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Kong Kids (Kong Hai ; Chinese: 港孩) originally referred to kids who were living in Hong Kong, but now it specifically refers to children in Hong Kong who are weak in self-management, vulnerable to adversity and low in emotional intelligence. Normally, Kong Kids are born after 1990. This term originated from the book named <> published by MingPao, a Chinese Newspaper Publisher in Hong Kong, in 2009. The book summarizes ten negative characteristics of certain Hong Kong children and labels them as 'Kong Kids'. Those children are treated as the 'prince or princess' in family. Parents spoil their children in terms of materials and money. Moreover, parents are kids-orientated because they tackle all the problems their kids are facing. Hence, the above causes give rise to 'Kong Kids'. With such environment, Kong Kids may encounter tons of problems as they become adults. It is not uncommon to see that they develop a self-centered personality. They would feel the Earth revolves around them and will not respect others. In addition, they cannot resist adverse conditions. They become bad-tempered easily when they cannot solve a problem, and in extreme cases some try committing suicide. These harmful habits and characters may influence their following generations, forming a vicious cycle.

Incapability of self-care
Kong Kids lack  self-care ability, such as bathing, cooking and tying shoelaces etc. They are used to relying on their parents and foreign domestic helpers.

Low emotional intelligence
They are emotional and self-centered. With low Emotional Quotient (EQ), Kong Kids cannot control their emotion in any circumstances, such as dealing with unpleasant situations. They want to be under the spotlight and cared by everyone.

Vulnerable to adversity
Kong Kids are not willing or able to solve problems by themselves. Being afraid of failure, they are used to evading the adversity and rely on parents.

Lack of social competence
They are usually weak in interpersonal communication and self-control. Being self-centered, they cannot put themselves into others’ shoes and respect others’ opinions. They lack basic manners and come into conflicts easily.

Indulgence of parents
Most of the parents over-protective of their children and shield them from difficulties and injuries. They are often referred to as “monster parents”. Parents usually hire foreign domestic helpers to take care of their children, spoil them excessively and satisfy most of their requests. Indulging by parents may lead children to narcissism.

Materialistic
Kong Kids love chasing new trends and pursuing well-known brands. Most of them own brand name goods and electronic gadgets such as mobile phones, IPad, IPod and digital camera etc. They do not treasure what they have and look for a materialistic life.

Over-protection
Nowadays, most of the families in Hong Kong usually have one or two kids only. According to some educational experts, some so-called ‘monster parents ‘protect their children so well that they do not allow children to have any setback. For instance, in 2010, the Hong Kong students could not get on the planes because of the serious snowstorm in London. The parents then strongly requested the government to assist students stayed in the airport. This issue induced a lot of criticisms towards parents because of their over-protection. The over-protected children hence have low resilience and hardly could they overcome difficulties, which results in Kong Kids.

Lack of self-review opportunities
Most of the parents in Hong Kong work full-time. They have no choice but to employ a foreign domestic helper taking care of their children. According to a survey, nearly 90% of the parents employ a foreign domestic helper to take care of the children. The domestic helpers are not responsible for correcting children’s behavior even though the kids behave wrongly. Therefore, some of the children become rebellious, impolite and not respecting others, constituting one of the characteristics of Kong Kids.

Academic obsession
Hong Kong is an exam-obsessed city where most of the parents emphasize on their children’s academic results. The parents understates the self-resilience ability of their kids. Some children are asked to do stuff which are academic-related but not others like housework. As a result, these kids rarely are independent, both physically and psychologically, becoming Kong Kids.

Individual
Kong Kids have negative effects on themselves. Being spoiled, they do not know how to take care of themselves but to depend on others to live their lives. Therefore, Kong Kids have low self-care ability when compared to normal kids. For most of the time, Kong Kids’ parents will help them to deal with all difficulties they face, such as handling conflicts between friends and communicating with teachers. In short term, Kong Kids lose a lot of social chances and cannot deal with hurdles by themselves while in long term, Kong Kids will lack essential communication skills and initiation of solving problems.

Society
Kong Kids also have negative effects on society. Depending on their parents, Kong Kids have low problem-solving abilities. As a result, once they step into society, they cannot solve problems efficiently. The productive potential of the society becomes lower because of them. Getting difficulties solved by their parents, Kong Kids usually lack motivation to work. Because of the lacking in enthusiastic and initiative people, the competitiveness of the society declines, hence the society will be less affluent.

Solution
To avoid children becoming Kong Kids, parents and schools need to cooperate. According child and education psychologist, parents should stop over-protecting their children and allow them to learn life self-care skills from daily life like buttoning shirts, tying shoe laces and feeding themselves. They should explain to their children the importance of these skills but not simply tell them to follow. Moreover, parents need to give children room to learn being independent. In order to equip children with the ability of coping with adversity, when they are facing difficulties, parents should let children solving it on their own rather than tackling it for them. While at school, teachers should guide students to develop interpersonal skills. This a rare opportunity at home as the family size are usually small.