THE survey found that while children are treated much better in terms of material comforts, they fare badly on the love and attention front. A total of 79 per cent of respondents agreed that because of work demands, parents could not spend as much time as they wanted with their children. As much as 98 per cent said children enjoy more material comfort than the children of the previous generation. On a more personal level, 43 per cent considered communication between parents and their children was poor and 88 per cent of teenagers said it was easier to converse with their friends than their parents. Significantly, 70 per cent of respondents agreed that poor communication between the generations was an important factor in teenage suicides. Another problem revealed by the survey was that 74 per cent of children believed parents were creating too much pressure on students to perform well at school. Interestingly, 65 per cent of adults agreed. Tragically, in two per cent of cases, children under 12 years of age were being taken care of by no one. Statistically, this means that up to 30,000 children in the under-12 age group in Hong Kong are left at home to fend for themselves during the day.
