The Young Men’s Christian Association of Macau (YMCA) released the findings of two surveys on youth and parent-child relationships on Friday, and both surveys found that parents in Macau mostly consider their parenting style to be “open and democratic”, while children consider their parents to be “neglectful and indifferent”.
The YMCA presented their survey to reporters at a press conference on Friday, noting that this reflects a huge difference in parent-child perceptions and suggests that parenting and parent-child education should be strengthened.
The two surveys which compared the parent-child relationship among teenagers in Guangzhou, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, were conducted between June and December last year with a random questionnaire, targeting students from primary to secondary school, with a total of 5,564 questionnaires collected from the four places in proportion to their respective populations.
It was found that Hong Kong and Macau teenagers think their parents are more neglectful and indifferent, while Guangzhou and Taiwan teenagers think their parents are more enlightened and authoritative, with Macau teenagers thinking that their parents are less responsive and normative, which is also the lowest score of the four places.
Another survey studying parent-child relationships, parent-child discipline and parenting stress in Macau found that local parents think their parent-child relationship is good, but they think their children are not independent enough.
In terms of parental stress in Macau, the survey revealed that the level of parents’ overall stress is moderate, and the source of stress mainly comes from the external environment, especially their children’s interpersonal relationships, such as making “bad friends” or being influenced by “unscrupulous peers”, according to the survey.
The YMCA suggested that parents and children should communicate more and learn more about parent-child and parenting education by using social platform resources.
This photo taken on Friday shows the Young Men’s Christian Association of Macau (YMCA) presenting the findings of their two surveys at a press conference. – Photo Courtesy of TDM
