Parents living abroad urged to help their kids

Encouragement in sports and arts can work wonders for confidence, says speaker

Chinese parents living abroad need not hide their children's talents in sports and arts, but instead should nudge them into active participation to accelerate integration and future success, says Wang Jianjun, a US-based motivational speaker.

Wang, in an interview while visiting Nairobi, Kenya, says such parents are usually afraid that their children will be picked on by locals if they excel in academic or social activities. But this harms their chances of building self-esteem and makes it difficult for them to interact with their non-Chinese peers as they grow older, he says.

"Most Chinese living abroad suppress their children's talents, saying they are not competitive. It has nothing to do with their background, but everything to do with attitude in their new environment," says Wang, a former engineering professor.

Wang's life mission is to reach out to the Chinese living abroad and give advice on how to successfully bring up children in new environments. The father of three says he has seen his advice positively transform his own children, especially his second son.

That son, Cliffton Wang, a freshman at Harvard University, is an All-American and state champion wrestler. He is now vice-president of the Technology, Entertainment and Design program at Harvard University, and his talks give credence to his father's motivational talks as he tours different countries.

But this was not so in his formative years. According to his father, Wang was an average student in class and poor in sports, despite his elder brother's success as a state champion wrestler in the United States.

But the father remembered lessons he learned during his childhood in a village in East China's Shandong province. "When I was 13 years old, I was a poor student academically, which brought a lot of anguish to my mother. But one day, she appealed to me and urged me to put the same passion I had in sports to education."

He excelled and eventually studied engineering at Air Force Engineering University in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, and later worked as a professor at the Naval Institute of Aeronautical Technology. He obtained five patents under his name.

After emigrating to the US 23 years ago, Wang Jianjun developed a concept that he calls "behavioral habits development theory", which encourages parents to listen, understand and encourage children into pushing their creative boundaries in new environments.

"Words of encouragement to children have become rare," he says. Previously, Cliffton never liked wrestling sparring and, when he did spar, he was always floored by his opponents. One day in a competition, his father praised him despite his lackluster performance, and that was a moment of awakening.

From then on, 7-year-old Cliffton trained regularly for at least three to four hours a day, participated in tournaments and gradually improved not only his athletic performance, but his academic performance as well.

The senior Wang now dedicates most of his time to promoting his concept to parents in the US and Europe.

In Nairobi, Liu Yun, principal of the China Kenya Cultural Education Center, says Wang's experience as a father is invaluable to parents, especially those bringing up their children outside their home country. She agrees that sports and academics should go hand-in-hand in early childhood education.

lucymorangi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/20/2018 page20)