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Q: What is bad behaviour in China?
My kid (4.5 years) had a tantrum today. These are rare with her, and my usual way to deal with it is to pick her up and carry her away from the source (the MIL). Then I do the usual sit down and talk with her. It's all soon forgotten.
But I would not class an occasional tantrum as bad behaviour. Regular tantrums certainly are of course.
Later in the afternoon she snatched an item from my hand. I would class that as bad behaviour, and I told her so. "Try it again", I said, " take it from my hand, don't snatch".
This got me thinking. I know there is a lot of debate in the west about how strict parents should be, is a smack to the bottom ok and all that. But there seems to be a general agreement of what is considered bad behaviour. No matter what your political bent, we all know bad behaviour when we see it.
Do you think China has the same overall agreement of what is bad behaviour is, as the west does?
Behaviorism in China can only be affective if the parents know how to behave, sadly there's noting we can do, I want to ask them "what the heck are you doing, do you know anything at all.." Sorry I say that a lot when I see a parent slap a kids head with the power of Thor.
ScotsAlan:
I have seen the slapping here too. Not good. And the hardest slaps seem to occur because the kid has interrupted the parents attention to their phone :-(
ironman510:
The parent must have found an "ai mei" on TanTan or MoMo. I saw it the other day while parents were waiting in line at Wal-Mart, the kid knocked over a few candies and the parents boom decked him.
earthizen:
Oh, most of them know what they are doing, they are teaching the kid something that works superbly well for them ---- the Sword is Mightier than the Pen. Ask them what Deng said about the source of political power.
About a month ago, a guy from the India/Sri Lanka area, a pathogical liar in front of money was in front of me with his 15 years old son, who he physically abused almost daily to get things done his way. The abuse included dragging him outside their home and beating him in front of whoever were there. The kid, an honest kid brought up under western education, told me he had no respect for his dishonest father.
I asked the scum, "What do you want him to become?" He said, "I want him to be strong". Guess what his version of "strong" is? Answer: Cheat, lie, steal, con, use brutal violence to get what you want. In short, the Sword is Mightier than the Pen.
Same mindset, Indians, Sri Lankans, Mainland Chinese, Somali pirates......etc. They also justify their robbing with their Robin Hood complex as they are worshipped as heros when they bring the loot home. The "they" here include both sexes ......... hopefully you are not among the loot. :)
seansarto:
Water Margin..One of the "Great 4 Novels"..Song Jiang is basically Robin Hood.
Behaviorism in China can only be affective if the parents know how to behave, sadly there's noting we can do, I want to ask them "what the heck are you doing, do you know anything at all.." Sorry I say that a lot when I see a parent slap a kids head with the power of Thor.
ScotsAlan:
I have seen the slapping here too. Not good. And the hardest slaps seem to occur because the kid has interrupted the parents attention to their phone :-(
ironman510:
The parent must have found an "ai mei" on TanTan or MoMo. I saw it the other day while parents were waiting in line at Wal-Mart, the kid knocked over a few candies and the parents boom decked him.
earthizen:
Oh, most of them know what they are doing, they are teaching the kid something that works superbly well for them ---- the Sword is Mightier than the Pen. Ask them what Deng said about the source of political power.
About a month ago, a guy from the India/Sri Lanka area, a pathogical liar in front of money was in front of me with his 15 years old son, who he physically abused almost daily to get things done his way. The abuse included dragging him outside their home and beating him in front of whoever were there. The kid, an honest kid brought up under western education, told me he had no respect for his dishonest father.
I asked the scum, "What do you want him to become?" He said, "I want him to be strong". Guess what his version of "strong" is? Answer: Cheat, lie, steal, con, use brutal violence to get what you want. In short, the Sword is Mightier than the Pen.
Same mindset, Indians, Sri Lankans, Mainland Chinese, Somali pirates......etc. They also justify their robbing with their Robin Hood complex as they are worshipped as heros when they bring the loot home. The "they" here include both sexes ......... hopefully you are not among the loot. :)
seansarto:
Water Margin..One of the "Great 4 Novels"..Song Jiang is basically Robin Hood.
No, I don't think China has the same norms.
Since, I am childless ....l am looking at your last sentence .... I went for a walk to the ATM this afternoon, and I saw some 2y old girl, standing between two parked cars and desperately crying on quite busy street with shops in DT.
Since kid was alone, I guessed, she was looking for her niang.
As a foreigner, I really couldn't do anything, but observing the whole thing.
Many passers-by, some mothers with their kids just passing by, but none would stop and comfort kiddie till her mom wouldn't return from who knows where.
Very soul less .... society.
Was reading some years ago in NYT, when Danish couple got arrested for child neglect in Manhattan. They were sitting in the Restaurant's garden and had stroller with baby inside parked on the street in view, few meters away. For Danes, police act was bit extreme, but US norms are like that....just for comparison.
icnif77:
Can't open this, year 1997:
Ms. Sorensen was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, the child was ... The couple's arrest caused a brief transcontinental debate after they argued that ... of a 14-month-old Danish girl who was left outside a Manhattan restaurant was ... disorderly conduct and reckless endangerment charges will be dismissed.
