On the afternoon of September 27, about 35 parents from Grades 9 and 10 gathered in the B1 recording room of ZTB to attend the parent school presented by Ms. Cathy Chen, a parent of three SHSID graduates, together with Ms. Icey Chen, the parent of a 9th grader. The themes of the workshop were “Understanding that adolescence can be a time of transition” and “Working towards building a strong parent-child relationship”. As a mother of three SHSID graduates, Ms. Chen began by sharing her own experiences of three very different styles of adolescence and looked forward to sharing her parenting experiences with the parents in the audience through this workshop.

After briefly describing her own experiences, Ms. Chen helped the parents to understand each other through several activities: (1) testing anxiety levels, (2) sharing what my children see in me, (3) the challenges I encounter when raising my children, and (4) the character I want my children to have. During the sharing session, addiction to games, procrastination, and poor communication attitudes were the common challenges that most parents encountered when raising their children. Ms. Chen then enabled parents to add to their expertise by introducing the biological characteristics of adolescent-brain development, Erikson's eight stages of personality development, and the psychology of adolescent development.

After a 15-minute intermission, Ms. Chen shared some practical tools to allow parents to build a happy family based on acceptance and complemented by appropriate love and discipline. This event provided a communication platform for parents and encouraged everyone to work towards more effective parent-child communication and healthy family relationships.

(Written/Pictures by Hazel Gu Reviewed by Qian Zuo)