A young male university student was stabbed to death by his roommate at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics on April 16, 2013. [Photo: money.591hx.com]

There are 350 million people in China, born after the 1980 introduction of the one-child policy, who are the only child in their family.

That generation of young adults has now given birth to another 120 million children, who in most case, will also be the only child in the family.

Youth mental health experts are saying that this lack of interaction with siblings has created a generation of young adults who don't know how to effectively communicate with their peers.

Many are blaming this lack of ability to communicate with peers, high competition at university and pressure from family is causing some university students to lash out violently at their peers.

Professor Huang Hongji is the Director of the Shanghai Youth Research Institute.

He says that the Nanjing stabbing was an extreme case but it rings alarm bells over the socialization problems among China's youth.

"Time Magazine calls the generation as the Me generation. As the only child in the family, the children are self-centered. They get more attention from their parents and receive better education than multi-sibling families. But they lack adequate communication with their peers, which is to communicate with someone of their own age, interact with each other on an equal footing, care about each other and follow the rules of their peer group."

As these children have grown into university-aged young adults, experts say they also come up against stiff competition to get a seat in university.

And the competition only gets tougher when they are looking for a job once they graduate.

Statistics show China now has seven million university graduates looking for work, up from just one million in 2000.

Professor Huang Hongji says that in extreme cases this pressure can lead to mental health problems among young students.

But he says many don't realize that they are suffering from mental health problems and don't access university counseling support.

"Universities and schools do care about student's mental health. They are offering counseling services. But the problem is that most students do not take stress and depression as a mental health issue. Such problems are usually treated as moral and attitude issues. So, students do not want to discuss about their concerns with psychological consultants."

Dr. Feng Wenmeng is an expert with the China Research Development Foundation, a think tank and government advisory body.

He says solution to the problems should start at home.

"If you can imagine if one individual cannot communicate well with other people this is the basic ability in society, if one child cannot even do this, how can you imagine that this child can get well treated in society in the future. Even for our education system, we should take some reforms. But the family or the parents should change their mind."

The expert suggests that parents need to place more importance on allowing their kids to socialize with their peers, not only education.

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