Improving parent-child communication

Abstract

With the influence of COVID-19, people all over the world are facing significant challenges. Families with school-aged children face difficulties in helping the children transition from traditional school to online education while bearing various stress due to the epidemic quarantine measures. The situation leads to an intense parent-child relationship during the quarantine period because of the increased conflicts about the children’s learning status, especially for Chinese families, which attach great importance to studying. Through a literature review on parents’ involvement in children’s study, the cultural influence on parenting style, and how the epidemic context could impact the children, I have a basic understanding of the context. The design goal was defined by combining the insights obtained from the in-depth interviews with nine families and relevant design theories on designing for children and parent-child communication. The project aims to improve parent-child communication by creating a relaxed conversation atmosphere during the COVID-19 quarantine period for Chinese families with children aged from 9-12 who are about entering their puberty and could have more communication problems with their parents. With the inspirations of ideas from brainstorming sessions and the Doraemon character, the time travel concept was created and developed to create a relaxed communication atmosphere and provide more communication topics for parents and children at home. A prototype was developed and tested with four families to evaluate the extent to which it can improve parent-child communication at home. The test results showed that parents believe the design makes sense in helping create a positive communication atmosphere at home and, therefore, could facilitate a better parent-child relationship. From the children’s feedback, the long-term attraction to the children in using the product can be a direction for further development and improvement.