Written by : New Horizons Development Centre Registered Educational Psychologist Pang Chi Wah Under the epidemic, many families have become accustomed to shopping online, which is convenient and fast and frees up more time for other tasks. Even in everyday purchases, there is often no need to pay cash directly, for example, when taking transportation or shopping at convenience stores, you only need to use your Octopus to complete the payment process without using any coins. When everyone is used to it, and children already know how to use this kind of electronic money, is there any problem? In fact, “convenience” can sometimes stifle the knowledge that can be gained in the learning process. Just think about it, the use of credit cards by adults is also convenient for shopping, but it can be a big challenge to our financial management skills because we need to be very disciplined in order not to exceed our budgets or “spend money in the future”. A young man once confessed that when he was growing up, his family was richer, and when he saw his family paying for things after dinner or at the department store, all he had to do was sign for them; when he wanted to buy something, his family would also go along with his wishes and sign for it. But it was not until he started working that he realized that he still needed to pay for something other than his signature. Money is found to be limited.

Source: Aristle International Kindergarten, School Supervisor, Vivian Wu Parents may ask what tips are available to help children build confidence easily from a young age. I think young children need love. He may be more self-centered and place a lot of emphasis on his relationship with his caregivers, so I think relationships with parents and caregivers are very important. If he has enough trust in the people around him, it will be easier for him to build relationships with the people around him in the future. The second point is that many parents now go to play groups more often, and often parents take their children to parent-child classes and can finish them without interacting with other children at all. So many times, parents say it is better to take him out to play more often. In fact, going out to play more often or going to play groups more often does not mean that the child’s social skills or the need to socialize with other children will increase. Take the school’s Play Group as an example; the school will try to encourage more interaction between children, such as exchanging objects or even taking care of the people around them. It is hoped that children will know how to share or take care of others, which will help them build social relationships with others in the future. One thing that parents can do is to start building their social skills early in life. For example, when you take your child

Written by: Caritas Rehabilitation Services,Clinical Psychologist, Yu Kwok Ting Some parents may be more impulsive and even have a habit of blaming their children for  problems such as disobedience, deliberate anger, or naughtiness. When children fail to do  what they want, they become angry with their parents, but this will gradually alienate them from their parents, which will damage the parent-child relationship in the long run. Parents’ personalities, families of origin, and parenting methods learned in different ways  will affect parent-child relationships. And the adults’ thoughts will influence their mood. If adults find themselves in frequent conflicts with children, which affect the parent-child      relationship, we can ask ourselves three questions. 1  Whether there are other possibilities? If a child is not able to do all the homework required by his or her parents, the first thing   the parents think is that the child is just having fun and not doing homework, but the real    reason may be that they do not know how to do it and need parental guidance. If parents    take preconceived notions as facts, they may ignore the needs and difficulties of their children and damage the parent-child relationship 2   Whether one’s own thoughts have been confirmed Some parents often say that their child is “deliberately annoyed” and then see their child’s  behavior as disobedience, but perhaps the reason for the child’s behavior is carelessness, but the parents are influenced by their subjective feelings and misunderstand their child. 3  Are your thoughts

Written by : Chiropractor, Dr. Wan Man Ho Children are prone to sitting problems, even scoliosis and kyphosis. Parents should find out their children’s problems early and make corrections. But how can parents tell when their   children have scoliosis and kyphosis problems? For scoliosis, parents can try the Adam Test, a common test used by chiropractors, by asking a child to bend forward with his hands on the ground and see if there is a problem  with the muscles on either side of the spine. If there is, it means that there is a high probability of scoliosis. In terms of kyphosis, it means looking from the side, the head is in front of the body, as if  the neck is stretched out, or the head is bowed for a long time and the shoulders are bent forward. Most children in Hong Kong have a functional condition, and often, as long as they are reminded to sit up straight, they will be able to sit up straight and stop having a kyphosis. To improve the kyphosis, the most important thing is to open both shoulders, use the strength of the waist to lift the chest, and bring the chin back near the head. This is the most correct sitting posture and will improve the kyphosis. Spine problems are related to the foot? Some children have flat feet, resulting in a bit of in-toeing or out-toeing. The shape of the  foot will slowly affect the pelvis and create some highs

Written by: Family Dynamics Founder, Marriage and Family Therapist, Ms. Ng Yee Kam As a child grows up and interacts with the environment and people around him or her, he or she will gradually develop some feelings. Children will use these feelings to choose what they like or dislike, which is normal development for children. Mom says that her son is beginning to have an opinion, which means that he is expressing these feelings and that he has his own choices. Mom found out that his choice was not to choose herself but to choose Dad to play and read books with him. There is a possibility that the son likes books and toys, that may not be the kind that his mother chooses, so he slowly begins to think that his mother may not be the right person to play with him. So the content of the play may be one of the reasons. Mothers can try to give their children more space to choose the toys they like to play with when they play with them. For example, sometimes our son likes to read a book, and he may look through it many times, so we can give him some space. Even when he likes it, we can continue to let him read the book, continue to talk to him about the book, and give them some space to choose for themselves! Another possible reason is attitude. First of all, the mother can observe if she makes the

