Hong Kong’s kids are incredibly unhappy. They need more fun in their lives and it starts with play
- Unscheduled, undirected play and fun sports are crucial in producing happy kids who become happy adults
- Here in Hong Kong where schedules, direction and rules reign supreme, the city has produced some of the world’s unhappiest and stressed out children
The evidence is mountainous: life for Hongkongers, young and old, sucks.
The city’s children, and their parents, are some of the most stressed out when it comes to first world countries, ranking in the top five.
There’s been a variety of studies on the city’s youth which have produced a number of headline-grabbing statistics, but two stick out: that half of Hong Kong’s adolescents showed signs of depression and 40 per cent of students would rate their stress levels as high – at least a seven out of 10.
So, where are kids happy? The last large scale study done on the children’s well-being in developed nations was by Unicef in 2013. The countries producing the happiest kids all scored quite high on a very few specific dimensions.
Aside from the obvious markers like child mortality rates, education, poverty and deprivation (access to food), one part of the report stood out upon further review.
