Nearly 70 percent of people in a survey disagreed with bans on high-school romances, despite concerns about emotional maturity, the Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation found.
The survey, released on Saturday last week, showed that while most people disagreed with the ban on romantic relationships between high-schoolers, they expressed concern about how teens would handle interpersonal emotions and called for the teaching of more social-emotional learning (SEL) methods.
The survey showed that 37.8 percent of respondents disagreed with the rules, and another 30.2 percent strongly disagreed with them, the foundation said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
However, the survey also showed that 78.6 percent of respondents believed that teenagers lacked the emotional maturity to handle relationship setbacks or issues, and 81.4 percent also expressed concerns about online dating apps.
More than 79 percent of people said that during their formative years, they experienced some form of loneliness or isolation; and 60.5 percent supported making SEL a compulsory subject, the foundation said.
People generally believe that teenagers have more positive relationships with their friends than with family members, the survey showed.
Adverse relationships with family were attributed to conflict over academic performance, relationships with friends, Internet addiction, and pressure around graduation or employment opportunities, it showed.
The poll highlights the need for teens and adolescents to receive SEL, and shows the need for parents and teachers to better communicate and get along with them, foundation chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said.
People generally believe that students should not be prohibited from falling in love, but are worried about potential emotional setbacks, showing the importance of SEL, said Shelley Tien (田秀蘭), dean of the College of Education at National Taiwan Normal University.
Students can be encouraged to practice self-awareness and identify their emotions by writing them down, or sitting quietly with their thoughts, as a way to regulate their feelings and calm themselves through deep breathing or other methods, she said.
That could eventually develop into self-discipline habits and emotional maturity, allowing them to respond empathetically to those around them, she added.
With freedom comes responsibility, and learning to identify and manage emotions at a young age has lifelong benefits, she said.
Schools at all levels should promote SEL, foundation poll committee convener Kuo Sheng-yu (郭生玉) said.
Taiwan does not teach it as a separate subject, but it is an important aspect of gender education and should be further integrated into the curriculum, he said.
Although Taiwanese schools attach great importance to higher education, they often overlook the value of SEL, and the foundation hopes that schools can come up with effective methods of keeping teachers motivated and engaged, he said.
The foundation conducted the nationwide online questionnaire among Taiwanese aged 18 or older from July 15 to Aug. 15, and collected 13,191 valid samples.
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