Written by : Dr Chiu Cheung Shing As soon as the season changes, both children and adults are susceptible to allergic rhinitis problems. For example, children may have difficulty in breathing due to allergic rhinitis, feel stuffy nose that affects their sleep quality, and have to wipe their noses all day long, and if the situation is serious, they may even suffer from sleep apnoea. Allergic rhinitis can be caused by both congenital and acquired factors.  Although it is difficult to cure allergic rhinitis due to congenital origin, if the acquired factors can be properly controlled, then the chance of children having the disease will be greatly reduced. How to prevent allergic rhinitis caused by acquired factors? Allergic rhinitis caused by acquired factors mainly include the following factors. allergens at home outdoor allergens some infectious diseases As for the home, the more dust accumulated, the more likely to induce allergic rhinitis symptoms, so parents should be not only more frequent cleaning the bed for children, but also take away some of the stuffed animals and toys, and bed sheets, quilts and pillows and other things that are easy to hide dust, you need to wash with hot water at about 60 degrees, once every 4 days to clean the best. If the outdoor environment is dusty, parents may need to close some of the windows to keep the air flowing and to reduce dust at the same time. It is also important to reduce the chance of infection, as once children

Written by: Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Family Education, Dr. Tik Chi-yuen Although parenting is a natural duty, it is not “inborn to take duty”. Previously, I discussed with senior government officials the current difficulties of parents and how to effectively promote parent education.During the discussion, we all felt that parent education should be strengthened because parents are becoming more and more “monsterized”, resulting in high pressure on parents and heavy burden on children. If parents want to determine whether they are “monster parents”, they can assess in three aspects. First，are you always worried about your child losing at the starting line, so you ask your child to learn more and practice more? Second, do you often worry about your children doing wrong, afraid that they face failure, so give children a variety of protection? Third, do you often feel stressed by your children’s studies and daily life, worrying that your children will not do well in everything, so you are emotionally disturbed? One of the problems with “monster parents” is that they focus too much on their children’s performance, especially in terms of academics and grades. In fact, there are more important things we should be concerned about, and that is the parent-child relationship. Parents and children are meant to have a mutual emotional relationship, not a ministry relationship. In the family, we talk more about love and affection rather than dictations, tests, and exams. Having a good parent-child relationship is the cornerstone of healthy growth for our children.

Written by : New Horizons Development Centre, Registered Educational Psychologist Pang Chi Wah A hundred years ago, illiteracy was a normal thing. But since education became widespread decades ago, it is now necessary to go to school to receive an education. Learning is not only through the direct transmission of knowledge by teachers through language, students also need to read textbooks by themselves. When doing homework or taking exams, students are tested on their concentration and speed when reading. More than 30 years ago, the basic qualification for firefighters was graduation from the sixth grade, but today, even college graduates may not be able to get into firefighting. Modern fires do not only require firefighters to be physically fit and able to put out fires with water, but some fires are very complex and require special methods and chemicals to put out. Reading skills are needed in all walks of life Whether they are blue-collar or white-collar workers, they need to handle documents and files, read other people’s reports or instructions, and write their own reports. So the need to read and handle paperwork is everywhere. In the past, illiterate people could withdraw money from banks, but with modern ATMs, not only can we withdraw money, but we can also pay different fees, but our concentration and speed in reading is very much tested. When we are adults, we have to sign many contracts, and there are many clauses in the contract, and the font size is small but quantity is

Written By: Founder of Kat-Spirit Nutrition Centre. Senior Dietitian Ng Yiu Fun Many parents will bring their children to see me and say, “Is my son too thin? or “His bones are very obvious” or “Look, his ribs are visible, and his arms are still very small! In fact, many parents feel that their children are thin, but in fact, are these cases really thin? In fact, whether it is thin or not, we have to look at the growth chart. If the child is below the growth line, he or she is considered thin. If the child is thin, there is no need to worry too much about health problems. Some parents may say, “No! His classmate next door eats a whole bowl of rice at every meal and eats a lot of meat, but compared to my son, who only eats a few bites of rice at every meal, he really eats too little! I have to find a way to catch up with the next classmate’s meal, so that he can have enough nutrition! Many parents have a comparative mentality, and I believe that everyone’s needs are actually different. Some children may be really taller, but some children may be genetically influenced, relatively shorter and smaller-boned, so their needs are certainly not the same and their parents don’t need to worry too much. I believe one thing we can do is to keep a happy mood when we eat at home, not to see if he eats every

Written by: Chinese doctor Yiu Yee Chiu As a parent, it can be exhausting to take care of a family and work. In my spare time, I like to watch talk shows and listen to the unique views of celebrities on life and their outlook on life. Once they talked about the busy life of Hong Kong people and how fatigue seems to be an inevitable “by-product”. However, we were told that we are not tired because we are all like that and it is just a normal physiological reaction. So, is this true? Tiredness is actually a subjective feeling, so only you can understand it. In some cases, it can be seen in behavior, such as reluctance to get up, weakness in speech, lack of normal physical strength, etc. According to a Chinese Medicine Practitioner, fatigue involves the five viscera and six internal organs, mainly the spleen, liver and kidneys, with the spleen being the most important, which falls under the category of “deficiency fatigue”. Three types of fatigue have different causes Fatigue can be classified from different perspectives. One way is to classify fatigue into three categories: physical, mental, and psychological. Physical fatigue is the most common and the most easily noticed. After normal work, it is normal to feel tired and can recover after rest. However, if you cannot recover after rest, or if the number and degree of fatigue is too much, this is fatigue, which can also be said to be a “sub-health” state. Brain