Is this behaviour of teacher acceptable?

[weatherbee]

gerberadaisy:

Dear all,


Many thanks for all the kind advice and invaluable input. Have met up with the teacher and she explained that she did that to send a firm message to my child that his behaviour (not paying attention or obeying instructions) is not acceptable. We have accepted her explanation and will let the matter rest.

So is your child better behaved in class now?

[verykiasumummy]

i also hv an experience to share.


i was told that my ds swear using the f word in class and was made to slap himself in the face 10 times in front of the class. for which my ds admitted and i caned him for that again at home. i feel that the teacher wasnt wrong, except that i sometimes couldnt accept another person’s punishment to my kids except for myself. this applies the same when my MIL does any form of punishment, even just standing in front of the altar, irritates me regardless of what my ds did.

i believe all parents here who are against the teacher punishing students are more or less having the same mindset as me.

after taking to my hubby, i agreed that the teacher wasnt wrong to humiliate my ds in front of his class so i let the matter rest. deep down, i’m not sure if any of such things were to happen again, will i have the same forgiveness.

[MOTY]

I just want to comment on cultural differences of what is considered suitable method of discipline.


It would be very rare for a Western mother to accept having her child slap herself 10 times as suitable punishment. Whereas Asian mothers have more tolerance for a "less dignified" approach if they feel the end result justifies the mean.

I wonder how much of our cultural upbringing affects our behaviour as I feel Western kids tends to be more assertive, willing to challenge authority, independent, also bit more likely to learn by making his own mistakes. Asian kids tends to be more hard working, disciplined, less likely to test boundaries.

What do you think?

How can we cultivate the best qualities of both world in our children?

[verykiasumummy]

hi moty,


maybe u r right… we tend to impose harsh punishments or rather accept these due to Asian mindset… caucasians will never accept this. this is also partly the reason why international schools where the caucasian kids study, do not employ local teachers… the cultural difference is just unspoken.

if we can expose our kids to different groups of friends, they may influence each other in terms of their behaviour… just that it takes a lot more than just saying!! we parents still have much to learn everyday from others as well as from forums in order to meet increase our benchmark…

since we are all brought up differently, differences in upbringing between individual local families are already an issue, what’s more when we are compared to ang mohs?

[ammonite]

I am an Asian mother. I won’t accept this self-slapping punishment from the teacher AT ALL. I believe many teachers too will not think this is a suitable punishment.


More than cultural attitudes towards disciplinary METHODS, I feel there is also the difference in children’s temperament and what is considered "good" in different cultures. My son is vocal and very active at the playground. Caucasian neighbours commented on how friendly and confident he is, and they do not bat an eyelid at his activities (climbing up the swing frame - all the boys do it). But a local auntie came to tell me he was very naughty because he said hi to her when he ran past, and frowned at her when she teased him (this was exactly what she said to me) and he was scolded by an old man from China for being a "ye hai zi" (wild child) at the playground.

[verykiasumummy]

hi ammonite,


what u mentioned made me recall my ang moh boss few yrs back… she was given PR and gave birth in sg… as usual what u have mentioned, her little boy interacted with many others at the playground and had many activities which are those considered "wild".

when there’s only some girls with her son playing, she didnt pay much attention to what her son was doing, but when some other boys joined in, her eyes were all on them…!! after what seems like 30 sec, she walked over gracefully and will smile to those other parents, saying that their boys are so active and cute; they look gorgeous; wonderful companion and so on… and give an excuse to bring her son back…

back in the car when i ask her, she said those kids were almost as tall as her son, she’s afraid they might get too excited and hurt him, or fall and cause injury to her son. but i can tell u, her son, being ang moh, was much taller than the others, that made me think otherwise that her son would hurt the others more likely.

being with an ang moh boss for so many yrs back then, i couldnt help feeling that their comments usually said to ppl are so pretentious, so fake!! words like "wonderful", "gorgeous" always come from their mouths, but how many of them would really mean that?

asians are different, we are brought up in a way where we look at mistakes more than anything… we rmb ppl of the mistakes they make, and most do not make praises at all. my dd’s kindergarten teacher told me last time that i should reward kids for what they achieve, and punish them lightly but discipline more when it comes to mistakes. but my husband believes in harsh punishments. when they did something well, he thinks it is "ying gai de" (supposed to be, so nothing to reward)

this is probably the reason why i used to hate some parents whenever i go to my ds’s school to fetch him… they would make comments like, "hey yesterday myson says ur son hit him", "ur son refuse to lend money to my son" and so on… they dun speak of the good, but the bad instead…

so my conclusion, believe half of those coming from ang mohs, as well as those remarks by locals… they never meant anything really serious, unless it is from the school…

[verykiasumummy]

back to the self slapping, come to think of it, i’m beginning to agree with the teacher more as i see more comments here… your reactions were exactly like those of mine when i first got to know of it…


the teacher cannot touch our kids when it comes to punishments, or they may hurt them unintentionally. but when the child slaps himself, as all may have thought of, they will not dare or want to slap themselves so hard… so the slaps are light on the face, but because the whole class looking at him, he will feel that kind of shame and guilt of what he has done or swear (in my ds’s case). it’ll be considered a light punishment but great effect on my ds’s mind not to repeat the mistake again.

i actually told him to slap himself in front of me, to show how he slap himself in class on that day… like what i have thought, they were much lighter than i expected, but due to the repeated times, his face turned a little red. that was when i began to accept that and not pursue with the teacher.

[ammonite]

It is good that you have made peace with the incident and now agrees with the teacher. For our (extended) family it would not be acceptable. In fact the first person to tell me to complain would be my FIL and he has been a teacher for the past three decades.


I can't say much for your ex boss, but it's a skill to be able to be this smooth and I have seen this in action as well, caucasian or non Caucasian, and more often in some industries. But generally Caucasian kids - esp the europeans - are definitely given more room for exploration and rough play that are not tolerated by most Asians. Fortunately I have a group of like minded caregivers in my neighborhood and our boys can go wild together.

[verykiasumummy]

hi ammonite,


good to hear that too… peers around are as important as well… support from them matters the most to me at times…

all the best to our children…

[noahgoh]

I think what the teacher did is fine, since it’s valid.


The old schooling days when the teachers would hit our knuckles if we didn’t behave… anyone remembers?

My point is, we were all brought up via disciplinary methods at school. But over the years when we’ve all become parents, I think we’ve forgotten discipline is a very important aspect of bring up these kids - be it by us or their educators.

As a result the kids have this mentality that the teachers can’t exactly do much to them and tend to misbehave. It’s quite exasperating for the teachers, I feel. And it doesn’t really help our kids, too.

I support valid and reasonable disciplinary actions.