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‘Hong Kong Kids’ refers to the children and teenagers who are being spoilt by their parents in Hong Kong. They were born from the midst of 1990s to early 2000s which was an era of information technology and prosperity.

Background information
The term ‘Hong Kong Kids’ first appeared in the book which was named Hong Kong Kids as well published in October, 2009. The author of this book has generalized 10 major characteristics of the children aging from eight to fifteen years old. The publication has aroused the attention of the mass media and general public. Since then, this group of children in Hong Kong have been discussed in many different articles and it has become a hot-button issue.

Most of the ‘Hong Kong Kids’ are the only child coming from a family of middle class or above. Many of them have high-tech and high-end products like iPhone, iPad as their ‘toys’. they are having a materialistic childhood. In 2010, a Form 2 student offered eight iPhones and $40,000 cash to different classmates in an attempt to let others agree that he was a leader. Another girl, Sylvia, an eight-year-old girl owns a mobile phone, digital camera, iPod etc. According to her maid, she drew in one-hundred dollars banknotes and threw them away after drawing. They are having a materialistic childhood. Besides, they normally have full schedules because their parents have enrolled a series of academic and extra-curricular activities for them since they were crawling babies. Their parents want them to fully concentrate on academic studies or developing different kinds of talents in order to earn an outstanding resume and compete for the places of the schools with good reputations later. Other activities which do not aim at preparing for so-called a bright future, like doing housework, are considered as wasting time. Thus, their parents usually hire domestic helpers to take care of their children meticulously such as helping them to take a shower, tie their shoelaces etc. in their daily life. Media also claim these children as ‘Princess’, ‘Prince’ or ‘Little Emperor’. The way how the parents nowadays bring up their children has produced lots of ‘Hong Kong Kids’ like Daniel, a thirteen-year-old Hong Kong boy, who still does not know how to change his clothes, take a shower himself and need his maid to cut the vegetables and meat into pieces before dining. Therefore, ‘Hong Kong Kids’ are also known as ‘Three Low Kids’ which are low self-care ability, problem-solving ability and emotional quotient. In fact, ‘Hong Kong Kids’ is not only referring to a dominant type of children in Hong Kong, but also an exclusive phenomenon reflecting some cultures, such as the commonly adopted parenting style in Hong Kong.

Low social skills
Hong Kong Kids do not know about basic table manners during dining. Some of them even do not pay respect and be impolite to others, for example, they interrupt people who are talking.

Lack self-care ability
Hong Kong Kids do not know how to cook, bath, boil water or even tie their shoes and put on the clothes themselves.

Over-dependent
Hong Kong Kids cannot complete their work without others’ help, assistance or accompany.

Over-demanding
Hong Kong Kids always order their parents to get the things they want while they never think about whether the demands are reasonable.

Self-centered
Hong Kong Kids do not know how to communicate with others and they always see themselves as the most important people in a group. Moreover, the seldom or never consider about others’ feeling.

Low self-control ability
Hong Kong Kids do not know how to control their emotions and they are easy to get angry.

Inappropriate Parenting Styles
Education psychologist claimed that inappropriate parenting styles is the main component to Hong Kong Kids. Due to low birth rate, most families in Hong Kong are nuclear families that children are parents’ pearls. Even when the kids do not behave well, their parents are not willing to blame them. Instead, parents always hover to observe, protect and direct their children immediately once there are problems or difficulties. This over-protection of parents are called ‘helicopter parenting’.

Insufficient Family Education
Most of the parents in Hong Kong need to work long hours, which make them have less time to educate their kids. Meanwhile, in order to compensate the time to their kids, parents try to satisfy every material needs of their children. This distort their kids value and behaviour.

Insufficient Value Education from School
The change in education system makes the teaching schedule and teachers’ workload tighter and heavier. Since the education in Hong Kong is examination-oriented that the result is a decisive factor to success, the schools put emphasis on the academic aspect while sacrifice ethical and moral education. Hence, the value of kids may not be built correctly.

Lack Personal Time
Joining too many extra-curricular activities is one of the factor of Hong Kong Kids. In order to be more competitive, children join different courses actively. According to a research on 1912 primary students in 2011, over 45% of the kids join 4-6 extra-curricular activities, about 22% of them even join more than 7. Thus, they do not have much personal time; more than half of them only get 1-2 hours a day for personal use. As a result, they have poor communication skills, poor self-care ability and a distant relationship with their parents.