Dealing with the homework pandemic

Believe it or not, homework, not smog or housing prices, is causing nervous breakdowns for Chinese parents. Chinese social media are full of stories about neighbors hearing parents yelling while helping their children with homework.

Some parents literally get sick trying to help their children after a long and hard day at work. In an extreme case, according to social media, a parent suffered a heart attack due to the mounting pressure of a child's education.

School homework, of all things, is becoming a pandemic, putting strains on the school-parent relationship and the already delicate dynamics between parents and children. For example, an angry teacher in Shanghai deleted a parent out of a WeChat group for whining about the absurdity of assignments.