Social skills crucial for kids: survey

A majority of parents in Shanghai with children of kindergarten age are not in favor of enrolling their kids in after-school studies and would rather see them spend more time on non-academic activities that cultivate social skills, a new survey suggests.

Some 79.8 percent of parents whose children attend public kindergartens and 66.4 percent of parents whose kids study at private kindergartens are not in favor of having their children spend extra time taking academic courses, according to the Shanghai Municipal Education Bureau report, which was released Tuesday and based on some 7,000 survey respondents, including parents and teachers from 200 of the city's 1,252 kindergartens.

Still, one-fourth of the undisclosed number of parents surveyed, however, said that extra classes - especially for subjects like Chinese and mathematics - are needed to give kindergarteners an extra edge, particularly when it comes to getting into a good elementary school - a rationale that local education authorities hope to reverse, according to Huang Qiong, who contributed research to the bureau's report.

"While more parents are now realizing the benefits of non-academic activities, some still think that kids need to attend extra courses early on," she told the Global Times Wednesday. "But, activities that build character and a sense of creativity from the get-go are also crucial to a child's long-term development."

But, only when educational opportunities are fair for students regardless of their socioeconomic background, parents will stop feeling pressured to enroll their children in extra courses - a situation that fails to exist today, said Xu Zhening, an early childhood education expert at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Youth Research Institute.

"Many parents worry that their kids won't be able to compete against high-performing students, so they push their children to achieve exceptionally high grades," she told the Global Times Wednesday. "They think it will help assure that their kids are accepted by prestigious elementary and middle schools."

But, Xu warned parents from putting too much pressure on kids at a young age, saying that children are not able to handle stress as well as adults.

"If they fail to meet extraordinary expectations, kids may be overwhelmed by feelings of failure, which could be detrimental to their development and make for a tough future," she said.