Since the implementation of the Family Education Promotion Law of the People's Republic of China, in 2022, family education has been elevated from a "family matter" to a "State affair." In 2023, East China Normal University (ECNU), in east China's Shanghai Municipality, began offering a major in family education. With its forward-looking education concepts, scientific curriculum system and rich, practical activities, the university has helped hundreds of parents master the essence of family education, achieve personal growth and maintain a harmonious parent-child relationship.
In May 2024, ECNU established the Family Education Research Institute, to empower family education, with digital intelligence technology, and to ensure children grow up in a healthy and happy environment.
To mark the institute's first anniversary, ECNU hosted a seminar, in Shanghai, on May 14. The theme was Digital Intelligence Empowerment, Family-School-Society Cooperative Education — For Healthy and Happy Growth of Every Child. More than 350 people, including officials (from education departments), experts, scholars and teachers, attended.
"Education is a cause oriented toward the future. Nowadays, we need technology more than ever to safeguard the warmth of education," Qian Xuhong, ECNU president and an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said during the seminar. He explained how ECNU has always regarded family education as a key link in the education ecosystem.
"The ECNU is currently dedicated to reconstructing the educational relationship network, through technological innovation, adopting intelligent systems to offer large-scale and personalized family education guidance, breaking the information silos between families and schools, through data connection, and integrating social educational resources with a platform mindset, to ensure every child can receive precise and full-cycle growth support in the digital age," Qian said.
"Facing educational transformation in the era of AI, we should take advantage of digital intelligence to deal with educational anxiety, and strengthen the supporting functions of AI in personalized guidance services for family education," Yin Houqing, president of Shanghai Society of Education, said during the seminar. The latest version of Zhixin Huiyu, an intelligent-partner-training system, was officially released during the seminar. As an applet on WeChat (messaging and social-networking app), Zhixin Huiyu was launched by ECNU a year ago. It has been updated three times.
As a vertical application of generative AI in the field of family education, Zhixin Huiyu contains various short-video courses on family education, and it οffers different scenarios in which parents can have conversations with "virtual children." Parents can also create scenarios by themselves. They will receive professional assessments and guidance based οn their performances during the conversations. Through simulated dialogue training, parents can acquire skills and learn how to better communicate with their children.
"The updated version of Zhixin Huiyu can simulate the typical language characteristics of three age groups of boys and girls with four major temperament types — sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic — and adjust the rhythm and depth of the responses based on the content of the conversations," Yan Hanbing, professor and director of the institute, says.
"In the same scenario, and with the same expression, the feedback from children, of differing ages, genders and temperament, will vary. The updated version helps parents more accurately find the key to solving communication problems. Parents' practice on Zhixin Huiyu is more targeted, and it is easier for them to use the learned skills in real life," Yan adds.
Zhixin Huiyu makes professional family education guidance accessible to parents, and it has been receiving near unanimous praise from its users.
Zang Lijuan, a mother of a middle school student, says, "As my child is growing up, communicating with her is becoming somewhat difficult. I have listened to many experts' reports. Although I have gained a lot, I often feel at a loss when it comes to specific situations. After learning about Zhixin Huiyu, I often input the problems I encounter, and I have conversations with it. It tells me which aspects I have done well, and which ones I haven't. After repeated practice, I have mastered the key skills of communicating with my child. When I have similar situations in life, I can handle them easily. Now, my relationship with my child is much better than before."
Wang Ruojia, a middle school teacher, says she likes watching the short-video courses on Zhixin Huiyu. "The courses are professional and easy to understand. Each course only lasts 10 minutes or so. Parents can use fragmented time to learn."
During the seminar, the institute officially launched an activity, themed Holding Family Meetings to Promote Communication and Cultivate the Future. The activity calls on schools to guide parents in holding high-quality family meetings on a regular basis.
From schools' mobilization, provision of sources to holding thematic discussions, and sharing experiences and showing achievements, the activity is aimed at cultivating children's sense of responsibility, promoting parent-child communications, and building good family ties.
A parent participated in a pilot activity prior to the seminar. "A high-quality family meeting is more effective than just preaching. When my child encounters problems, she will say, ‘Let's leave this for our family meeting to discuss.' This change has pleasantly surprised us," the woman says.
"Education is not a solo, but a symphony. The activity is just like the melody that everyone can play in the symphony — simple, but powerful; small, but profound. When millions of families practice simultaneously, small actions will converge into the power to change the education ecosystem," Yan says. The activity will be tested first in pilot schools, under the family-school-society cooperative education alliance, and then gradually promoted nationwide.
Photos from Interviewee
(Women of China English Monthly June 2025)
Editor: Wang Shasha
