I’m just wondering if anybody else out there has any frustrations with this too: I teach first to sixth graders in a small bushiban, and while the children are all pretty well behaved in my class (I set firm limits), the moment they meet their parents, they become little whiney babies or demanding brats, and their parents just give in. I know you’ve seen this. They let them do and say anything they want. It’s infuriating! I know the basic deal - parents feel guilty for being too busy, so they don’t want to look like the bad guy, but I mean COME ON! It’s like an epidemic of idiocy. Does this infuriate you too? Do you ever say anything to the parents? What do you do?
This is typical and omnipresent within Taiwan, unfortunately - a lot of people feel frustrated with it. I think it’s partly that most of these people don’t know what respect is - how to respect a foreigner, or even what it really means with regard to their children and each other.
One thing I do is seperate them from Mom and Dad when talking about them. Send them to a library or toy corner. Then talk seriously about them to the parents.
This seems to work for me. I think it’s just awful the way parents talk about their kids when the kid is right there.
I have seen children who spent 6 hours in an English-immersion environment learning beginning phonics and early math and then jump into their parents’ car where a pacifier and bottle awaited them. If a parent sends a bottle, pacifier, or diaper to school for their preschooler, I send them back with a note that such items confuse a child about his or her (usually his) independence and, in the case of pacifiers and bottles, are detrimental to a child’s dental health.
Still it’s frustrating to see a child be so independent and running and jumping and talking only to demand to be carried or put into their stroller with a bottle when their parent or nanny comes to pick them up.
If it’s a matter of trying to talk to the parent while the child tries to pull them away or get their attention, I remind the child that while we are talking they need to wait their turn. They are given the choice to wait with their parent while we talk or to sit down in the front lobby by themselves.
Sometimes parents confuse not saying no as a means to make up for putting their child into group care during the day. I think often it’s guilt so they let their child get whatever they want to make up for their absence.
Once I had a 3 yr old in siau-ban who got dropped off in a big black car every morning by his grandma. He was not doing very well in class at all-basically screamed and cried all morning then fell down exhausted in the aft. and slept. The buxiban staff had to teach this child everything from how to drink out of a cup to how to wash his hands/brush his teeth. Once he got back with grandma, she treated him like an XL infant…the funny thing was…one day, he did #2 in the washroom and one of the buxiban attendants was in there helping him…when they were finished, he wouldn’t stop crying. I asked the school manager what was wrong. She told me that his grandmother always gives him a bath after #2 and that he felt dirty. A full on bath.// Ok I have just read over this message and I see that I have lost it to even care about such a topic.
A Taiwanese colleague told me the other day (in tears) that her own son is calling her “auntie” and her mother-in-law “mother”. “Why”, I asked? “Oh, I don’t know”, she replied. “I go to Tainan every two weeks to see him.” Now she’s pregnant again and will do the same with baby number 2. “We are making money, see?” The fact that her little son is a spoilt little sissy boy who pisses about everything and anything remained unsaid. I mean, you foreigners are just not as smart as we Taiwanese… How could you possibly understand our 5000 year old… :s
What I find absolutely afu#*ingmazing is that she’s got an MA in education from the US. :loco:
These kids are going to grow up feeling ENTITLED to everything, and yet they can’t handle anything by themselves. They will not be prepared to live in this harsh world. I can imagine when these kids grow up to find a job, they will wake up one day, throw a tantrum because they don’t want to go, and have their mommies or “aunties” call in sick for them. And ONE of those grown up infants is going to be the future leader of Taiwan. I guess we don’t have to worry about that president declaring independence on the island, since there is absolutely NO independence in the home!
I once taught a early childcare student from taiwan, here in nz. She had a young baby. She was at the course learning childcare and the importance of bonding etc, while her child was in taiwan for six months with a sister???
the thing is she could have brought the baby with her. another student did.
don’t get me started on this topic!
I went to the Skylark in Geant on Saturday last and had the dubious honor to overhear and witness the following articulate conversation between mommy and daddy and their 5 year old little shit…
Mommy: {Firm tone after little shit had kicked one of the waiters in the arse} Bu ke yi!
Little shit: {surprisingly loud for a 5 year old} Bu jiao!!!
Daddy: {much later, and only after little shit had all the waiting staff doing aerobics with him, in a slightly firmer, yet pleasant tone of voice} Bu ke yi!
Little shit: {roaring loudly while hitting the glass-topped table with an eating utensil} Bu jiao!!!
Mommy: {slightly dispaired because little shit is using her knife as a drumstick. She’s clearly too fearful to ask for it – and all this time her food is getting cold – god damn!} Ai yo! Bu ke yi!
Little shit: {after knocking over the drinks on his table and eating the bread from yet another table with equally frantic patrons} Bu jiao!
Daddy: {Who manages to read the newspaper, eat his food and talk on his mobile – all at the same time and with above average skill – unaware of what little shit is doing} Bu ke yi!
Little shit: {who just successfully double-tapped another fearful waiter in the bollocks} Bu jiao!!!
Mommy: {with an apologetic smile to the unlucky man who’s bent-over at the waist and in absolute agony and pain} Bu ke yi!
Little shit: {who had managed to whip out his genitals and is aiming to take a piss somewhere} Bu jiao!!!
Daddy: {absent mindedly admiring his son’s family jewels and blissfully pleased with the powerful blast of urine little shit manages to produce – healthy boy, drinks enough water} Ke yi! Hun kwai!
Mommy: Ke yi; Daddy: Ke yi; Little shit: Wo jiao!!!
Looking on the bright side, I learnt at least 3 Chinese phrases – (Bu) ke yi; Wo (bu) jiao; Hun kwai. On the downside: The above is true. I just don’t have the imagination to come up with something like this.
