Academic stress, loneliness, and a lack of sleep and exercise have been identified as the main reasons for unhappiness in Taiwanese children, a survey conducted by the Child Welfare League Foundation showed yesterday.
The foundation released the results of its annual survey on Children’s Day yesterday.
The survey of nearly 2,000 fifth to ninth-graders nationwide found that their average satisfaction score was 73.1 out of 100, meaning that they achieved a “medium level” of happiness, the foundation said.
Photo: CNA
About 79 percent of respondents gave their life satisfaction score a passing grade of 60 points, half a percentage point lower than last year and 8.9 percentage points lower than the average score in the WHO Health Behavior in School-Aged Children study, it said.
Nearly 45 percent of respondents reported that they experienced academic stress, 2.9 percentage points higher than last year and 9.5 percentage points higher than the WHO study average, the foundation said.
The result further explained why 28.8 percent of respondents told interviewers that they do not like school and only 14.4 percent said that they like school, the foundation said.
The percentage of students who reported that they like school was nearly 14 percentage points lower than the WHO study average, it said.
“Although schools began to adopt new curriculum guidelines in 2021, students’ academic stress shows no sign of easing,” the foundation said.
However, more than 70 percent of respondents reported feeling safe on campus, and that other students are friendly and willing to help, it said.
The survey also found that 26.3 percent of respondents exercise for more than 60 minutes less than two days per week.
The average sleeping time for respondents was 7.62 hours per day, lower than the eight to 10 hours recommended by international studies, the foundation said.
That the COVID-19 pandemic deprived many of the opportunity for in-person interactions over the past three years appears to have taken a toll on the mental health of students as well, with 15 percent of respondents saying that they felt lonely, it said.
About 28 percent said that they felt the world could go on without them, while only 27.9 percent said that they like the life they have now, it said.
Meanwhile, 46.2 percent of respondents told interviewers that they eat with their family every day, which was close to the WHO study average of 50 percent.
Nearly 62 percent said that telling their personal problems to their mothers was easy, up from 56.6 percent last year, while nearly 49.5 percent said telling their problems to their fathers was easy, up from 45.2 percent last year, the foundation said.
The pandemic appears to have facilitated communication between children and their parents in some families, it said.
“Children and parents face new problems and challenges in the post-pandemic era,” foundation executive director Pai Li-fang (白麗芳) said. “Everyone has to rethink the type of lifestyle we want to pursue to make our children happier.”
The survey, which was conducted from Dec. 9 last year to Jan. 13, collected 1,875 valid samples from students aged 11 to 15 nationwide and it had a margin of error of 2.26 percentage points.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS