Here in Beijing we’re lucky enough to have some superb schools with extraordinary facilities, where our kids can learn almost anything, from languages to robotics to entrepreneurship. One thing though is not on the curriculum: how to be happy.

Local dad and serial entrepreneur Sam Goodman is out to change that. He is the founder of Fulfillment Source Code (FSC), a course which teaches kids to understand how their brains and bodies work, and what science tells us about happiness. Following a successful pilot at a Beijing school, he has now launched a Kickstarter to fund the further development of the program.

Sam Goodman

“FSC is what I wish I was taught when I was 10,” he says. He is also motivated by the desire to make sure “that my daughter will be better equipped than I was.” And that’s why he piloted it with his daughter’s class at the International Montessori School of Beijing (MSB). Class teacher Elaine Kinlough was certainly impressed by the course.

“Much of the content covered in FSC may seem to be above the level of the children,” she says. “But it is in fact presented in a format that is both understandable and challenging for the students, and brings them to a higher order of thinking.”

She describes it as “the program that teachers have been waiting for”.

“As teachers we have hopes and aspirations for our students, and beyond the academics, we want them to live a long, happy and successful life. FSC is a program which allows you as a teacher to guide students towards this life while also challenging them academically.”

Goodman doesn’t take all the credit for the ideas behind the course.

“Nearly 100 percent of FSC course content is from recognized experts,” he says. “All I did was bring it together, weave it into an adventure, and made it fun for kids.”

And he sees it as an essential corrective to an excessive emphasis on academic success.

“The traditional ‘education’ culture in China (and everywhere else, for that matter) is mostly about taking tests, to get into good schools. It has virtually nothing to do with teaching useful life skills. The idea of teaching something that is going to be meaningful to THAT student is rarely part of the teachers’ thought process – due to the school’s system and the parental pressure.”

The Kickstarter ends on December 14, so there’s still time to join in the adventure. Find out more at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1471307710/educating-kids-to-lead-a-life-fulfilled.

Photos: courtesy of Sam Goodman

All parents want the best for their children. This was evident in the number of parents that attended the Beijing Kids School Fair earlier this Spring in search of the best school for their family.

This annual fair is an excellent opportunity to get a taste of many different types of schools, such as local and International, day and boarding, Chinese and bi-lingual schools and to listen to parents talk about their own children’s schooling experience.

Choosing the right school is a daunting process. I remember moving to a new country with a four year old and being told that we were much too late to enrol her and indeed, all the schools we were interested in were already full. We did eventually find one that had vacancies, we registered, bought the uniform, our daughter enjoyed her first day, all went well until we received news later that same day that a spot had unexpectedly become available at our first choice school,.. would we want it, and if yes, could we decide by tomorrow.

This sudden opportunity started a whole new discussion which involved our extended family around the world. Having done the smooth acclimatisation to her new school experience, would we traumatise our daughter by transferring her to another school after that one successful day in her first school? Like all first time parents we wanted to do the right thing. After much deliberation we decided to move her; it proved to be a good decision (and if you want to know, she doesn’t remember a thing about our huge dilemma).

When it was time to find a kindergarten for our two year old, the nice neighbourhood kindergarten I had carefully selected told me that they had no morning places available and that they could only offer us an  afternoon place and not a morning one (that could have been acceptable once we had sorted out her nap time). The kindergarten then said that they would only take her if she attended every afternoon instead of agreeing to my plan of starting initially with two and gently building up to five afternoons during the year. That, on the other hand, was not acceptable to me and we registered our daughter somewhere else.

Talking to Admissions officers at a Fair, browsing through websites and glossy brochures can give you some flavour of a school but visiting it provides you with a true personal impression. Some schools make you feel happy, some make you feel uninspired. If you are uncomfortable or intimidated by the Head of school, it is likely your child will be too. Follow your instinct and choose a place where you would be happy going to everyday and where you see engaged, motivated children and enthusiastic teachers.

‘It takes a Village to raise a Child’ goes the old saying. Finding a school that values dialogue between family and school is essential. Find out if the school welcomes parents on campus (within reason), will listen to your concerns and will contact you if your child struggles academically or emotionally. This is particularly important when we send our children to a school with a foreign curriculum or in a foreign language and even more so to a boarding school.

Our involvement as parents however, doesn’t end once we have paid the school fees.

Research has shown that children achieve better when their parents are interested in their work, their learning, their school, their friends and not just their report cards:

Be a supportive and encouraging parent.

