spreading among teenagers, which is a very worrying phenomenon.
As the father of positive psychology, Seligman, the author of this book, warns parents not to let their children fall into learned helplessness. Every child is a natural learner. This kind of learning is not only to learn positive things, but also to absorb those negative things. The feelings of helplessness, disappointment, despair are acquired.
Therefore, Seligman suggests in the book that we need to “improve the style of interpretation”. Instead of encouraging children to “feel satisfied”, we should teach them “ways to be satisfied”
The reason why I put these two books at the beginning of the list is that, in my opinion, a good attitude is the cornerstone of a child’s growth, and all these are actually inseparable from “the awakening of parents”.
How Children Learn
The author of this book is John Holt, a famous American educator. He has devoted his whole life to observing and analyzing children’s learning behavior.
There is a core point mentioned in this book: only fully mobilize the enthusiasm of children’s autonomous learning, is suitable for children’s learning style. Education should focus on children’s situation and feelings.
I think this is similar to “agency” proposed by IB. We should know that children have three motivations in learning: curiosity, understanding and expression, and proving themselves.
The Self-Driven Child
It is a wish of many parents to let children self-discipline and effectively manage their study, time and behavior. ” The Self-Driven Child ” gives us a particularly good answer.
Through theoretical research on brain science and behavior therapy, as well as case studies from thousands of children and adolescents, this book gives us such advice: “don’t squeeze children’s effort space.”.
How to understand it? We might ask ourselves a question: is it parents’ job to supervise their children’s homework, piano practice, or sports? If we really think that way, it will actually make us more convinced of our original wrong view that someone is always responsible for children’s affairs instead of themselves. As children, they don’t even have to think about these things, no need to mention taking responsibility. It is because, to some extent, he knew that eventually someone would “make” him or “help” him to do something.
If a child succeeds in something, 95% of all the energy spent in the process comes from his parents, then only 5% of the child’s effort will be left.
There is a very vivid metaphor for “parents who excessively participate in their children’s lives”, which is called “helicopter parents”. They have a very similar parenting style with helicopter parents, which is called weeding machine parents. That is to say, when children encounter any difficulties and problems, their parents take the lead and eradicate the difficulties and dangers first, so their children are “protected” very well.
However, from the book “self-driven child”, we know that neither helicopter parents nor weeder parents are the wisest way to raise children. What we have to do is let the children know: I love you so much that I don’t want to quarrel with you about homework. “So from now on, step back and try to be a consultant parent.
From Diapers to Dating
This series of books is known as the “Bible” of American family sex education. This book is divided into two versions: one is 0-14 years old, and the other is 12-21 years old.
Sex education should never be too early. It is a very important issue for parents to establish correct and healthy sexual knowledge and concept for their children.
Some things don’t come naturally to children when they are old. At different ages, children should master different common sense about sex, so as to better protect themselves and others.
There is a sentence in this book that deeply touches me: adolescence is like a preset alarm. It seems to ring suddenly, but in fact, what should happen will happen.
The International Committee on adolescent sexual health defines “sexual health” as follows:
They will appreciate their bodies, be responsible for their actions, maintain effective communication with their parents, communicate politely and effectively with both men and women, and properly express their love and intimacy according to their age.
Healthy sex education can help children build a positive sense of self-worth and identity, establish a healthy adult intimate relationship, and more likely to get a happy and full life.
As parents, we have to think about what kind of sexual values we should convey to our children from now on.
At the end of the article, I would like to share with you what Eckchart Tolle said: by you, they (children) come to this world, but they don’t belong to you.
It may not be easy to achieve this, but I think what we can do is to really treat our children as an independent individual, trust them and accept ourselves. There is a long way to go in life, and we have to let our children learn to control their own lives.
