#17 Navigating Two Worlds: Chinese Families in the Netherlands with Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist Jinfeng Shen

Dear listeners, thank you for tuning in to the Our Cultures & Our World podcast. In this heartfelt episode, I had the pleasure of talking to Jinfeng Shen, a psychotherapist born in China who made the Netherlands her home 15 years ago.

This episode holds a very special place in my heart because over the past year, I've had the honor of volunteering with the non-profit Foundation, co-founded by Jinfeng. I'm thrilled to share the foundation's inspiring backstory with all of you.

During our conversation, Jinfeng and I explored the differences in parenting practices between Chinese and Dutch parents. These distinctions shed light on the unique and often complex challenges that Chinese immigrant families face while living in the Netherlands. 

Jinfeng emphasized the utmost importance of understanding cultural backgrounds and empathy in helping these families. We discussed the mental health challenges young people face in today's world and the vital role of empathy, compassion, and community support in overcoming them.

Jinfeng's journey also led her to co-establish the Foundation Intercultural Participation of Chinese Families in the Netherlands, alongside her good friend, Jina Zhong. This non-profit organization provides guidance and support to Chinese families through various activities, workshops, and events. Through shared experiences, Chinese families have found support, understanding, and a sense of belonging. 

My experience of connecting with and supporting Chinese parents over the last year has greatly enriched my life. So, I want to invite you to join us in building a warm and loving community to support each other. Together, we can help many families and children live healthy and happy lives! 

If you would like to support the Foundation, whether through donations or volunteering, please reach out to Jinfeng. The contact details are in the show notes. 

I can't wait to share this heartwarming conversation with all of you! Enjoy!  

LinkedIn Jinfeng Shen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jinfeng-s-504808154/ 

WeChat official Phoenix Hope Consultancy: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vYoiSxAFAJXdzID8zDAD5w 

Website Foundation Intercultural Participation of Chinese Families: https://www.cnfamiliesinnl.com/ 

WeChat Official Foundation Intercultural Participation of Chinese Families: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/bwt-KnAZDGk6DTv_UMFtmQ

Link for Chinese Mental Health Festival 2023: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ufI4lHtpeZXHee_f7SRhFA

You can watch or listen to the podcast on the following platforms: 

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🌱 Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/our-cultures-our-world/id1650591999 

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🌱 Buzzsprout Podcast website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2069561 

More information about Our Cultures & Our World Podcast: https://iibboo.com/podcast/. Here you can also discover a lot of fascinating tips from my podcast guests on how to do business in China and how to connect with Chinese people. 

Transcript

Mei (00:00 - 00:06)

Welcome to my podcasting Jinfeng. First, could you please introduce yourself to our listeners?

Jinfeng (00:06 - 01:04)

Yeah, of course. First, I would also like to thank you for inviting me to be here sharing my experience with the audience. Now I'm living in the Netherlands for 15 years together with my husband and two daughters. One of my daughters is 13 and the other is eight. They were both born in the Netherlands. And I'm working as a child and adolescent therapist at a Dutch organization. At the same time, I'm also having my own practice to help Chinese parents with their parenting issues. And what's more, I'm also having, I have found a nonprofit organization together with my friends to help the Chinese people who are living in the Netherlands to participate and integrate into the culture and the life here.

Mei (01:04 – 01:28)

Thank you very much, Jinfeng. Could you please share your personal journey and what led you to become passionate about child and adolescent psychology and family education?

Jinfeng (01:28 – 03:13)

Yes, of course. And actually I was not studying this subject in the start. When I was in China, I had studied English, language and literature and had been working as an English teacher at the university for three years. During my working and personal experience, I found that education, parental education is very important, family education and also school education are very important to children's growth. It plays a great role in how people can become the people they are. At that time, I found that I would like to find out all the questions after these puzzles. I would like to know how do you help their parents to understand their children better?

