Let the children grow at their own pace

Children in China are prodded to wean much earlier than children in the West. They are weaned off nappies around 18 months of age (a year earlier than the West) and sent to kindergartens at the age of 2 (also a year earlier). This pattern is repeated throughout the school years; parents make huge efforts to educate their children and put commensurate pressure on them to achieve good scores so that they can get admitted to a good university.

It is as if parents project their own ambitions on their children, expecting them to be better educated and better off financially than themselves - an expectation made more emphatic by the value of a certificate in finding a good job.

There is hardly any appreciation of life's experiences in the job market. Job advertisements are specific about academic achievements and work experience, which force students to focus on getting high scores and parents to offer all sorts of incentives and put disciplinary pressure on their children to perform brilliantly in exams.