(May 14, 2024) The Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong (here after “BGCA”) has been actively promoting innovation and different service intervention methods to strengthen communication between children and parents so that they can enjoy high-quality parent-child time together and family life. Thanks to the donation from the Lee Kum Kee Family Foundation, supports the Association's implementation of the "Family Channel - Harmonious Parent-teens Communication Project. We advocated the belief that "good communication brings family harmony”, the project actively promotes healthy parent-child communication models and provides services to families who want to improve or face difficulties in parent-child communication. The project provides comprehensive and diversified support services to promote harmonious family relationships and enhance family members' ability to communicate in good faith.
Given the lack of empirical research on the currently widely used "Five Love Languages", BGCA conducted a survey on "Parent-Child Communication, Parent-Child Relationship and Family Harmony" from November 2023 to February 2024 and interviewed 504 members of the BGCA through questionnaires. Respondents aged from 8 to 18 years and their unpaid caregivers, to understand parent-child communication between adolescents and caregivers. In response to the "30th Anniversary of the International Year of the Family", BGCA hopes to use this survey to help families grasp the key to promoting parent-child relationships and encourage caregivers, social services and the public to work together to promote good parent-child communication and family harmony.
Findings
How often do caregivers use love languages with adolescents?
Findings showed that the older the child, the less frequently the caregiver used love languages. Among the "five love languages" (words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, quality time, and acts of service), caregivers use “acting of service” (such as preparing meals for children) most frequently and least often use “words of affirmation” (for example, saying to the child: "You are important to me") with their children. The survey also shows that fathers use less love language with their children than mothers, and fathers believe they express more love language than teenagers believe they receive.
Frequency of violent language use by "caregivers to adolescents" and "adolescents to caregivers."
The survey results also show that the frequency of violent language used by "caregivers towards adolescents" is positively related to the frequency of violent language used by "adolescents against caregivers", and the frequency of violent language used by "caregivers towards adolescents" is higher than that of "adolescents towards caregivers".
What teenagers "most want to hear" and "least want to hear"
Most teenagers want to hear caregivers say, "Keep Going (加油)" (60.7%), "You will get it if you try your best (盡咗力就得)" (56.7%), "Smart boy/smart girl (叻仔/叻女)" (49.2%), "You did a good job (你做得好好)" (42.9% ) and "I’m on your side (支持你)" (36.9%); what they least want to hear their caregivers say to themselves is "Read your books/do your homework quickly (快啲溫書/做功課)" (52.0%), "No playing on computer games/no playing on the phone (唔准打機/唔准玩電話)" (47.2%), "You should take a look at others (你睇吓人哋)" (46.6%), "You are lazy (你好懶)" (40.9%) and "You are so useless (你好冇用)" (39.1%). Whether it is what teenagers most want to hear or what they least want to hear, it is what teenagers have listened to most of their caregivers say to themselves and what most caregivers say they have said to their children.
Cultivate the language of love and reduce violent language to help improve parent-child relationships and enhance family harmony.
To understand the impact of love language and violent language on family harmony and parent-child relationship intimacy, the survey divided the respondents into two categories according to the median frequency of using love language and violent language (less frequently used and more frequently used) and found that compared with less use of love language and more frequent use of violent language, caregivers used love language more frequently with teenagers and parents and children used less violent language with each other, the parent-child relationship intimacy and family harmony were higher and less parent-child conflict. We can see that cultivating the language of love and reducing the use of violent language among parents and children can help reduce parent-child conflicts and improve parent-child relationships and family harmony.
Case sharing
BGCA invites Jessica, an expressive arts therapist, to share a parent-child case she has counselled. Yellow, 16, was suffering from emotional problems and participated in the counselling service of the "Family Channel - Harmonious Parent-teens Communication Project”. Under the guidance of the therapist, she gradually opened up. She shared her feelings and why she avoided talking to her parents. During the counselling process, the therapist intervened in a "multi-sensory model" and helped Yellow express her emotions through expressive art media. The therapist also invited Yellow’s parents to participate in joint parent-child counselling to understand the importance of emotional regulation while encouraging them to express and resolve their feelings and misunderstandings in parent-child communication.
Recommendations
Understand the power of language and master the key to promoting the parent-child relationship.
Findings indicate that the more caregivers use violent language toward adolescents, the more adolescents use violent language toward caregivers. Adolescents can learn by observing and imitating the behaviour and language of their caregivers. Therefore, when they hear their caregivers using violent language, they can quickly internalize these behaviours and "imitate" them when interacting with their caregivers. Parents can start by establishing good communication through encouraging, appreciating, recognising and affirming their children so that teenagers can feel respected, accepted, valued and have autonomy, as well as to enable them to try new things, overcome difficulties and develop their potential. At the same time, parents should avoid making comparisons of their children with others, or saying words that make things difficult, controlling and undermine child's self-confidence.