I know that in China, there are a lot of parents really love their children. However, from the experience of the children, it seems that their decisions are not trusted or respected, and they feel disappointed and painful that the people who love them most could not understand them. I myself experience such emotions and also the people around me. Also, for example, my best friends, who are not well treated in her childhood even now, although her parents claim to love her very much. All these questions puzzled me, so that's why I decided to quit my profession as a teacher and restarted another study direction in the Netherlands, that is child educational studies in the Netherlands, in Leiden University.

Mei (03:13 – 03:19)

Do you also see really certain differences between family education practices in China and those in Western countries? 

Jinfeng (03:19 – 06:26 )

Yes, of course. Actually, because I'm working with a lot of Chinese families even now here in the Netherlands, I myself, I'm raising two children here, my neighbors from the Netherlands, and then I'm observing these differences almost every day. I noticed that in Chinese families, especially in traditional Chinese families, parents expect their children to follow their commands or their orders with a little doubt they expect their children to show a lot of respect to them but in the Dutch families I noticed that the conversation between them are more two-way kind of negotiating and discussing and more sharing. So sometimes I want to notice the difference. And I found it very nice that parents and children could talk in such an equal and friendly, relaxed way. 

And another big difference I noticed that almost all the Chinese families, I will not say all, that would be too absolute. Maybe many Chinese families, Chinese parents would expect their children to excel at school. to achieve really high school performance. They arrange a lot of extracurricular and activities such as music, playing piano or violin, and also sports, tennis, right? And except for that, they also arrange, for example, English tutoring and to improve their foreign language skills, not to mention the Dutch language skills. Yeah, they expect their children to excel in all fields. But I noticed that in Dutch families, they are more relaxed on this respect. They will think, oh, their child is unique, or she's really interesting in reading, okay, I'm supporting him or her.

And if it's not really interesting, if they are more interested in doing things with hands, it's also okay. They do not always expect their children to attend to the university. What else are called with respect to extracurricular activities, they are called that more free play, more free time. They would also arrange some activities for their children, such as music and sports. But the number would not be so many as that in the Chinese families. Sometimes when my neighbor or other Dutch families heard how many extracurricular activities the Chinese children are having now, wow, their parents are really demanding or their parents are really having high expectation from their children. Yeah.

Mei (06:26 – 06:47)

When people move from China to the Netherlands, and they need to adapt and adjust to the Dutch culture, Dutch society. Do we also see that the families use support, they get more relaxed and they really realize this is not the best way to raise their children?

Jinfeng (06:47 – 08:29)

Yeah, for the family I know who immigrated from China to the Netherlands, their initial goal is for their children. They would like their children to grow up in an environment that is less competitive, more relaxing, less demanding. And when they come here, they say, wow, there's no homework for their children in the primary school. Their children love it a lot.

But for the parents, they still need some time to adapt to this process. They would be anxious. Sometimes they still compare their children's activity with the children that are still in China. So it takes them some time to adapt to the way here. They gradually learn the school system here. They understand that their children don't have to spend so much time in studying, official learning in order to attend to a good university, in order to have a good life here. Eventually they make terms with their children about their expectations from their children and they do become more relaxed and become less demanding on their children's school performance, more understanding about their children's needs for free play, for more personal time, for more social activities with their friends together.

Mei (08:29 – 08:44)

What are the unique challenges those families face when they move to the Netherlands? Because you support a lot of immigrant Chinese families and children. What are the common issues you encountered?

Jinfeng (08:44 – 10:27)

The biggest challenge I think is the cultural differences between the Dutch culture and the Chinese culture. The differences I also mentioned just now, maybe I can explain a bit more about it. The first thing is that they expect a lot from their children, but at school the children heard from their teachers that, Yeah, you don't have to force yourself to learn so much. You can follow your own interest. Then their children have a different idea. They come home with this different idea and they would debate with their children, would express their own ideas. You know, in Dutch culture, I think there's also a difference between Chinese culture and Dutch culture is that Chinese culture, it encourage people to, their children to listen to them. But the Dutch culture, the teachers and other adults, would encourage children to express their own ideas. So the big challenge is now, oh, are you, are they able, can they make the parents make room for their children to challenge their ideas to expressing their own way of thinking, to choose their own paths? Sometimes there can be conflicts between each other. The parents still want their children to study in the same way. that they study in China, but the children would like to play more, to study less. There can be struggles between parents and children, and this can be really a challenge for the parent-child relationship.

