Published on April 1, 2005 By C H Wood In Home & Family

The other day I was having lunch with several of my Korean friends.  As part of the conversation one of my Korean friends brought up the story of a Korean man who was heavily fined for hitting his child with a cane for miss behaving. o some up the article it is an acceptable practice in Korea to "cane" misbehaving children.   Hit them with a "love stick"  when they don't follow orders.  In the case of the article, the son had let his grades slip, skipping class, and was talking back to his mother  which prompted the father to get on a plane and fly to Canada where his wife and children were living to beat his son some 300 times with the "love stick."  For full story - http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503130032.html

I was surprised by the story and asked my Korean friends if it was common practice to use a cane to hit a child.  From their silence I could see that this was a common practice.  I was surprised for the use of the cane.  My Korean friend was surprised that the parent was fined $2500 dollars and forced to write an article on appropriate ways to discipline a child.    I told her that the man was lucky he was only fined because he could have served a prison sentence. 

After the incident the parents flew back to Korea and the children were left in Canada to go to school.  My question is this, if your children refuse to behave in another country then why not discipline them by taking them back to your home country?  I know Koreans put their children's educations above everything else but, if the children are not learning in the other country then pull them back into the home country where you can keep an eye on them. 


Comments
on Apr 01, 2005
Sounds like the father had time to take extraordinary measures in disciplining his kids... but little else.

I don't know what I would do if my kids were acting up in school in a foreign country. I know that I have told my kids that if they act up too much, or skip classes here in Wisconsin, they just might gain a new classmate for a few days.... ME!

So far, that seems to be doing the trick! ;~D
on Apr 02, 2005

Yeah, it is definitely a different culture here when it comes to disciplining kids.  They won't discipline young boys as children for the most part.  I was told by a friend that the reason they won't is because it's to hard to.  

I like your idea of sitting in their class that would definitely be more embarrassing for them and more of a threat to social standing in the school.