Parents should pay attention to the quality of their children’s leisure time, the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF) said yesterday, adding that smartphone games should not be children’s only source of entertainment.
The foundation issued the call at a news conference in Taipei held to release the results of a survey it conducted ahead of Children’s Day on Sunday.
The foundation releases an annual survey to remind parents of the needs and concerns of children, foundation chief executive officer Pai Li-fang (白麗芳) said.
Photo: Lo Chi, Taipei Times
Although today’s parents are more attentive than in the past, they have little time to spend with or listen to their children, she said.
The survey of students in grades 4 to 6 was conducted through questionnaires distributed to 21 schools across the nation from Dec. 25 last year to Jan. 18, the foundation said.
It found that 65 percent of children aged 10 to 12 on average spend three hours per day with their parents, while 16.5 percent said they spend less than one hour with them.
Asked whether they spend “quality time” with members of their family, 8.5 percent of students said they did not, it found.
Nineteen percent disagreed with the statement that “my parents listen to me and take my opinions into consideration,” the survey found.
While 6.7 percent disagree with the statement “If I encounter a problem, my family will help me,” 4.5 percent disagreed with the statement “My family cares about me,” it found.
The survey showed that the children on average spent 13.2 hours per week playing smartphone games.
Twelve-year-old children on average spent 16 hours playing smartphone games — nearly twice the average of 10-year-olds (8.6 hours), it showed.
Asked what their main sources of worry and stress were, students’ top three responses were schoolwork and exams (82.5 percent), the COVID-19 pandemic (41 percent) and not having enough time to rest or engage in leisurely activities (33 percent), the foundation said.
COVID-19 has brought uncertainty to the lives of children, Pai said, adding that she hopes that after the pandemic, parents will re-examine their relationship with their children and think about how they can improve the quality of the time they spend with them.
Family interactions are closely related to the happiness of children, the foundation said.
It urged parents to hug their children for 30 seconds each day, to listen to and spend time with them for 30 minutes and to avoid working overtime.
The survey collected 676 valid responses and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points, it said.
Forty-nine percent of respondents were 12 years old, 16.6 percent were 11 years old and 34.3 percent were 10 years old, the foundation said.
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