It is not a popular stance to hold, as a study on family virtues released last week by the Ministry of Community Development proves. That found that parents are moving the way of coddling children, away from firm handling. Discipline and the teaching of the right values should not be a case of management by parental terror, of course, but it cannot be good either if fashionable trends and behaviour patterns imported from cultures with different wellsprings were to take root.
Western children talk back to their parents, often rudely.
That is said to be a measure of confidence. We call it the origins of societal breakdown. Asians are better served with the ingrained respect due parents. Slavish copying of alien habits is implied in the research finding that four out of five parents would teach discipline by reasoning with their children rather than administering a firm smack if they behaved badly. In combination with a careful use of the cane, however, it could go down better.