“Children are the expectation of their parents and the hope of a nation. Family education is not only an important component of education but also the first lesson to a child, which will be remembered forever.” (Zhao Zhongxin, P1, 1991) Family education ha s a direct influence on the qualities of talents. In the 21st century, international competition is becoming fiercer. And it is a competition for talents fundamentally. Thus, each country should pay more attention to family education in the education projects. The issue has been becoming a hot topic in our country, and it aroused great concern of our government and all walks of society, in particular the education sector. However, many people think that schools and universities have the main responsibility for these problems which appeared in education in recent years. Schools and universities are to be blamed, but their parents are more to be blamed. “If the love of the good, the beauty and the truth had been implanted properly in their mind in early years, if they had been trained to use their minds at the very beginning, they would not live so foolishly.” (Karl Weter. P5, 2002) In order to find a better way to educate our children, we should study other countries‟ experiences. There are many types of family education in the world, and American family education is the most famous one. So it is necessary and significant to make a comparison of the differences of family education between America and China. This paper is to comparing Chinese family education and American family education superficially, which may offer some lessons to family education.A. American Family EducationIn America, parents‟ aims are to train their children to have the ability of adapting to environmental variety and the ability of living independently. Based on this concept, most American parents emphasize more to train their children‟s ability of independence once they are born. They generally believe that children‟s growth must rely on their own experiences, because they think that children should form a self-supporting will and the capacity to live independently since their childhood. And the capacity comes from the training in the early age. The so-called training contains many aspects, such as work, temper will, patience, the spirit of hard work, etc. However, the most fundamental training is the ability of adapting to hard conditions. Through the process of work, children will form the labor sense, learn some work skills and form a habit of labor. Besides, children can learn how to overcome difficulties, temper their willpower, develop their talents and skills, rich their knowledge, and form a habit of hard work and thrifty by working in hard conditions. It is just in the unconsciously process that children will obtain the independent survivability and take the responsibilities for the society.B. Chinese Family EducationCompared with American, Chinese parents have a very different conc pt of children‟s education. Some parents in China only care about whether the children have a promising future, a good job, a good life or not. Based on these expectations, the majority of parents feel that their responsibility for their children is to create as good conditions as possible they can so that the children will not worry about anything in the future.Thirdly, American parents have stringent requirements and regulations on children‟s pocket money, although their economic conditions are better than the majority of Chinese families. The principle, how much money they should give their children as pocket money depends on children‟s ages and actual demands and the income of the family. What American parents do is to cultivate children‟s awareness of frugality. Moreover, they do not award their children by giving them pocket money, and they let their children understand that the purpose of study is to help them to become a valuable person in the future. According to a survey, it is found that “About 54 percent young students have no pocket money in America, and there are fewer chances to get money from their parents as their ages increase. It is also found that 68 percent American students earn pocket money through doing part-time job in their spare time.”(Tin Jennifer, P51, 2005) Rockefeller was one of the richest men in the United States and the first man earned one billion dollars in the world, but his children have little pocket money according to the regulations which printed on the title page in his family book. “The pocket money of the 7-8years old children is 30 cents per week; that of the 11-12years old children is one dollar per week; that of the over 12 years old is three dollars per week. The most important thing is that the children were asked to record every expenditure. If the account is clear and their expenditure is used for legitimate purpose, they will receive additional 5 cents in the next week. Rockefeller said: …Too much wealth will bring disaster to their generation.‟ ” (James Dobson, P175, 2004) His words contains a profound philosophy, it is worth of thinking carefully.2. The Cultivation of Children’s Independence in ChinaCompared with American parents, Chinese parents hold a very different attitude toward children‟s independence. In China, most parents require their children to be obedient to them. On one hand, most of Chinese people hold the idea that there should always be a law in a certain community. That is the reason why almost every Chinese family has its law both as an illustration and an evidence of the education of children. The law might be either formally written down on papers or announced orally. The law will be used to give instructions to the children who have done something wrong. Apparently, this is very helpful for children, but in fact, it is unfavorable to cultivate children‟s ability of living independence. Because there are so many restricts in their lives that they have no chances to learn from the daily life. On the other hand, because of theinfluence of traditional culture, one should respect his parents absolutely in most cases. So, many parents do not concern their kids‟ feeling, because they think that what they do for their children is just their children‟s needs. It is well known that in the later of last century, for the sake of sustainable and harmonious development, our country has carried out the one child policy as family planning, for this reason there‟s an