What are we teaching children to value?
Christine from JEMS shares the character traits that she believes parents undervalue today
We might say we want our children to be kind, but spend most of our conversations asking about homework and marks. Christine’s suggestion is to notice what we celebrate, what's the first question you ask your child when they get home?
JEMS was established 17 years ago, by Christine who felt something was missing in Hong Kong, it was before anyone started talking about character
I wanted to understand what character education actually looks like. It is quite an abstract phrase when you are choosing between classes, and kindness can easily become something we say we care about without knowing how to help a child practise it.
I asked why character should be taught at all
"I think the limitations of home is , you don't have those social engagements, especially now that so many families only have one child. With school sometimes it's so big it makes it hard to have really meaningful discussions between people."
“It’s not something that you’re born with, it’s not something that just happens. It’s actually a skill that you can build.”
I asked what gets overvalued in Hong Kong
“There’s been so much talk about resilience, about grit and all of that. Those are all performance character related. And I think a lot of it’s because there’s the correlation between performance character and actual achievement — if you have performance character virtues you will have better academic achievement.”
“That’s great in many ways. It’s teaching our kids to persevere and to not give up.”
I asked what the other areas to focus on are
“Character traits fall into these four domains. And I love this analogy — we talk about it being like the four legs of a table.”
The four are civic, moral, intellectual and performance.
At the end fo the day, what can a parent can practically do to support their child today.
“As parents we first have to ask ourselves: what is the message that we’re giving our kids by what we celebrate and what we focus on.”
I focus on gratitude with my kids - I ask them what is one thing you are grateful for today? As studies have shown that grateful people are happier people, not the other way around
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