Since the therapy, Suki Lee's five- year-old daughter is no longer shy to give kisses instead of smacking teachers or anyone she is upset with.

Lee attributed the improved behavior to the therapy mother and daughter took together.

Lee, a working mother in Tuen Mun two years ago, said that because she had two naughty children, she was not liked by co-workers. She recalled hitting and yelling at her then three-year-old daughter every day.

"She never obeyed me and would say to me `you're not a good mommy, you don't love me,"' Lee said. "It got on my nerves because I used to think if I give her an order she had to follow it. I would hit her if she didn't and she learned from my bad behavior. In fact every time I hit her it hurt my heart."

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The principal of her daughter's school noticed the problem and referred her to the parent-child interaction therapy offered by the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals.

The therapy was introduced to Hong Kong from the United States in 2004. The hospital-charity group pioneered the therapy in Tuen Mun and will expand it to Tin Shui Wai, now known by the name "city of sadness."

The nickname came after a Tin Shui Wai mother threw her two children out of a window with their hands and feet hound before jumping to her death at Tin Yiu Estate this month.

A total of 448 child abuse cases were reported to the Social Welfare Department in the first six months of this year, compared with an annual total of 481 in 2003.

Yuen Long and Tuen Mun topped the list with the highest number of cases.

The interactive therapy encourages parents to give children incentives to change bad behavior by frequently praising them and responding to their actions. Each parent and child takes part in a weekly one-hour session for 14 to 20 weeks.

During the sessions the parent and child are kept inside a room to play games, observed by therapists through a one-way mirror. The parent hears instructions from a therapist through an earpiece.

Seven out of 10 parents showed improvement in interacting with their children after the therapy, praising their children more and criticizing less.

The 34 parents who completed the sessions reported zero use of corporal punishment six weeks after the therapy ended. Social workers said many Chinese parents are embarrassed to praise their children, which is essential.

"I agree it is not the easy to do," said Monique Chan Ka-wai, a practitioner of the therapy. "But there must be something your children are good at that deserves some compliments."

Therapists said it is also important to give descriptive and reflective statements to children, such as "I see you are pushing this yellow car," to acknowledge their existence and to show parents are paying attention to them.

"Now when I see parents yelling at their kids on the street, just as I did before, I go to them and give their kids some compliments," Lee said.