Discrepancy between the expectation of parents and their
children on the latter's academic performance will affect the family
relationships between them, according to our study on 125 pairs of parents
and their secondary school children conducted in Summer 2000.
Contrary to common belief, children are found to be more
dissatisfied with their own academic performance than their parents.
Among these 125 pairs, 21.6% of the children were more satisfied than
their parents, while 36.8% of the parents were more satisfied than their
children. In particular, within this percentage, the children had presumed
their fathers were displeased with their academic performance while
their fathers had presumed their children were more contented, but instead
the opposite was found for both. Such misunderstanding is proved to
be influential in their relationship with each other.
From the study, fathers are also found to be over-optimistic
on their perception of father-child relationship than their children;
Mother-child relationship on the other hand is found to be better than
father-child relationship.
This study reflects that more efforts should be made to
facilitate mutual understanding and to encourage communications among
family members, especially between fathers and their children.