Mei (10:27 – 10:41)

I can imagine that they can have a lot of conflict about those issues. But as a psychotherapist, how do you approach those challenges and support Chinese families?

Jinfeng (10:41 – 13:17)

First, I think it's important for us to understand where the conflicts come from, for us to understand how difficult it is for Chinese parents to be a parent here in the Netherlands, how much challenge they face, to show some empathy to them. And that's the first step. Once they feel understood, then they would have room to understand their children. When their self not so understood, their anxieties, their disappointment, their pride in their own achievement, also the sacrifice they have made, if their feelings, their emotions could not be seen, then it would be hard for them to see their children's feelings. So the first step is always for me to show understanding to them. That's really not just to show but that really I really understand their challenge. I'm also a parent parenting my children here.

And the second step would be giving psycho education to them about the difference differences between the two cultures, about what it means for their children to grow up in the Netherlands. Know that grown up in the Netherlands is quite different from growing up in China. Maybe from the first sight, it would say, oh, it's so easy for them. They don't have to study so much. 

(12:12)On the other hand, the children also face a different challenge. For example, they have to get, they have to find a balance between the two world. It's also not so easy. They have to learn, okay, how many things I can keep for myself from the Chinese culture and what I can take over from the school, from the Dutch culture. They have to find out who am I, what I'm going to do, what I'm interested in, what is the expectation from my parents, what I would like to do. And this is especially difficult for them in the Netherlands because in China, you know, they were kind of told to do this. They just follow their parents' expectations and everyone else does that, but here they are expected differently from they are in China. They have to relearn everything, not to mention the language difficulty and the different way of thinking between the two cultures.

Mei (13:17 – 13:56 )

Yeah, it's so interesting. I think it's also so special because you have a Chinese background, so you can understand the parents very well and why they have those struggles and also the child's children, why they have those struggles, so you can support them as a psychotherapist. 

And Jinfeng, next to your work as a psychotherapist, you are also a certified trainer for the Incredible Years Parenting Training. Could you please share with us what motivated you to become an Incredible Year Parent Trainer?

Jinfeng (13:56 – 17:45)

Yes, of course. As I mentioned previously, at that time, I would like to know how I can help parents to understand their children better. And this training is not only understand their children better, but also learn how to respond to their children so that their children would feel loved, so that their children would be loved and grow in a healthy way, both physically and mentally, how their children could achieve their potential fully. And this training helps me to reach this goal. 

And it's also brings to the third point I didn't mention just now with your previous question. You mentioned what I did work with the Chinese parents is about understanding them, being empathic with them, and also do psychoeducation about cultural differences. And there's a third point, it's about to understand developments of developmental needs of their children better, and then give them the tools, and also explain them the skills, or help train them the skills, explain them how they can respond to their children in a more appropriate way. 

And this training is a kind of group training that, of course, for the therapy is more individual parent counseling, but here the training, I'm able to use, I'm able to help them, the parents in a more efficient way for families that are not dealing with such a huge challenge. 

This training would, during this training, I help the parents understand why child exhibit these behaviors. For example, when the children are two years old, they would say, no, I don't like it. I would like that. Some parents would say, no, you must play in this way. You must put on this type of clothes. When the children reject them, they may feel rejected or frustrated. They may think the children are

doing this personal against them. But with this training will help them to really understand, okay, it's of their own growth needs. They need to be individual, independent person. In this way, they show what they like and what they dislike. If parents can understand this, then they will feel less, yeah, feel less frustrated. They will find the ways that can combine both, find a balance between the needs, of both of their children and themselves. And there are a lot of useful tools that parents can learn from this training. For example, following the child during playing and then some parents would like to direct the play, want the children to do what they want the children to play. But through following the play. They find, oh, the children are playing more happily with more imagination and they feel also more relaxed and they feel also more satisfied in the interaction. 

