Veteran Hong Kong educator Ricky Chan Wai-leung is not worried his son, Eric Chan Lap-yan, 19, is not a straight-A student.
He believes it is more important to encourage Eric - indeed all students - to develop critical-thinking skills: to question things, yet work out solutions themselves, rather than simply giving them the answers.
'I try hard not to tell my son what to do,' he says. 'I always reply to my son's question with another question. As a dad, it is easy to tell my son what I think.
'The hard part is to come up with a question to drive him to look for solutions on his own: I convince myself that this is for the sake of my son's future.'
Chan is chairman of Hong Kong's privately-funded Association of Brain-based Learning in Education. He and partner Anson Chen - both former local secondary school teachers - are internationally certified brain-based trainers. They focus on how human brains learn naturally, and react to physical, social and emotional learning environments.
'As a parent, don't be afraid to see children make mistakes, or take longer routes to their goals,' Chan says. 'The process of getting to a goal with one's own power is precious. Parents can raise questions to inspire kids to make better decisions, but should never force their ideas on them, even if they think they're best.'
