The LifeDesign for Parenthood Program
The program allows parents to understand Design Thinking as a general methodology to address a wide range of relevant parenthood knowledge and issues. These knowledge and issues may include transition to parenthood, parenting styles, conflicting parenting styles within a family, matching parents’ expectations with children’s potentials and interests, co-designing the learning and developmental pathways with your child, child with learning disabilities or psychological disorders, parents’ self-care before childcare, family relationships, financial planning for your child, and many others. Throughout the program, parents or future parents learn and nurture their own version of Design Thinking through a range of carefully planned content-specific live-projects (Note 1). The live-projects equip parents with the awareness of their parenting style(s), potential parenting challenges and conflicts, parents’ roles and responsibilities, and parent-child co-creation of learning and developmental journeys. This is especially important as self-awareness is critical for parents to design their parenthood and to chart their child's developmental and learning pathways. As with most of the lifelong learning initiatives, the program enables the steering of parental-life orientation based on your parenting style and the integration of the intrinsic potential and interest of your child and your expectations. In short, the LifeDesign for Parenthood Program serves as a platform for continuous, multifaceted and progressive lifelong learning and development.
(Note 1) - The customization of live-projects is based on the principle that enables students to explore combinations of latent potentials such as linguistic, logical-analytical, visual-spatial, musical, physical, self-sensitivities, others-sensitivities, creative, and innovative capabilities. The list of latent potentials can be largely referenced to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences.
For examples,(1) a project of “My Child’s Life Mapping - Version 1.0” that emphasizes the logical-analytical, visual-spatial, others-sensitivities, and creative capabilities; (2) a “Lifespan Financial Plan for My Child Project” that emphasizes the logical-analytical, self-sensitivities, creative and innovative capabilities; (3) a “Parenting Style Playbook Project” that emphasizes the linguistic, logical-analytical, visual-spatial, others-sensitivities, and innovative capabilities; (4) a “Parenting Board- or Card-Game Design Project” that emphasizes the logical-analytical, visual-spatial, others-sensitivities, creative, and innovative capabilities.
What do individuals or learners in their middle adulthood get out of the program?
The program helps learners to:
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acquire and internalize Design Thinking as a general set of knowledge, skills and attitudes to apply and tackle a broad variety of parenthood knowledge and issues through the suite of customized live-projects1;
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discover and explore their parenting styles, parents’ roles and responsibilities and their child’s latent potentials and intrinsic interests through live-projects and parenthood counselling;
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apply empathic sensitivity, critical reasoning, creative thinking and innovatory capabilities to resolve parenthood and parenting significances and problems;
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build and strengthen parent-child relationship and belief in collaborative lifespan design and development;
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engage proactively in LifeDesign and parental initiative for the formation or transformation of parental-view;
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nurture self-confidence, self-efficacy and self-awareness; and
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enrich lifelong learning and developmental portfolio.
Program Structure
The LifeDesign for Parenthood Program is a series of project-based learning:
Number of project:
a series of projects, minimum two projects
Project duration:
six to eight two-hour-sessions per project
Time span per project:
typically once or twice a week across a one-to-two-month time-span (session per week is based on the feasibility of the learners’ work and personal schedule and a more compact schedule can be arranged based on request)
Class size:
from individual class up to group of 12 parents at the same tier of life stage maturity
LifeDesign counselling/coaching:
two to three group counselling sessions (certain parents may benefit more through individual counselling/coaching)
Instructors:
methodology and content experts (sometimes an instructor can be both the methodology and content expert)
Pre-requisite:
no (group formation is based on a tier-based approach)
Program Delivery
The program can be delivered in either Chinese or English (Note 2).
(Note 2) - Using English as the delivery language provides opportunities for learners to practise the language skills in a less formal learning environment.
Program Cost
The program cost is determined on a sliding scale of fees to support individual learner's affordability.
Program Coordinator
The Program Coordinator and Lead Instructor of the LifeDesign Program is PY. PY has diverse academic knowledge and professional experience in the design and creative industries. The relevant knowledge and experience were acquired through PY’s employment as Assistant Professor at the School of Design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Director of Creative Industries Singapore for the Singapore government, and other private sector assignments. Prior to that, PY had studied mechanical engineering and industrial/product design. To fulfil his passion for lifelong learning, PY broadened his knowledge-base by following his belief in “uncovering one’s potential and beyond” through learning. His Master of Business Administration, Master of Education Psychology and Master of Counselling have been fundamental to his success in roles built on a variety of responsibilities required of an educator, a lifespan planning counsellor/coach, and an education psychologist.
"Parenthood is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you'd have. It's about understanding your child is exactly the person they are supposed to be. And, if you're lucky, they might be the teacher who turns you into the person you're supposed to be."
- The Water Giver
Is "Design Thinking" a specialized skill for designers only?
No, Design Thinking is not just for design professionals. Design Thinking is much more than just a disciplinary skill; it has broader applications to a wider audience.
