Preschool

I am looking for a preschool near Banqiao Station or Zhongyuan Station for my 3.5-year-old son. I have been searching online and asking around for a long time. Currently, he is attending a preschool, but he has mentioned multiple times that the teacher has hit him. I have spoken to the school several times, and they were shocked, stating that it is impossible for such incidents to occur at their school. However, I had a Taiwanese friend inquire on my behalf, and she confirmed that the school has indeed violated regulations, and many parents have faced similar issues. I am concerned about my son’s well-being, but I also need to work to support our family. If anyone can help me find a kindergarten where I can be confident that my son will be in a safe and nurturing environment, I would be extremely grateful.
I contacted Kids Castle, but unfortunately, they do not accept new students for the upcoming semester.

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At least some have a livestream app for parents. I don’t know any names, though. At that age, you might also consider a private kindergarten at a public school, though they may not be accepting now either. There are probably some local nurseries/day care centers in or near your neighborhood.

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Yes, I’m looking for a private kindergarten as my child used to attend one. While live streaming is not available at the places I’ve inquired about, they do allow access to incident records if necessary. I know there are many options, but I was wondering if someone might have any recommended choices.

I know your focus is on finding a new school, but you might want to escalate this (by which I mean involve the police, especially if there are security cameras in the classroom). It’s been illegal to hit children in schools in Taiwan long enough that most preschool teachers would have been in preschool themselves after that law was passed. Also, this should go without saying, but what happens to a child in the preschool years has a huge impact on the rest of their life. Teachers who so much as swat at a 3 year old should be barred from teaching forever. There is literally no situation where hitting is ok and if your child is able to articulate to you that that has happened (even once), that’s a huge red flag.

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I used to remember getting hit in second grade for not doing homework. This was at a public school.

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Being perfectly honest, I don’t know when hitting was officially banned. I saw plenty of it in the public schools in the past decade. But it’s still a) morally unacceptable and b) most certainly illegal today

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It might be one of those laws that’s there but never enforced, because even if it’s wrong and harmful to children the culture thinks it’s proper discipline. So getting them to do anything about it may be hard.

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2006

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might think if the kid is 3rd grade, but OP’s son is 3yo.

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I second this.
Once the things escalate they will think twice, thrice, four times before don’t anything like that again.

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You’re right, but if this really happened and I asked them to let me see the records, would they keep this part recorded?

I used to work in a well-known, private, and expensive preschool. There was a teacher who would yell at toddlers for no reason, and if they were late to finish something, she would use her hand.

I talked to the teacher about this, and she denied it. However, she did mention that she was helping my son clean his face, so maybe he misunderstood and considered it a slap.

Recently, a friend sent me a link to violence records for preschools on Google Maps. I had no idea about this before, and there is even a website for each preschool with all the details. However, they still don’t mention the specific type of violations they had.
What I care about is his mental health. Our kids have the right to be in schools and be treated well. We also need to be 100% sure that our kids are in safe places.

Yelling at kids seems to be prevalent in most schools. However, hitting or yelling at them have equally damaging effects and both harm the well-being of the children.

This is why I’m asking. I would like to hear recommendations from parents and teachers, as foreign teachers may be able to observe and provide insights into what is happening.

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Thank you for your comments. I genuinely appreciate them.
As a mother, I would be grateful if anyone could guide me to a preschool close to the locations I mentioned.

In general, it’s crucial to discuss how children are being treated in both preschools and schools. If we notice something wrong, it’s important to know what steps to take. If there are places that are not recommended, we should advise each other not to try them.

If anyone has relevant information to share, please do so.
We all need support, and we all appreciate advice. :pray:

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I see hitting and yelling all the time. It’s not right but the Asian tiger mom culture is like this.

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Just because the “culture” is like this doesn’t mean it’s legal. Hitting a child is illegal in Taiwan. The end.

You can’t even legally tell elementary school children to stand in the back of the room for more than some insanely short number of minutes (like 2 or something). If, as a teacher, you do, and someone has a record of it, parents can sue you for using corporal punishment on their child. That’s how strictly the law interprets corporal punishment. This parent is talking about a preschool aged child saying their teacher hit them on more than one occasion. There is NOTHING ok with that. “Maybe she used too much force when she was helping him wipe his face” is a HUGE red flag. That sounds like the teacher is gaslighting the child so they can’t understand the difference between someone physically abusing them and someone “helping” them. A three year old is perfectly capable of wiping their own face anyway. The only time an adult should be helping a child that is old enough to sit up on their own to wipe their face is if they’ve smeared something all over it that’s not fit for human consumption (eg, poop, something toxic, etc). Otherwise, they are at an age where the process of rubbing a washcloth all over themselves is a straight forward concept.

If you involve the police and the video has been scrubbed, that’s tampering with evidence, which is even worse than committing the alleged crime in the first place. ANY hitting is unacceptable. Aggressive wiping of a child’s face is unacceptable. This is nothing something to take lightly or say “it’s just part of the culture” or “maybe I’ll just sneak out and go somewhere else”.

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