Family Life Education Series
Our teenage children in the 21st Century
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The Welfare Services Group wishes to thank readers for their support of this Family Life Education Series in the OffBeat for the past two years. In the coming series, we intend to focus on the societal issues from a sociological viewpoint in order to explore the problems of our adolescent and youth children in our society.
How are we different from our parents when it comes to raising children? Are we aware of the causes leading to their rebellious behaviours and how could these be dealt with effectively?
The Welfare Service Group has the honour to invite Dr Cheng Chi-ho, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to share his viewpoints with our readers about adolescent and youth and the difficulties they may be facing in the course of their growing-up. Dr Cheng is knowledgeable and experienced in teaching and working with this population clinically for over two decades and has been training many professionals, namely teachers, social workers, and youth workers, in the field. He will be the guest speaker of our upcoming Family Life Education Day Camp Programme of Marine Region on October 26. The topic is "How to Handle the Emotion & Behaviour of our Teenage Children". If you are interested, please call 2301-1673 for further enquiry.
In the present series, Dr Cheng will discuss some of the contemporary social changes that have been affecting our adolescent and youth population. He intends to present his views in a series of articles. Following is the translation of his foreword.
In order to understand the adolescent and youth, it is important to review some of the historical factors, which tend to have a strong impact on what we are now. Adolescent and youth is a stage marking transition to adulthood, and it generally refers to the age groups of 15 to 24. Early in the 60's, the "Vietman War" and the "Beatles" predominantly influenced the adolescents and youths in the United States. These groups challenged tradition, pursued for freedom and were anti-establishment.
These had impacts on our youth in Hong Kong in the 70s'. Then, in the 80's and 90's when rapid economic development were taking place, we saw dropping out from schools, running away from home, drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution and triad societies as adolescent and youth problems.
With the Asian economic crisis precipitated by the crash of stock market in 1997, the economic downturn has produced a population of adolescent and youth who are facing tremendous hardship. They are denied choices in terms of work and education. They are struggling with limited job opportunities and high education cost.
Adolescent and youth are hard hit by this economic hardship; they tend to give vent to their anger and dissatisfaction in public. The increase of vandalism and challenging authority are behaviours that we are seeing more often these days. We might still remember the incident that happened about two years ago on a New Year Eve when a group of aggressive adolescents confronted police officers in public areas.
Do we know our adolescent and youth well? Are we aware of their needs? Are we helping this generation or our teenagers to cope with rapid social changes? These issues will be discussed in the forthcoming articles in OffBeat.