increasing number of families with one child, and Chine se children, since long ago, have been considered as the apple in their parents‟ eyes. Based on the above reasons, parents tend to over-indulge their children in a surprising way that seems absurd to westerns. It is not surprising to see that Chinese parents always try to do almost everything for their children, such as helping them to washing, cooking meals, bathing, etc. In short, many Chinese parents, especially the parents with one child, arrange and decide everything for their children or even become the substitution of their children almost in all aspects of life. Therefore, the children have no chances to experience and contact with the society. The serious consequence is that many children cannot do these things what they should do in their age. For instance, the three-year-old children cannot wear by themselves, the six-year-old children cannot tie their own shoes. “In the city, the primary school students need their parents to accompany with them to go to school and go home, and they let their parents take bags for them; many middle school students cannot wash their own clothes; the most serious thing is that many university students need their parents to accompany them to enroll at the first year.” (Qi Xin, P58, 2005) In a word, many parents finish everything for their children.Besides, they protect their children excessively in social activities. Many parents fear that their children will face a lot of difficulties or become bad boys in the society; they always reduce their children‟s chances to co ntact with society or do not let them go to the outside alone. Once there is a dispute or an unpleasant thing happened between their children, they usually do not like to learn the truth but only accuse others. That makes the dispute into a seriously conflict or a dispute among parents. These parents always are proud of what they did for their children, because they think that they have safeguarded the interests of their children. But, in fact, they do not realized that what they did for their kids have a n egative effect on the children‟s growth because these behaviors have deprived of their children‟s right and opportunities to experience the life what they should learn in the early age. And they maybe have no chances to learn how to distinguish between right and wrongAt last, they are always laissez-faire to their children on economy. Many Chinese parents are obedient to their children‟s any requirements on economy. Both rich families and poor families are likely to fulfill their children‟s requirements wi thout preconditions, because they hope their children have a superior sense when compared with others in material conditions. They save money from each expenditure or borrow from others to meet their kids‟ demands. The seriousresult of these parents‟ beha viors is that children can not understand the difficulties of life and do not know why they should save. The worst consequence is that many children do not like to do their own work, but ask others to do it for them by the means of giving others money. We can see this kind of phenomenon here and there in our daily life. This is the direct consequence of the laissez-faire on economy.B. Differences in the Cult ivation of Children‟s InterestsThe attitude on children‟s interest is also very different betwe en American and Chinese. In the United States, children are encouraged and induced to developing their interest and do the things what they are interested in. American parents will not prevent their children from doing what they like to do, and will not they enforce their children to do what they do not like either. For instance, Jefferson, a fifteen-year-old child of a common family, likes to play basketball, "I wanted to make him become a lawyer, but he became interested in playing ball when he was young. We don't like him to give up his study, but after a long talk with him, I felt that he had his own idea of life, perhaps he should become independent, and so I gave up my mind.” ()His father said. Maybe at the beginning the parents have requirements for their children, but at last their own choices are the most important, in the United States.But in China, many parents never consider or respect their children‟s interests. Because of historical and traditional reason, almost everyone thinks that scholars should be respected without any doubts and have high status in the society. So they pay great attention on their children‟s studies because they believe that knowledge can change ones fate. In fact, scholars are respected by people in most time. Hence, the parents hope that their children can obtain the same honor like the scholars in the future. Without thinking carefully and researching, we can conclude from practices in daily life that some Chinese parents, if not many, have been strangling their children‟s interests in a way that is elusive to American. To be concrete, under the current Chinese family education, most children are arranged with assorted extracurricular classes where they are taught to learn playing piano, drawing, singing, etc., partly because parents wish their children to develop in all-round way and have a head-start in studies than other children. The fact, however, is that children may show the least interest in these classes that seem dull and boring in their minds. In this way, children are deprived of the freedom to dip into things what they are interested in and children are bereft of ebullience and creativity in studying. We also can find that Chinese parents do not care about children‟s interests from a survey. According to the survey made by Women's Federation of Tangshan Municipal, in Hebei province, we find that “About 10 percents parents absolutely agree that everything is not important if their children study well. And most parents agree this view thoroughly. There is only 27 percents of parents do not think so. As for the otheropinions, that the children have a healthy body and a good spirit is more important than study well, only 5 percents of parents agree with it completely, but there are more than 32 percents of parents said they don‟t agree with it completely.” (Qi Xin, P96, 2005) All of these reflect that most Chinese parents are more concern about children‟s study than their interests. In other words, most Chinese parents do not care about their children‟s inte rest.“孩子是父母亲的期望，是祖国的未来。
