Parenting help

Photo provided to China Daily

Super Nanny is coming to China

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Because of economic pressure or pursuit of career development, most parents work full-time, and grandparents, with or without babysitters, are the prime caretakers of young children.

Some parents even leave their children completely in the care of their grandparents, and only visit them when they have time.

"In families where grandparents dominate the rearing and education of a child, the connection between children and parents will not be well formed, and the love, understanding and bonds between parents and children are not as strong as between grandparents and children," Zhong says.

"There are great disadvantages in such a family mode."

For one thing, elderly grandparents are usually retirees who have seen their options and values shrink in society and want to gain recognition and fulfillment from family life. Under such circumstances, Zhong explains, it is easy for them to pay too much attention to the grandchildren, even spoil them so that they feel needed.

When the children grow into teenagers, they need guidance from parents to experience adolescent rebellion safely.

But instead of having their parents, they have their grandparents as their "emotional" parents, and these grandparents are too old to have enough energy to help them. Their own parents, on the other hand, lack strong emotional bonds with the children, Zhong adds.

Lan Hai, the "super nanny" on the Chinese show, says the most important message she wants to convey to Chinese parents is that they should help children grow into what children want to be, rather than make them fit into the parents' expectations.

"We cannot choose our parents, but we have a choice to decide what kind of parents we want to be. Reflect on ourselves and pay attention to our children's feelings, that is most important," Lan says.