ABSTRACT
The ‘Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go’ relationship education and enhancement programme for families with teens was indigenised to help parents with preteens to lower their parenting pressure and to enhance parent–child communication. The evaluation of the intervention adopted a mixed method approach. 45 parents and 64 children were invited to fill out pre-test (T0), post-test (T1), and 2-month follow-up (T2) questionnaire. A total of 16 parent participants were involved in two focus groups. The findings indicated that participants’ parenting stress was lowered after the group intervention, and improvement in family relationships was observed in the aspects of communication, mutuality, and parental control. Children respondents were aware of the positive change in parents in terms of communication and statistically significant differences were found in the pre-test and 2-month follow-up. Parent participants highlighted that the prerequisites to become an accessible, responsive, and emotionally engaging parent was self-care and self-regulation.
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Notes on contributors
Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung
Johnson Chun-Sing Cheung, DSW, is Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Grace Suk-Man Leung
Grace Suk-Man Leung, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Practice (2019-2021), Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Yick-Man Lam
Yick-Man Lam, is Senior Manager, Youth Services, St. James’ Settlement, Hong Kong.
Josephine Wing-Tung Chan
Josephine Wing-Tung Chan, is Research Assistant, Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.