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Poll reveals satisfactory parent-child relationship
Over the years, Ho Chi-chung has managed to finish work on time to return home early - for he treasures every minute he can spend with his two sons. Ho does not own a magic wand that he can wave to finish work any faster than others. Instead, he starts early. When most are still dressing for another day of routine, he is already in the office getting on with the job in hand. "I try to be home at six to seven every evening to have dinner with them together. I would take them for a walk following dinner and we would stop in McDonald's for a frank talk," says Ho. He takes the daily routine seriously because it strengthens his ties with his sons Chung-yan, 10, and Chung-yin, 9, who do not see their mother as regularly because her job as a nurse requires her to work shift duties. There is no doubt Ho is one of the many parents who are paying closer attention to their relationship with their children. A government survey on parent-child ties released yesterday shows the parent-child relationship is generally satisfactory in Hong Kong. The Survey, called Parents' Working Hour and Parent-Child Relationship, was carried out by the Committee on Home-School Co-operation of the Education and Manpower Bureau. It polled 511 parents with children receiving primary education, from 21 to 24 February. Among the parents, 36 per cent were fathers and 64 per cent mothers. Of the fathers, all but 3.8 per cent were working; of the mothers, employed and housewives accounted for half each. It was found that fathers in Hong Kong spent an average of 3.42 hours with their children a day whereas mothers, 8.37 hours. It also found that mothers who are working and better educated tend to spend less than four hours a day with their children while those non-working and not as well educated are more likely to spend over five hours a day with children. As expected, fathers tend to do things centred on themselves when staying at home such as watching television, reading newspapers, playing one-person games, although about one-tenth say they look after their children. By contrast, what mothers do most is look after their children, keeping the house in order; only a handful say they do things just for themselves. The survey discovered that parents who are highly educated and occupy senior or professional positions "most of the time can" take vacation together with their children during long school holidays. But many who are less educated and junior in position "absolutely cannot". On the aspect of what they would do to protect their relationship with their children, 75.1 per cent chose face-to-face dialogue and most of them were aged over 30. For parents aged 26 to 30, telephone, email, ICQ or SMS are the preferred channels. On average, the responding parents rate their relationship with children highly, with an average of 73.02 points in a scale of 100 with satisfaction in ascending order. Only 3.2 per cent admit failure. Sandra Tsang, associate dean of the University of Hong Kong's faculty of social sciences and vice-chairman of the committee, said the parents-children relationship was generally satisfactory in Hong Kong. Yet the common practice of parents working long hours still posed a threat to the parent-child relationship. Committee Chairman Cheung Kwok-wah said the threat became more real as employees would be asked to work long hours in an economy that was picking up. "Management needs to change their mind that they should expect employees to stay after five (o'clock)," Cheung said. "The management may just shift its focus late in the afternoon and ask the
staff to hand in a report the next morning. There is a danger in this because
there is never a check-and-balance to ascertain the need to stay long is
genuine," he added.
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