The Lack of Playtime Among Children in Hong Kong: An Essay

This essay examines the critical issue of the lack of playtime among children in Hong Kong, attributing it to factors such as increased academic pressure, extensive homework, and the prevalence of technology. It highlights the detrimental effects on children's physical, social, and mental development, including increased stress levels and weakened social skills. The essay emphasizes the need for governmental intervention, including the promotion of play-based learning in schools, the organization of awareness programs for parents, and the development of standards to ensure that play activities are recognized for their positive impact on student grades. It concludes by advocating for a shift in societal attitudes to prioritize children's well-being through increased playtime and social interaction. The essay references several research papers and online sources to support its arguments.

English

Essay Title: The lack of playtime among children of Hong Kong
Play has a long being considered as an essential factor of early childhood education. It
plays a critical role in advancing the child overall development. Children’s physical and social
development is one of critical issue in Hong Kong which affects the overall outcome in terms of
child development. Nowadays the children’s and their parents are more concerned towards
education because of high force of primary school (Ng and et,al., 2017). In addition to this, it
can be said that Hong Kong primary students are spending their most of the time in class rooms.
Other than this, high ratio of homework is also a critical issue within Hong Kong which also
decreases the playtime among children. Due to the high engaged life and complexity, children
in the Hong Kong have does not sufficient time through which they can play with their friend
and members. The major cause of this lack playing time is their load of study and pressure of
education. In the Hong Kong people have very engaged life as parents have no time to spend
with their children and they have very lack of knowledge about the social participation. Another
major reason is the lack of playtime among children is that children are engaged with high level
of technologies such as internet, mobile phone video game so they spend their time with these
technologies.
It has also been witnessed that students are facing issues in terms of stress which should
be controlled effectively in order to meet key goals and objectives. According to the reports, it
has been noticed that students are used to spend 191 days in primary school. It means they are
having a spending 5.1 hours each day in the class room and additional 2-4 hours on homework.
These findings indicates that Hong Kong students are spending huge amount of their time on
studies which has also created a condition of lack of playtime among children. Such aspects
impact the child development in negative manner (Huang, Wong and He, 2017). It is necessary
for government to focus on measures that can allow to control the situation and have positive
outcome. It has also been noticed that promotion of play and other activities is crucial problem
in Hong Kong. It is because parents are more focused towards achievement oriented activities
and school work as compared to social and cultural development. It also creates a stress among
child and impact their development in terms of physical and mental values. Due to the lack of
playing time among the children in the Hong Kong have directly impacted on their physical and
mental growth. Due to this issue, they can not able to participate in the social activities through
which their social relationship can become decreased and weak. In addition to this they can
unable to get creative idea and thinking.
It is necessary for government of Hong Kong to employ number of regulations to
motivate teachers for use of play activities for teaching. It means by having use of play and
using practical fun activities the teachers must provide assistance to learning program. It would
allow to reduce the stress and motivate children towards social and cultural activities. These
kinds of methods will also help in overcome the issue regarding lack of playtime among
children of Hong Kong (Suen and et.al., 2017). Seminars and awareness programs must be
organised for the parents in order to make them understand about the negative impact of lack of

playtime among children. By having a transformation in the parent’s perception towards social
and cultural development the healthy environment can be created within nation. Hong Kong
education system also need to develop a standard to ensure that play activities are having
impact on the grades of students. It will create a currency among parents and motivate them to
allow their children for effective participation in games (Hong Kong primary students spend
more time on homework than global peers – survey, 2017). It will assist in increase of playtime
among children in Hong Kong and ensure that child development standards are properly
maintain. Emerging evidence suggests that play helps children develop important social and
cognitive skills.

REFERENCES
Journal & Book
Huang, W.Y., Wong, S.H. and He, G., 2017. Is a Change to Active Travel to School an
Important Source of Physical Activity for Chinese Children?. Pediatric Exercise
Science, 29(1), pp.161-168.
Ng, F.F.Y and et,al., 2017. Immigrant Chinese Mothers’ Socialization of Achievement in
Children: A Strategic Adaptation to the Host Society. Child development, 88(3), pp.979-
995.
Suen, Y.N and et.al., 2017. Development of Physical Activity-Related Parenting Practices Scales
for Urban Chinese Parents of Preschoolers: Confirmatory Factor Analysis and
Reliability. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, pp.1-29.
Online
Hong Kong primary students spend more time on homework than global peers – survey. 2017
[Online] Available through<:https://www.hongkongfp.com/2015/12/18/hong-kong-primary-
students-spend-more-time-on-homework-than-global-peers-survey/>. [Assessed on 25th
october, 2017]