Dear NCIC-Immersion Families,
亲爱的实验部大家庭的成员们， 

It’s been months since the COVID19 outbreak in China which changed the way we work, learn, shop, and interact. As everyday life in China begins to return to normal where you are now able to enjoy familiar sights, shops, parks, and restaurants. How are you feeling? If you are like us, you might have been going a little stir crazy at home. Aside from the daily societal outings, what else can we do to make a difference in how we feel?
大家好！几个月前，新型冠状病毒疫情在中国爆发，改变了我们工作、学习、购物和互动的方式。随着日常生活逐渐恢复正常，我们已经可以开始欣赏熟悉的风景、去公园、外出购物或就餐。您现在感受如何？是否像我们一样感觉在家有些许焦躁？除了日常的社交活动，我们还能做些什么来改变我们的感受呢?

Commonly we hear from families that most people want their homes filled with love and laughter, kindness and compassion, joy and hope. While you may have seen or are still seeing behaviors from your children in response to COVID19 that reflect tiredness, boredom, numbing out, or anger we are going to share a tool that can help foster a positive emotional climate in our homes.
通常，大多数人都希望家庭里充满爱与笑容、友善与爱心、欢乐与希望。也许您之前看到或现在仍然看到孩子对疫情表现出疲劳、无聊、麻木或愤怒等行为，在此我们想跟大家分享一个有助于促进家庭积极情绪氛围的工具。

The tool called the “Family Charter” was created with an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning from Yale. Every family culture is different, and every parent is their best problem solver. But, even within our unique families we can take what we have learned from the research and make it our own. The following is a description of the tool and how to use it by co-creator, Marc Brackett (2020): 
这个工具叫做“家庭契约”，是耶鲁大学研究人员运用循证法研究社交情绪学习时创建的。家庭文化各不相同，父母是家庭中最好的问题解决者。即使在我们独特的家庭里，我们也可以从研究中汲取养分并内化为我们自己的方法。以下是“家庭契约”的共同作者 Marc Brackett（2020）对这个工具描述和使用说明：

The Charter is a written document detailing how everybody in your home wants to feel. You can do this for yourself, as a couple, or as an entire family. Children, depending on their age, may need help with the writing part. But even young kids can share how they want to feel. 
家庭契约 是一个书面文件，详细记录家中每个人想要获得的感受。这个方法可以运用在个人身上，也可以用在夫妻间、或整个家庭里。不同年龄的孩子，可能需要大人不同程度的帮助完成书写的部分。但即使是年幼的孩子，也可以分享他们想要获得的感受。

The first question that you have to answer is: How do we want to feel as a family? Some of the words we’ve seen people use over the years are loved, respected, included, safe, happy, calm, grateful, and playful. The second question is: What do we need to do to experience these feelings more frequently?
首先，必须回答的第一个问题是：作为一个家庭，我们想获得什么样的感受？通常人们的回答是：被爱、被尊重、被接纳、安全、开心、平和、感恩和愉快。第二个问题是：我们需要怎么做才能更加频繁地体验到这些感受？ 

Building a Charter presents an opportunity to improve the emotional climate in our homes. In many households, this can be a big step forward. For children, it gives them a chance to have a sense of agency over their home environment. It also can benefit parents by accommodating their needs. After a certain hour, adults want to enjoy peace and quiet and no conflicts or excess noise—and so the Charter requires everyone to respect those wishes. It’s a way of reminding children that their parents are human, too, with all the same emotional needs as anyone else. In the long run, that’s an important lesson for kids to learn, but too many parents try to shield them from that reality. As an unintended result, children have a hard time acknowledging adults’ feelings, let alone respecting them.
建立家庭契约是我们提升家庭氛围的一次机会。对许多家庭来说，这是向前迈出的一大步。对孩子来说，他们可以借此意识到家庭氛围的作用。对父母来说，他们也可以从表达自己的需求中获益。有时候，大人想要享受平和与安静，没有争吵，也没有过多的噪音。此时家庭契约就可以发挥作用，要求家庭里的每个人尊重这些需求和愿望。同时契约也提醒着孩子们，父母也是人，也和其他人一样有着情绪上的需求。从长远来说，这是孩子要学习的重要一课。但是有太多父母试图让孩子远离现实。然而无意中，孩子们可能很难理解成年人的感受，更别说尊重他们。

Putting our emotional needs in writing has a way of making them real for ourselves and everyone else. It serves as a contract—a formal agreement drafted in a moment of calm consideration, to help you during moments when you are anything but calm and considerate. You may feel a little self-conscious posting a Charter on your refrigerator door or hanging it on a wall. But if you try it, you might find that it works. Followed are the instructions for building a family Charter and a sample template.   
把我们的情感需求写下来，可以让这些需求对我们自己和其他人来说更真实。家庭契约--即一份合同、一份经深思熟虑后拟定的正式协议，帮助我们平稳度过那些不能冷静、不能周全考虑的时刻。一开始当我们把这个契约贴在冰箱门上或挂在墙上时，我们可能会有点难为情。但尝试过后，我们就能发现它的作用。我们附上了建立家庭契约的指引和示例模板，供您参考。

Putting our emotional needs in writing is a way of making them real for everyone. But the process of building a Charter takes courage and the willingness to be vulnerable. We have to be open to filling the gap between how we currently feel and how we want to feel. And for many of us, that gap can be scary, because it often reveals what’s not working so well in our homes. But look at the flipside: everyone can benefit from having their basic needs of being seen and heard met. I’m almost certain that benefits of building a Charter will outweigh the risks. Go for it! 
把我们的情感需求写下来，是让每个人都能感受到它们的存在。但是在契约的建立过程中，则需要我们鼓起勇气并愿意展现自己脆弱的一面。我们必须要敞开心扉，才能从我们当前的感受走向我们想要的感受。对很多人来说，当前的感受与理想中的感受有着让人望而却步的距离，因为这通常显露了家庭中做得不好的地方。但从另一个方面来看：经过这个过程，家庭中每个人的情绪需求才因此而被看到、被关注和满足。我们确信，建立家庭契约的好处远远大于风险。勇敢实践吧！ 

With Love,
与爱同在， 

The Counseling Department
成长导师处 

Shelbi Kendrick, Cristin Childress and Nancy Chen 

GOLDEN MONKEYS, KEEP GOING！