Children get homework on anger control

A special homework for primary school students designed for emotion control during the summer vacation has gone viral. The homework set a challenge for students and their parents to “live without anger for 21 days.”

Nearly all of the students and parents in a class of Zhonghualu Primary School in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province, failed to meet the challenge, with only one family completing the task, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on Wednesday.

Cheng Hong, the teacher who assigned the homework, said the challenge doesn’t intend to require her students and their parents to get rid of anger and disputes in daily life. It is instead aimed at making parents and students aware of the impact of their emotions on other family members.

“Parents are 25 percent more likely to be angry than children, and more than 80 percent of the parents get angry due to study issues,” Cheng was quoted as saying in the report.

“Through this challenge, I wish parents and students could control their anger in order to reduce unnecessary mutual harm,” Cheng said.

The report said that one student failed to fully meet the challenge because she was distracted from her homework for two days, and her mother was not happy with that.

It’s quite simple to make children happy. “My father caught a cicada for me. I’m so happy,” a student named Rong Rong said.

Some parents admitted that the challenge promoted mutual understanding between them and their children, and helped them realize the importance of emotion control in daily life.

Cheng hoped her students would develop a habit of controlling their anger.