All of us at TWF have been very saddened by the recent spate of student suicides in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, we know only too well from our TEEN and Life Skills Programmes the pressure that youth in Hong Kong are facing and the lack of support they are receiving from time poor parents and teachers. A lot has been written in the past week about the pressure on students to perform academically. At the same time, with peer to peer interactions now largely occurring over the Internet or their phones on Instagram and the like, young users feel ever increasing pressure to have more likes and followers.
TWF's Life Skills Programme which is now in its fifth year has been promoting resilience and positive psychology for adolescent girls and boys at school in some of HK's poorest districts since its inception. The good news is that we know that programme interventions like ours have a positive and sustainable impact on our student participants, although the gendered differences are interesting and notable. Girls are responding very positively to the programme’s encouragement to overcome self-limiting gender biases. Meanwhile, boys are deriving increased self-understanding, a feeling of purpose and a greater sense of responsibility but continue to struggle with engrained gender biases, with all the pressure attached to the traditional mindset of what it means to be male.
All this suggests that much more work needs to be done to help girls and boys to be more resilient and to develop a positive mindset but new approaches are needed particularly when it comes to boys. Having dads be more engaged in their sons' upbringing is probably one answer, as is helping boys to filter the media messages they are imbibing of what it means to be masculine and to understand that it is OK to be a boy and to be vulnerable and show it.
As always, we would love your views on this important topic. Please write to me at su-mei.thompson@twfhk.org.