In this training, we also use role play to help to increase parents' empathy for their children. Some parents play the role of child. So during the play, when the parents are playing, the parents are praising them, they feel also happy. But when the parents are playing the parents know that rejecting them, they feel so frustrated and so unloved. Then in this way, the parent could understand their own children better. It's a motive to make them to adjust their own parenting behavior.

Mei (17:45 – 18:27)

And in your experience, how do Chinese parents respond to the idea of seeking external support or parenting training, parental training? Because I think for many Chinese, yeah, they when they struggle, some people also feel quite ashamed to ask for help. How do you encourage them to ask for support to really change the family dynamic?

Jinfeng (18:29 – 20:18)

Yeah, it's a very good question. You know, our culture is relatively a bit closed in the eyes of Western people. They think we do not easily seek help when we need that. I guess it also has something to do with our own culture. We advocate solving our problems independently. We don't want to bring burden to other people. We may also think it's a shame that we are not raising up our children very well. We would see it regarded as a failure as parents if we seek help. It's indeed an impedance for Chinese parents to seek help. And in that case, I would like to share with the parents that seeking help is not a weakness, just to the opposite is a strength. And sometimes when you struggle on yourself alone, yeah, it may take longer, it may cost you more effort. And then if you seek help, it would be better for both yourself and your children and the problem will be solved more efficiently. 

Sometimes I also write articles, psychoeducational articles. to explain to parents what kind of help they can seek. Because we are living in a led band due to language barrier, sometimes parents don't know how to seek help or where to seek help. I also try to write something about it so to lower their threshold of getting help.

Mei (20:18 – 20:53)

Thank you, Jingfeng, for your work. Based on your psychotherapist background and the support you offer to the Chinese parents, also as an incredible parent trainer, what are the most critical skills and qualities do you think the parents should develop, to be effective caregiver and raise happy, especially well-adjusted children in today's world, because our world is very demanding?

Jinfeng (20:53 – 22:49)

I think the skills of empathy is very important. To be able to understand their children's feelings and their thoughts and their plans, their intentions to be there with their children, to support them to face all the challenges and also to be proud of their children's achievements. As you have said, this society is a demanding society. People expect you to do a lot, to work hard, to be successful in the society. So children are experiencing stress from an early age. And due to their age and the immaturity of their brain, they are not yet able to cope with this stress alone, and they need the support of their parents to deal with the stress and also to develop their own skills of dealing with the stress more efficiently. 

And all this could not be separated from the empathy from their parents. Or if the parent can be empathetic and be there to understand them, to support their decisions. And when they face difficulties to to solve the problems together with them, to teach them problem-solving skills. And then I believe children will be able to face all the challenges they are going to meet in this world. They will be able to solve the problems they have to solve in this world. After all, problems are inevitable in this society, in this world. No one can live in a world free from problems, free from challenges.

Mei (22:49 – 23:41)

That's really, really so important. Thank you for sharing this. Yeah, this tips for the parents and the skills they need to develop empathy is really, I think, the foundation for everything. And we can hear from you, Jingfeng, when you are sharing your experiences, you are so passionate about what you do. And you're also passionate about helping others. That's why you founded, together with another girlfriend of you, the Foundation Intercultural Participation of Chinese Families in the Netherlands. And in those years, you have been doing a lot of things for the Chinese families in the Netherlands to support them. What inspired you to establish this foundation and to support the Chinese families?

Jinfeng (23:41 – 28:18 )

Yeah, that's a, I love this question. It brings me back to the year when I had the idea of founding this foundation. That when I was still working, when I started work as a therapist, before that I worked as a parent trainer, parent counselor, and then later I worked as a therapist. In therapy, we work with patients, maybe not patients, but children, adolescents with really difficult and complicated problems. For example, depression, autism, trauma. I noticed that for some adolescents, before they become sick mentally, they have been given signals that they are not feeling well for a long time. 

