Family Education as the Foundation of Children’s and Adolescents’ Development: A Review of Family Systems Psychology: Mastering the Art of Family Education and Parent-Child Communication

Abstract

Family education occupies a foundational position in individual development, shaping psychological health, character formation, everyday competence, and lifelong growth. Drawing on Qiao Fuqiang’s book, Family Systems Psychology: Mastering the Art of Family Education and Parent-Child Communication, this review essay reconstructs the book’s account of family education as a multidimensional developmental system. The discussion organizes the book’s implications into twelve interrelated dimensions: emotional well-being, everyday life and labor, rule consciousness, interest development, goal formation, frustration tolerance, reading and writing, interpersonal communication, love and attachment, ritual practice, meaning in life, and preparation for school education. These dimensions show that family education is not merely supplementary to schooling, but is the primary relational environment in which children and adolescents acquire emotional security, self-regulation, social competence, and value orientation. The review also situates the book’s argument within contemporary Chinese policy efforts to strengthen collaboration among families, schools, and society. It argues that a family-systems perspective provides a useful framework for building more scientific, relationally sensitive, and developmentally appropriate approaches to parent-child communication and family education.