April 2025

Parenting Articles

Written by: Cheng Sui Man

One afternoon, as my two-and-a-half-year-old twin boys were eating homemade jelly cups, the older one suddenly said:

“Mommy, help me scoop scoop please!” “Huh? Scoop what?” “Help me scoop scoop.”

At that moment, the older twin pushed the jelly cup and a small spoon towards me, and I suddenly realized: “You want me to help you scrape the jelly clean from the bottom of the cup!”

“Mommy, help me scoop scoop please!” This short sentence contains biliteracy and trilingualism: Cantonese, English, and Fujian. Those who know Fujian or Taiwanese will understand that the “scoop” that my brother is talking about is not the “buckle” of “button”, but the Cantonese pronunciation of Fujian, which is similar to the word “buckle”, and means “to scrape, to pull out, and to dig”. If my brother were to say this to my father, who is 100% Cantonese, I believe that even if father guesses until the sunset, he still won’t be able to figure out its meaning. So where did you learn the word “scoop”? In fact, no one specifically taught my son the word, I believe it was just my mom’s habit of speaking Fujian at home, and as my son listened to her, he picked it up without realizing it. As for the appearance of the English word “Please”, I believe many of you can imagine that it mainly comes from the domestic helper at home.

Is it better for younger children to be exposed to more languages? Not necessarily. Some child psychiatrists say that the language environment in many Hong Kong families is “chaotically multinational,” with parents speaking Cantonese, grandparents speaking Chinese dialects, and domestic helpers speaking Filipino-style English or Indonesian-style Cantonese. Too many different languages can be confusing for young children. It is recommended that children under two years old grow up in a monolingual environment to master one language well before introducing another language into their lives.

For example, parents who want their children to excel in English might specifically hire a Filipino domestic helper (since Filipino helpers generally insist on speaking English, while Indonesian helpers often learn Cantonese). Doctors also remind parents that it is best to try to maintain purely English conversations at home. Mixing Chinese and English does not help children learn languages effectively and may even cause confusion in young children, affecting their language development progress.

Parenting Articles

April 2025

Written by: Hong Kong registered psychologist, Ching Wai Keung

When discussing the formation of attachment, it is not difficult to observe that children, from infancy (approximately from birth to two years old), already exhibit feelings of anxiety, including stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. These anxieties typically begin to appear between six months and one year of age. This time, we will focus on discussing stranger anxiety.

Simply put, stranger anxiety is what parents often refer to as fear of strangers, and the behaviors derived from it are what we commonly call “recognizing people.” The intensity of fear of strangers can vary; mild cases may only show reluctance to be held by strangers or avoidance of strangers’ gazes, while severe cases can involve extreme discomfort or even crying loudly just from a stranger’s glance.

Firstly, I must explain that under normal circumstances, fear of strangers should be seen as a positive developmental signal, indicating that the child is capable of distinguishing between caregivers and others. Parents should not be overly concerned.

Secondly, an infant’s reaction to strangers often changes depending on the external environment, including the current objective environment, the stranger’s actions towards the infant, the distance between the infant and their primary caregiver, and the caregiver’s reaction to the stranger (Keltenbach, Weinraub, & Fullard, 1980). For example, if the primary caregiver interacts with the stranger in a positive manner, using friendly speech and tone, the child’s response is likely to be more positive as well (Feinman & Lewis, 1983).

Therefore, if parents want to reduce their child’s anxious behaviors when facing strangers, they can start by modifying their own behaviors. When interacting with others, they can increase their smiles, be more proactive, improve their tone of voice and body language. Don’t forget that parents are the lifelong teachers of their children! Of course, parents do not need to rush to change the behavior of infants and toddlers in a short time. As they develop the ability to self-regulate, their performance in managing anxiety may greatly improve!

The emotion of fear of strangers actually follows us throughout our lives. Are you able to speak freely in front of strangers? Do you feel anxious during job interviews? Therefore, a little anxiety is normal. The most important thing is how we can improve our performance when anxious.