When you’re a parent, it can be difficult to remember that you were once moody, non-communicative, and rebellious for the sake of being rebellious. On the other hand, when you’re a kid, you can’t even begin to imagine the sheer magnitude of your parents’ love and the fact that 99% of the annoying things they do are simply an expression of that love, no matter how misguided it may seem.
Simply put, being a parent is no easy task, and yet being a teenager is no cakewalk either. So when you throw the two of them together, you’re in for a clash of epic proportions.
In an effort to help keep the peace, and give teens a safe space in which to share their frustrations and concerns while improving their relationship with their parents, Xiaojie Qin, Founder and Director of CandleX, a local mental health services provider, launched an initiative with two of her teen-interns called Letters to My Parents.
We spoke with Qin about how Letters to My Parents got started, the importance of such an initiative, and how folks can get involved.
Xiaojie Qin
Tell us a little bit about CandleX.
CandleX was born on April 1, 2015, in Beijing. We offer mental health support, in English, to teenagers and adults living in Beijing. Expats and Chinese nationals are all eligible to receive this support. As an English speaking Chinese national, with personal and professional relationships in the expat community and substantial international travel, I found it difficult to identify with the Chinese mental health services available. I was searching for mental health support that utilized a more Western cultural approach. This search did not yield any positive results and I concluded that the English-speaking community in Beijing lacked both social and clinical support. This realization inspired me to fill the gap, and I soon after founded CandleX, with the aim of providing mental health support in English. Our mission is to provide English speaking people in Beijing with affordable, accessible, and quality mental health support.
How did the Letters to My Parents initiative get started?
We have a program called Mental Health for Teens, and there are usually two or three teen-aged interns on our team. In the past, they were doing very repetitive, easy things like maintaining our website and our WeChat. But last year I had two newcomers, one who is the president of a psychology club in the international department of her Chinese school, and another who is studying media work at his international school. I started talking to them and discussing work that we could do together, exploring ways to support teens with issues.
Eventually, we decided that one of the things teenagers struggle with is communication with their parents. Either their parents are too busy, or there’s tension that can be improved if they had opportunities to share with each other what they feel or what they’re experiencing. So we thought we’d see if we could do open letters. By that I mean it can be anonymous, and the letters will go to their parents, or they don’t even have to show it to their parents, but the letters will be published through our WeChat and our website.
So really the goal of this initiative is to create a space for teenagers to have a voice, and have a channel for them to express what they’re dealing with to their parents. We just shared the first article, but we’re hoping to have two articles a month, to generate more readers from the parents’ side. Also, teachers and counselors will be able to read these letters and receive the teenagers better.
You mentioned that CandleX has teen interns and that you wanted to create something driven by them and for them. What exactly has their role been in shaping this initiative?
Each intern is different, they might have different interests or different skills, some are good at video editing, some are good at coming up with content, some are doing psychology. So the idea of creating something with the teenagers is always a brainstorming session to identify their interests and their needs. The process is just me facilitating, having conversations, and seeing what’s feasible.
One of the interns has been doing support letters among the students in her school, so we said, ‘Ok, is there anything that we can do that’s beyond just supporting each other?’ And we definitely saw an issue of parent and child dynamics. So just through conversations and through brainstorming, we came up with this idea.
They will be able to advocate for their friends and classmates on campus and hopefully will keep the letters coming.
What kind of response have you gotten from both parents and teens? Is this something people are eager to participate in? Have you gotten any pushback?
It just started, but so far we’ve got really good feedback. I haven’t had a chance to interview the parents yet, but from what the students themselves have said to me, it has really improved their communication and their parents were really surprised to read the letters, and that it’s somewhere that they could start more conversations.
What does the participation process look like? Do teens need their parents’ consent before they write the letter? How is it presented to their parent? Is there a chance that a teen could write a letter, but a parent could refuse to look at it?
It’s anonymous, so anyone can submit their letters. The teens on our team will guide them if the participants don’t know what to write about. They will also review the letters and give feedback. We have an editor on the team to do the final editing as well.
These letters are published on our social media, website and WeChat accounts. It is possible, in the future, that some teens won’t want to present it to their parents directly, and we don’t make it mandatory that the teens show these letters to their parents. The idea is to post them online so it brings attention to all parents, not necessarily just their own. Some kids might find it hard to present the letters directly to their parents, but writing them down is the first step, and we can take baby steps.
How can people get involved in this initiative?
Read them, forward them in parents’ groups, teachers’ groups, or really any groups that work with teens. It’s an awareness-raising project, so it begins with just reading the letters.
In the future, we hope to bring this offline, having open stage talks, workshops, and presentations, discussing various parent/child topics with parents on one side and teens on the other, answering the same question.
To get in touch with CandleX, visit their website, or scan the QR code above.
Photos: Pixabay, Courtesy of Xiaojie Qin & CandleX
