A survey released yesterday shows that 44 percent of local parents with kids aged three to 12 said over the past three months they felt emotionally drained, of whom about 20 percent said they even experienced anxiety and depression.
The survey, which investigated the state of minds of local parents and family education in the post-COVID-19 era, was carried out by the Sheng Kung Hui (SKH) Macau Social Services Centre from May to September this year, and surveyed 1,058 local parents.
The Anglican Church is known as Sheng Kung Hui in Hong Kong and Macau.
A press conference was held yesterday announcing the findings of the survey at the Sheng Kung Hui Taipa Youth and Family Integrated Service Centre in Taipa.
During the press conference, SKH representative Ip Mei Kuen said her centre had received a total of 1,200 family-related help cases in the first 10 months of this year, of which parenting difficulties accounted for 20 percent, which indicated that family education practice and parents’ emotional health are a matter of grave concern.
According to the survey, 48 percent of the parents surveyed said that the level of support received from co-parenting only ranked as “average”, while 57 percent of parents with children aged six to 12 said that the sources of parental stress were their children’s use of mobile phones and school problems.
According to the survey, some respondents said they believe that if the level of collaborative co-parenting was higher, the parental pressure would be less and they would be much more satisfied with their families.
Ip said she hoped to work with the government, schools and the community to support parents such as launching after-school care, adding that SKH was aware of the fact that the local government is keen to encourage young couples to have more children, so a survey on healthy family indicators would be launched next year in the hope of boosting young couples’ confidence in having children.
Representatives from the Sheng Kung Hui (SKH) Macau Social Services Centre pose after a press conference held yesterday announcing the findings of the centre’s survey at its headquarters in Taipa. – Photo: SKH Macau