But these signals have been ignored and then even be criticized for example if a child is saying oh I'm having a stomach I don't want to go to school if it happened just once or twice it's no problem but it has when he says have said this for many times and they went to the doctor. And doctors could find no physical causes then it's psychological problems but the parents didn't know that and the parents ignored that and eventually it came to a point that became sick and not attending school anymore. Then staying at home and really, really depressed. And then it would be so, it would take the therapist so long and so much time, so much effort to treat children like this or even treat the family like this. 

At that time I was thinking, if there's an organization, who can help the parents to recognize these symbols at an earlier stage. If there's an organization who can organize activities to support these adolescents who are facing these challenges, who know how to solve the problems at school or at home or together with our friends, maybe these serious mental problems will not even appear. Then we therapists will not have to spend so much time helping them and it would save a lot of effort and also actually many of the government of course, but I would say most important, it would save a lot of pain of the children of adolescents themselves. It's really painful for us to say, for me to see people like who are children who are landed in this situation.

I think it would be even more painful for the children themselves to be in that serious situation. They were helpless, helpless. And they could see no way out. While we know there are many way out, but in their mind, there were no way out because previously all their way out were closed, were rejected, were not supported.

So that was the initial inspiration for me to fund such an organization to support the parents, to understand their children better, to pick up the signals earlier, to help their and support their children solve their problems even early on, and also to help adolescent, the children to find a social network outside their own home when their parents could not understand them and to help, to strengthen their capability to solve the problems. Yeah, and I was very lucky that I had a good friend. Her name is Jina. She shared the same idea with me when we founded this foundation in 2020 together. And since the foundation has organized a lot of activities to achieve our goals.

Mei (28:18 – 28:53)

I have participated in many activities of the foundation and I can see that many Chinese parents really feel seen and heard. Just by sharing their anxieties, they already feel supported. They are not alone. They have such a community around them. So thank you for founding this foundation to support the Chinese families. What kind of activities does the foundation organize to support the Chinese families?

Jinfeng (28:53 – 35:03)

Yeah, we organize activities for children of different ages. We also organize workshops for their parents and also for adults. We like to name some of them for the younger children. We organize reading activities. Our volunteers will read Chinese picture books to these children. And then through this way, they would develop their literature skills and also their social emotional capabilities. Because from reading the books, there are a lot of stories about how people solve their problems, how they make friends, how they regulate their emotions. So there's a kind of early educational activity, what kind of prevention from, you know, prevention from the literary

And for the adolescent, we organized youth support groups. For these groups, for each group, we would have two professional group leaders who would lead five sessions of group activity. Each session lasts two hours. With each session, I focus on a special theme, such as their immigration theorems, their own social network, how to solve their problems, how to change their negative thoughts. With this group activity, it helps the youth to strengthen their self-identity in China, you know, and also to share their immigrant experience to heal the possible traumas in their mind. Sometimes immigration can be traumatic for children, especially when this immigration is not kind of forced by their parents. And by teaching them problem-solving skills, changing their negative thoughts, it helps them to regulate their negative emotions and solve the problems they meet at school, at home.

For example, what if your parents have a fight with each other about you? What if you are not able to understand what your teacher is talking about? Right? And they help them. And what's more, this group also provides a platform for those young adolescents to share their experiences, to support each other, and to form a friendship even after the group has finished.

And except for activity for children. We also organize workshops with parents. For example, I provide incredible years parent trainings for parents with children from 2 to 10. And then in this way, I help the parents to understand their children better and to improve the relationship between them and their children and to cope with the difficulties, the challenges that they are facing in the general parenting in their daily life.

And then we also have the fortune, have the luck to invite you to provide a workshop for parents with adolescents, right? And these were successful workshops, very appreciated for your devotion, for your effort. You have also helped a lot of parents with adolescent sense to communicate with their children more effectively, more important to understand their pubers, to understand their adolescent sense. I think it's also very important. 

