Pandemic Has Strained Family Relationships: Survey

Hong Kong's fifth wave of Covid infections took a toll on relationships between children and their parents, a survey suggests.

The Jockey Club said it conducted a survey in May of 700 people with children of kindergarten age, finding that 85 percent were worried about their kids' development during the pandemic.

Around a third of the parents said their relationship with their children had worsened when they were stuck at home due to social distancing measures.

“A normal child, particular when they’re in the kindergarten stage, they need to grow up with normal social interactions and a lot of physical activities,” explained paediatrician Dr Patrick Ip, who led the research.

“But during the Covid outbreak and everyone needed to stay at home, actually those children needed to crowd in a very small household environment, without the chance to go out and interact with anybody. They did not have the chance to express what they needed physically as well as mentally,” he said.

“So that’s why they would easily be bad-tempered, maybe sometimes have a temper tantrum at home. And then parents were not able to cope with all those requests, because the parents themselves did not just need to look after the children, but they usually also had to work at home.”

Ip suggested parents could start improving relationships through innovative ways of playing with their children.

“For example, read story books together, use dialogic techniques to ask children questions about some imagination of stories,” he said.