Almost 70 percent of Chinese middle school students have serious problems with their parents, the Beijing Morning Post quoted a survey as saying.

The survey showed 6.62 percent of the surveyed students are afraid of their parents while 13.13 percent of them loathe their parents and 56.28 percent were extremely disgusted with or even hate their parents. Only 4.75 percent of the young people surveyed said they like their parents.

The recently conducted survey among 3,000 middle school students in a Beijing district asked questions about their attitude toward their parents and family education, the paper said.

For many families, conflict between parents and children center on the student's school grades, their weight and their friends. The survey showed that parental influence over children is decreasing, the paper said.

Xiao Xiao, a third year junior middle school student is perhaps typical of most kids when she complains; "I was scolded by my mother because I didn't come first in the class in a mid-term exam."

Xiao Xiao in fact is already one of the top students in her class, the paper said, stressing Xiao Xiao's parents hope she can study at the Beijing University or even attend Harvard in the future.

Sun Yunxiao, an expert with the China Youth and Children Research Center, said "parents pin unrealistically high expectations on their children."

The research center's own survey of parents showed about 55 percent of parents hope their children will study for a doctoral degree and 83.6 percent require their children to rank in the top 15 of their class.

Conflicts between parents and their children not only come from too high education expectations. Other causes of disconnection between parents and children are family violence, parents' old fashioned ideas, interference in a child's privacy including their choice of friends and time spent surfing the web, the paper said.

Mr Hu, a father of a middle school student, wasn't surprised by the survey results. He says too much concern over school marks is putting tremendous pressure on families.

The paper said schools and family institutions should work to improve family education and relations between parents and children.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2005)