After, except for this, we organize, we each year we organize a very big event. We call it the Chinese Mental Health Festival or Health Day. On this day, we would invite professional therapists and counselors, psychological counselors, to give workshops on different topics, such as emotion regulation, effective communication with others, and sexual education, and stress-reducing, mindful skills and parenting skills to invite adults from all walks of life to experience these workshops, to get closer to the psychology, to experience the benefits of psychology. In this way, they will not find psychology so mysterious. They will not think, okay, it's shameful to seek help. They will say, oh, actually, it's very close to our life. It's very common. It's not such a hard thing to be open and to get help. 

And this Chinese Mental Health Day this year would be on 1st October. I sincerely invite the Chinese people who are living in the Netherlands to come to this activity, to choose one workshop that you're interested in, to experience it, to benefit from it, to help you to reduce your stress, to help you to regulate difficult emotions you would inevitably experience in your life. If you're parents, and also welcome to our parenting workshops, I believe you will not leave with disappointment. You will be happy with that you are here.

Mei (35:03 – 35:45)

This mental health day is really filled with many nice exciting workshops and about, yeah, everything about mindfulness, just like you mentioned, and people can register through with the link, through the link of the foundation, I will put it in the show notes. So yeah, dear listeners, you are listening and you speak Chinese and you are interested. We just invite you to join us and also to share our stories and to feel connected with other people because we all share the same anxiety, same problems and the same struggles. I think when we come together to share it, you will feel less and you will feel supported also by other people. And Jingfeng, if you look ahead, what are your aspirations and goals for the future of the foundation and how can people support the foundation?

Jinfeng (35:45 – 38:05)

Yeah, looking ahead, we hope that we can help even more people, more parents in the Netherlands, more children in the Netherlands. Now we are, our working area is mainly in the Amsterdam region, not in Den Haag, in big cities, right, like Utrecht. We hope we can reach people in other cities as well. And in this case, we really need to support from our community and also from the Dutch society. This support can be different forms, could be donation so that we would have funding to invite professional counselors or professional people to help with the children and the parents. 

It could also be in the form of working as a volunteer. We really need good people to work together with us. You know, helping people also cost a lot of time and effort and love. We really welcome people who have the passion, the love for children and the families to join us, to work together to achieve this goal. Our team is not a small team, but it's really warm and I love this team and I hope we can extend this team. We hope we can work with more people who share the same passion, same love and the same energy. If you are interested to help us please contact us. I think I'm going to share the website with you Mei, and also our WeChat official account link. with you so people know where to find us, know how can help us, how can join us.

Mei (38:05 – 39:32)

Yeah, I will do that. I will share the link in the podcast show notes and YouTube show notes. And Jinfeng, really, just as a volunteer, I can speak from my own experience. Supporting the foundation has really enriched my life. I felt such great energy from the Chinese parents also to learn and to grow so I can recommend this really to many people and to be a volunteer, to get involved with the foundation. really, I think as a community, if we can work together and support each other in such a way, we can light up the world and help so many children to become happier and help so many parents and so many families to not struggle so long and to really live a happy and healthy life.

Thank you, Jinfeng, for sharing your stories and your passion. We can really feel it when you are telling us your stories. And thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. How can people find you and connect with you?

Jinfeng (39:32 – 40:39)

I have a LinkedIn profile so people can leave messages to me or connect to me through LinkedIn. I also have my own WeChat official account. That's called in Chinese Fengwang Zai Helan. That means Phoenix Hope in the Netherlands. Phoenix Hope is also the name of my practice. You know, Phoenix has a very good meaning our Chinese culture is the hope of parents in their children and hope you know we have so much hope for our children but I would like to through this name I would like to encourage and nourish the hope not just in children but also in our own life in the society in this community together we will be able to create a more harmonious society for everyone, for ourselves, for our children, for our generations even, yeah, ongoing generations.

Mei (40:39 – 40:59)

Yeah, thank you, Jinfeng. I will put also your WeChat official account link in the show notes so people can connect with you. And thank you really, thank you so much for your time and for sharing your stories. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Jinfeng (40:59 – 41:07)

Yeah, I enjoyed it as well. And again, thank you a lot for inviting me to join your podcast.