Opinion | Hong Kong's brat pack needs good parenting
Kelly Yang says that, as parenting priorities go, teaching a child how to be kind and considerate must rate higher than academic success
My worst nightmare as a parent is that my children are spoiled and self-centred. To me, being kind and considerate trumps being successful. If, in 15 years, my children turn out to be mean and egotistical, it won't matter how well they do academically; I'll still have failed as a parent.
Raising children, though, isn't just about my own parenting philosophy. It matters what others think. If in Hong Kong all the other parents care only about academic results, then this still affects my child, whether I like it or not. In the world of children, nothing spreads faster and further than narcissism.
A recent City University study confirms this: Hong Kong children are more narcissistic than their US, British and Australian counterparts. They also show more signs of aggression and bullying.
This is devastating news. No matter what the end goal, spoiling children is a bad game plan. It doesn't make it any easier to get into top schools. It makes it a whole lot harder to get and keep jobs. And, most of all, it creates bad people, the kind nobody wants to be around.
So why are we doing it? When we buy our kids all those new toys and gadgets, are we trying to live out our own childhood fantasies? Or is it simply a matter of too much work, too little time, and too much parental outsourcing?
Whatever the reason, we need to do something about it. If we're serious about reversing the trend of "spoiled brats", here are a few changes we need to make.