I’ve witnessed a boy in the Asiaworld Mall who was probably 5 or 6 years old…maybe older, who was eating his Happy Meal, put together a pokemon toy and then demanded his mother to put his pacifier in his mouth. I took a picture of the boy with his pacifier because I know no one back home would believe me otherwise.
I find that I have more clout over spoiled kids who are acting up with or without their parents’ supervision than the parents themselves. With my low level of angry Mandarin, a “Ni bu keyi” or “Ni gan ma?” works much better than the parents who lost control of their offspring a long time ago. Maybe it’s the shock of hearing an angry black woman speaking Mandarin to them that intimidates them. 
I do get pissed off, however, when I see brats ruining other people’s experiences. Mess things up for your own parents? Fine, their problem, but when they start doing things that could damage property or interfere with other people (especially if the other people includes me), then I feel the need to speak up with the few words I have.
I was pretty wild at home when I was a kid. Not spoiled by any means, but wild.
However, when I went to my Grandmother’s house, she had rules. And when she saw us doing something we we’ren’t supposed to do (like lift up the slate stone pathway looking for grubs to fish with), she’s say, “WE don’t DO that at Gram’s house.” It worked, we DID behave better, and we felt that Gram’s house was a special place.
The same thing goes in our school, “We don’t DO that here.” And they get to sit in the “Remember Chair” if they don’t listen or ignore.
Be firm, be consistant, and be fair (my son spends time in the Remember Chair just like all the others when necessary 
).
Yeah, some of these Taiwanese “parents” are obviously out of sync with the rest of us. I had one mother bring her “brilliant” six year old boy to one of my classes (forewarned by the laoban (with a wry smile) that I might have an interesting experience with him.
Was the kid smart? Yep. Did he know a lot of vocabulary that the other students didn’t know? Yep. Was he continually disruptive? Yep. Did he continually distrupt the class by telling them (in Mandarin) that all foreigners are stupid? Yep. Did he interact well with the other students? Nope. Could he answer simple questions about the other students? Nope. Could he answer simple questions about who he was and his family? Nope. No problem, I usually handle brats like that with a few squirts of hot sauce in their cute little faces.
What really ticked me off was that after the third or fourth day of his shining luminence, his mother came in before class had begun and asked me not to teach him any of the material I was using with the other children. She politlely asked me to only answer any and all questions that he had, and then she shoved a 1/2 inch thick sheaf of handwritten questions in my hand.
30 seconds later I was in the directors office and the problem ended there.
After that day, I never saw him again. When I told the other students that he wouldn’t be back again, they all shouted, “Yeaaaaaah!”
I am sure he will score at last 800 on the GMAT by the time he is ten.
Witnessed several tables over during a Sunday night dining out with friends. Proud little bugger and Mother was oblivious to it all.
I almost forgot this jewel!
I once worked for the neurotic wife of a judge down in Ping Tong. She had a little boy who at the time was about six. One afternoon we were at a school picnic, and he was running around playing with the other kids when his sunglasses fell off. He stopped dead in his tracks, ran over to his mother and kicked her in the shin. Then, he shouted to her to pick up his sunglasses and put them back on him.
Everybody turned and looked at her. What did she do? Why, well trained as she was, she picked them up and put them back on her little angel, patted him on the head and told him “hao, hao” and to go play with the other children.
Let me ask you this: How do you think these children will raise THEIR children? Will it be a backlash into hitting/severe punishment? Or will they grow up and realize how their parents were wrong and try do to it right? I was always the spoiled little sister in my family, and I now realize the error of my parents’ ways. So I’m hoping these little kids will do some thinking. Possible?
Possible, but they will probably end up being “lao bans from Hell” whatever their calling—or the next grad student at some foreign university to kill his prof/advisor because he was “unfair” to him.
In any event, I certainly don’t want to have to deal with this kind as an adult. Yes, I do believe in the redemption of man/woman, yet my faith is really stretched when faced with people like these.
I do need to say this behaviour is not restricted to taiwan.
I have just written an article for a publication on schol readiness. one of the teachers i interviewed said she has a child that will not do anything themselves- and they won’t verbally ask you to do anything either.
he just raises his eyebrows at you and them looks at the item in question- even to the point of wanting someone else to open his lunchbox, or pull down his pants to go to the toilet. he is 4.5 years
parents are doing themselves and their children a disservice by babying them.
if anyone is interested in the article feel free to pm me- i can’t post it as them the mag would be a little cross.
has some great tips for parents though
Just another reason the kick the shit out of them, throw boiling hot oil on them, and watch them cry for their mommies. Ain’t it fun?
I used to teach private lessons to an 8 year old boy from a very affluent family. We used to have the lessons in his bedroom, at one point I had a cold and had blown my nose into a tissue. I had just started teaching him and wasn’t familiar with the layout of the place. I asked him where the garbage can was, he screamed for his mother to come up from the floor below.
She came up and saw the situation and then screamed for the poor Filipina maid to come and take care of it. I told her again and again that I could throw it out myself, she insisted that the maid do it. The maid arrived, took the offending matter from my hand, and threw it away, into a garbage can that was just out of my sight, about one metre away. I didn’t last there. God I feel for the maids here.
[quote=“stan”]I went to the Skylark in Geant on Saturday last and had the dubious honor to overhear and witness the following articulate conversation between mommy and daddy and their 5 year old little shit…
Mommy: {Firm tone after little shit had kicked one of the waiters in the arse} Bu ke yi!
Little shit: {surprisingly loud for a 5 year old} Bu jiao!!!
[/quote]
“Bu jiao”?
“Don’t teach”? “Don’t call”?