Expressing various love languages, starting with words of affirmation and acts of service.
Each family member expresses and receives love in a different language. Teenagers can first understand how they want others to care about them, and then understand how parents express love to them. In this way, both parents and children learn the language of love together. This method can not only make the other party receive care and attention, but also enhance the intimacy between parent and child.
Teenagers are in a stage of growth that needs to be respected and affirmed. Therefore, parents can use more love languages with their children and use specific, careful, non-abstract and extensive words to give teenagers more "appreciation and affirmation". Be less critical. Reference examples are as follows:
| Areas where parents can try to appreciate their children | Examples |
| Child's efforts | "I appreciate your efforts in studying English for one hour." |
| Child's behaviour | "When mammy was sick, you took the initiative to bring me a glass of warm water. It was a considerate act." |
| Child's strategy | "The family activities you planned include outings and dinners that both dad and mom like. It satisfies everyone and is a careful plan." |
| Child's positive behaviour affects the people around him | "You didn't fight back when your little brother lost his temper and pushed you away. You have demonstrated a good role-model." |
Deal with your emotions first, and then deal with things. Let everything start with "needs".
In parent-child conflicts, teenagers and parents may have negative emotions, so appropriately adjusting their mood is particularly important to deal with the problem rationally. Parents can try to "pause" first, clearly expressing to their children that they cannot continue the conversation at the moment and setting up a cooling-off period for both parties, such as drinking a glass of water or listening to music to soothe their emotions and wait until both parties calm down to start a rational dialogue. At the same time, parents can also pay more attention to the impact of "violent language" on the parent-child relationship and set an example to reduce the use of violent language. In addition, parents can also take the first step in caring for their children by maintaining curiosity about them and understanding their needs through listening and observation. For example, they can understand their children's preferences and increase their understanding of their children. This balances the difference between what parents expect from their children and what the child does. When children encounter setbacks, parents can also start from the perspective of empathy, put themselves in their children's situation, and share their personal experiences of success and failure with them to help their children see setbacks from a new perspective and let them know that they are not alone and their parents will always accompany and support them and face the challenges together.
During the developmental stage of building self-image, teenagers gradually develop their ideas, values and interests. Hence, parents' empathy and encouragement are essential to improve their self-confidence. Parents can try to reduce subjective comments about their children and actively give positive and clear affirmations to them so that they feel empathized and valued. Parents can also take the initiative to express love to their children and pay more attention to the words, tone, pitch, body movements used when speaking to their children during conversations to establish a harmonious communication atmosphere. When teenagers find it difficult to express their emotions and relieve stress, they can also use creative methods, such as painting, writing, dance or music, to express their inner feelings and sort out their thoughts non-verbally. Similarly, creativity can also become a platform for parent-child communication, allowing parents to understand their children's needs innovatively and enhance communication.
Strengthen community services and school education to plant the seeds of non-violent communication.
BGCA recommends promoting non-violent communication between parents and children at different levels so that parents and children can develop communication habits so as to establish a trusting and close parent-child relationship and create a harmonious family atmosphere.
In terms of community services, community organisations can organise more parent-child activities, groups and workshops with the "Love Language" theme to promote " non-violent communication and family harmony" and improve families by establishing a healthy parent-child communication model, and ability to communicate in good faith, family health and cohesion among family members. The "Non-violent Communication" framework can also be used to help teenagers and parents increase the vocabulary of positive communication and promote harmonious parent-child communication and relationships. BGCA also recommends that the government strengthen parent-child communication and family harmony services, provide more resources to community organisations to promote parent-child friendly communication and promote cross-sector and cross-disciplinary collaboration to cooperate with the government to improve child protection policies and preventive measures.
In addition, it is also essential to integrate a culture of non-violent communication and mutual respect into the community. The public can pay more attention to the people and neighbours around them, reduce criticism and labelling, promote a community atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance, and encourage families with high conflicts to seek professional support and intervention.
Regarding school education, we suggest that the government incorporate the concept and practice of " non-violent communication" into the learning curriculum. The government can refer to overseas guidelines and experiences in teaching non-violent communication in the classroom to help students master strategies for solving parent-child communication problems, so that students can learn how to build a good parent-child relationship by learning about emotion regulation, interpersonal relationships and communication skills. Schools can connect resources related to parent-child communication in the community, such as organising parent mutual help groups or activities to improve parent-child interaction quality, establishing an interactive support platform between students, parents, and teachers and promoting home-school cooperation. Schools can also promote the importance of friendly communication between parents and children within the school and encourage students and parents to talk to the school for help when they encounter communication difficulties.