Avoid talking only about grades.

Ask how they feel, listen when they complain about a teacher or an assignment.

Offer help for homework if needed, praise their effort and their hard work, not only their achievement.

Don’t fill up their free time with extra tutoring lessons.

Take time to sit and chat about life at school. Ask what was their favourite event of the day, tell them about yours.

Listen to your children respectfully like you would listen to a friend.

Attend their music concerts as well as their sports games.

Display their art work around the house.

Attend school events.

Get to know your child’s friends and their parents.

Meet the teachers at the beginning of the school year and ask to meet with them again briefly but regularly during the year even if it is not common practice.

A good school should be a community where teachers and parents cooperate alongside each other with the common goal of raising happy, balanced and successful children.

This post first appeared on Lyliane Stewart’s site parentingeastwest.com on March 10, 2014.

Lyliane Stewart is a teacher, a positive discipline parent educator and a mother of two young adults. Originally from Switzerland, she lives with her husband in Beijing where she has been very active with the school community over the years.  Her personal experience of living internationally in a cross-cultural family has given her a good understanding of the various challenges encountered by multi-cultural, multi-lingual expatriate families. Passionate about psychology and education, she founded Parenting East West to offer support to families around the world. Lyliane believes that by gaining a better understanding of ourselves, and of human relationships in general, we become better equipped for parenting.  She offers weekly interactive parenting classes through which she introduces positive parenting tools and strategies.

The Mums2B group she started meets in Sanlitun weekly and welcomes new expectant parents.To get in touch, send a message to: parentingeastwest@gmail.com

Photo by Lyliane Stewart

In a thought-provoking piece for The New York Times, columnist KJ Dell’Antonia wonders what effect her and her partner’s choice to move to the countryside may have had on their children’s independence. She quotes Dr. Richard Jackson, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California: “Children who grow up in suburbia can’t meet their life needs without getting a ride somewhere.” For many expat families living in Beijing, this sentiment is likely to hit home. 

When people look for a place to live, they consider factors that affect their family’s safety and well-being. One of the most basic is the rural-urban divide – or, in the case of many local expat families, the urban-suburban divide.

In her piece, Dell’Antonia writes:

The amount of time my children spend in a car being driven somewhere isn’t about being overscheduled or my hovering tendencies. It’s about the fact that unless I drive them, they’re limited (…). There are no sports, no movies, no after-school activities without my help.

One psychologist, Daniel Gilbert, noted in his book Stumbling on Happiness that people are happier when they live closer to friends or family. This brings up a lot of questions about how we should be choosing our homes. Does a backyard matter so much if you live close to bike trails or a major park? Can the same neighborhood be good for small children but terrible for teens?

There may also be other, more tangible benefits to living in an urban setting. One commenter said:

When we lived in New York City, our kids walked 2 miles (3.2km) a day just getting to and from school (and I walked 4, or 6.4km). When we arrived in Houston, we all immediately gained weight.

Living in Sihui, my boyfriend and I often wish that more of our friends lived in the area. We didn’t choose this neighborhood for its well-kept parks or hip hangouts (as it has very few of these things), but rather because we were rushed and on a budget. Still, I’d rather live here than return to the sleepy Montreal suburb that my sister and I grew up in. The joys of backyards and riding my bike around the block quickly wore off in middle school, when going to a friend’s house meant long bus rides and 30-minute wait times in -30°C and 30°C weather alike.

Though I wouldn’t choose to live in the suburbs myself, I can certainly empathize with the appeal of rural or suburban settings. My own parents traded in the tumult of China for a quiet home ringed with lilac bushes and maple trees, citing safety, breathing space, proximity to nature, and a strong sense of community as prerequisites for raising a family.

How have your lifestyle choices influenced your children’s independence? Why did you choose your current neighborhood? How are you taking pains to foster autonomy in your kids?

However, the ‘experts’, which include the sages and philosophers throughout history as well as our modern-time equivalent – therapists, psychologists, and increasingly, scientists, have all been occupying themselves with the task of searching for those elusive ingredients of a blissful life. As part of a growing field called “positive psychology”, happiness is a hot subject of scientific research, and what the scientists have found out so far include:

In short, happiness quotient = 50% personality + 10% external circumstances + 40% your choices (where strategies can be used to increase happiness).

I don’t know about you, but this seems like a pretty good recipe to feel happy about.