Toddler, Left Outside Restaurant, Is Returned to... www.nytimes.com/1997/05/14/nyregion/toddler-left-outside-res... May 14, 1997 ... The couple had left the child in a stroller outside the Dallas BBQ Restaurant at ... News of the arrest, which was first reported yesterday in The New York Post, ... that the common Danish practice of leaving children unattended outside ... Most parents interviewed in Manhattan yesterday said they believed the ...
seansarto:
This happened to me my very first year in Jiangxi Province...little baby girl running in the middle of the road...panicking...cars swerving around her...I jumped off my bike and walked her out of the road to safety and tried to comfort her...eventually a Chinese couple came and spoke wth her and the police came to help find her parents...I went home unnerved and began contemplating what I could do..I began to think about adopting the child if her parents had abandoned her...about raising her alone..I am not married..and seeing her through college and the rest of our lives... what that would mean to my "plans"...my "dreams"...I also thought it was a very cynical thing to do...like it was a setup...this abandoned child right where the single, adult foreigner always bikes everyday..."he's sure to see her"....it was my first year in China and I was contemplating adopting a little abandoned girl...I wasn't prepared for that idea....but I also was ready to raise kids so I accepted the scenario to some degree, swallowed my pride and tried to find the police station but could not...I felt a lot of anger towards the parents that just dumped their kid in the road ( i also. being even minded considered that the child just was lost...that her parents were out there worried sick...I did not know)...my heart weighed the worst case scenario...but I was sure I could have given that child a better life and a better love..but I also felt how is that fair? ..I have prepared to have my own child and these parents have not...so they want me to raise theirs?...it strengthened my faith I suppose that I would raise another's child and still pursue my own...but it made me honestly face my pride..
icnif77:
I'd say, any driver could stop the car and take kid to the nearest cops in your example. I know I would do that, but here, they'll run you over with car just 'cause ....
Chinese will eventually get 'modernised' ....the people, not infrastructure. Both should 'modernise' in unison, but Chinese people are way behind.
I read, they're constructing train with 500 km top speed, which will connect countries in 'one belt-one road' with wheels they can adjust to different gauges used around the world.
It seems to depend on family to family.
The little kids can sometimes get away with anything if everyone is having a good laugh in the process. Chinese children are very poorly behaved, and then get the personality sucked out of them during their schooling to become like mindless drones.
Lots of parents don't have a clue how to discipline their children and seem to rely on their grandparents or society to take up the task for them.
ScotsAlan:
I have seen loads of Chinese grandparents letting the kids do anything. Not always bad behaviour though. Just downright dangerous stuff.
Stiggs:
A common thing seems to be parents, or Grandparents who believe good parenting is keeping their little demon happy, no matter what he or she does. This means no consequences for their actions because if they're punished in any way, they will be 'sad' and they will have failed as a parent.
I've seen kids sneering while they throw things and kick / punch their caregiver and nothing is done.. the response is to try to convince them to stop making a huge public scene by bribing them with junk food and the promise of toys.
Some of them were my students unfortunately, and they tried to bring that attitude into my classroom.
I am not a christian and my bible knowledge is limited to high school religious class level. If I remember correctly somewhere in the OT it says the sins of parents are passed down seven generations. Sins, not genetic diseases. If you interpret these sins as bad behaviors and mentalities then this passing down of sins business is very common ----the primary role models for children being their parents.
I witness mainland kids' bad behaviors everywhere I go, loud, snatch things like bank robbers, self-centered, violent, brush other people aside whenever someone is standing in their way. The list is endless.
Look at their parents and even more telling their grandparents, the answer is staring at you right there. As to what constitutues bad behaviors I wonder what Somali pirates would say if you ask them, "Do you know robbing is bad?"
In China, bad behavior is bad behavior that affects me. To civilized people, bad behavior is bad behavior simple and plain.
Shining_brow:
Bad behaviour is anything that interrupts my vastly more important life!!!
my two cents -
adolescents in china suffer from neurotic disorder arising from continuous exposure to sensory over-stimulation, primarily through aural assault.
I see this everyday with my next-door neighbor. A father living alone with his daughter. He looks late 30's, she 5 or 6. He seems to love her and care for her, but I can see her cringe when they interact. He stands so close to her that they are nearly touching, he is twice her height, and probably three/four times her mass. He then barks those strange sounds the Chinese call 'language', which are the closest to barks I've ever heard from homo-sapien, he does so at such an amplified decibel level. I literally see the child cringe. This event seems common-place as I witness it repeated daily. With continous/repeated exposure to that sort of negative impact to the child's psyche, what can one expect except for a mal-adjusted adolescent > teen > adult.
I totally believe that this is the beginning of and will lead to long-term neuroses in the child.
neurosis
[noo͡-ro´sis] (pl. neuro´ses)
former name for a category of mental disorders characterized by anxiety and avoidance behavior. In general, the term hasbeen used to refer to disorders in which the symptoms are distressing to the person, reality testing does not yield unusualresults, behavior does not violate gross social norms, and there is no apparent organic etiology. Such disorders are currentlyclassified as anxiety disorders, dissociative disorders, mood disorders, sexual disorders, and somatoform disorders.anxiety neurosis an obsolete term (Freud) for conditions now reclassified as panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.hysterical neurosis a former classification of mental disorders, now divided into conversion disorder and dissociative disorders.obsessive-compulsive neurosis former name for obsessive-compulsive disorder.transference neurosis a phenomenon occurring in most psychoanalyses, in which the patient undergoes, with the analystas the object, an intense repetition of childhood conflicts, reexperiencing impulses, feelings, and fantasies that originallydeveloped in relation to the parent.Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. © 2003 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.
