‘Light in his eyes’: excited China boy, 7, makes meagre exam progress, rewarded with chicken dinner by mother who is praised for parenting style

A seven-year-old boy in China who made a meagre improvement in his academic performance but was nonetheless rewarded with a chicken leg dinner by his mother has delighted people on mainland social media.

The boy, Xu Lang, from Jiangsu province in eastern China, is a Primary One pupil.

He was happy with the four- point progress he made in a school exam compared to his previous passing mark.

When he shared the news with his mother, she rewarded him rather than criticising the incremental improvement in his performance, Star Video reported.

In a clip filmed by his mother, the boy, who is wearing a school uniform and carrying a bag on his back has just returned home and is showing his mother his result.

“Look, my score has gone up four points,” he told her.

“Good. I will reward you with a chicken leg for dinner, would you like that?” his mother asked.

“Yes,” Xu said while maintaining a beaming smile.

It is unclear whether or not she is a stay-at-home mother, but she has created a free and open family for her son and clearly does not want to create extra stress for him.

“What I wish most is that he can be healthy and happy. Good academic performance is just the icing on the cake. As long as he can make an improvement it is fine,” his mother told Star Video.

The story struck a happy chord on mainland social media where many applauded the mother’s parenting style.

One online observer said: “There is light in his eyes.”

“I agree with the mother. We can not judge a kid by test result,” said a second person.

“Such impressive parenting really can make the kid grow up happy,” wrote another.

Stories about good parenting styles often do well in China.

Two months ago, a 35-year-old mother in eastern China won online plaudits for teaching her son the value of personal pride before money after he told her about his rich classmates.

In May, people on social media also applauded a Shanghai mother for respecting her secondary school-aged son’s judgment because he left her a note asking her to ignore his teacher’s complaints during a parent-teacher meeting.