Opinion | Shirking responsibility on bullying leaves Hong Kong children to suffer

An index of whether school-aged children feel life is worth living fell to its lowest level in seven years. The score has dropped for three consecutive years, reaching 6.74 out of 10 this year. We say children are our future, but are we listening when they tell us they feel the future looks increasingly bleak?

The study pointed to several issues, one of which was that the older the student, the less they felt life was worth living. Part of this stems from academic pressures, but it also has to do with what they’re learning about the world they live in. Younger children tend to be insulated against the harsher realities of the world around them as they simply don’t know or understand it yet.

It is no wonder many couples in Hong Kong and elsewhere are deciding not to have children and risk bringing them into this troubled world. The rude awakening to a life that feels “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Hobbes, is more than just growing pains.

This problem will not go away if we have fewer children. In fact, we are already having fewer children and the problem is getting worse. At the very least, we are bystanders to this crisis and, as such, we must be careful not to fall prey to bystander apathy. It is imperative to try to better understand young people’s lives.

The survey also found that bullying has got worse – an index measuring the absence of bullying fell by almost 3 per cent. About one in five respondents reported they had been bullied in the past year alone, and the prevalence was as high as 25 per cent among Primary Four and Five pupils. If schools are microcosms of society, then these reports are worthy of action by everyone.