Parental Thread

[bcrdukes]

Originally Posted by Bonka

Both my wife and I were spanked as children and with the usual implements - flip flops, sticks, kitchen utensils, Hot Wheels track, etc. We both reflect back on it differently. I, like Dukes think it set me straight while my wife believes it impacted her confidence and inability to speak up presently.

One thing is for sure, both our parents deny having spanked us. At most they will down play the "instances". Typical.

This is tough for me to admit, but hope some of you guys can relate (sorry non-Asian friends.) Growing up, I didn't believe or care in speaking Cantonese despite being sent to Chinese school. I only grew up speaking mainly English and my dad and I would get into squabbles, and he would say things like "Are you even Chinese?" or the best Asian dad line, ""THIS IS NOT A HOTEL!" We had our fair share of growing pains, and as I mentioned in my previous post, had my parents not kicked my punk ass and set me straight, God knows where I would have ended up (probably 6-feet under or in jail, to be honest.)

After visiting Asia a few times and really enjoying my experiences there, I subscribed to TVB Anywhere and began watching a lot of the old TVB dramas from the 90s and 2000s. I noticed a lot of the dramas featured various methods of Asian parent discipline from yelling, to coddling to spanking, whack with a feather duster etc. It bought back a lot of childhood memories, both good and bad haha

Any how, my significant other and I aren't getting any younger and there is a possibility that having kids is in our future but perhaps not even a possibility. I often wonder if I would even be a good father (probably not lol) and whether I need a feather duster hidden throughout the house to administer a whipping or not. Flip flops, plastic sticks, feather dusters, the infamous Hot Wheels tracks and whatnot. Damn. I'm not even a parent and already I'm thinking it's tough. Some of my cousins now have kids and some of them can be real pricks and I wonder if my cousins give them a beating or not, but I came to realize they don't, and it's not my place to do or say anything, but deep down inside, I want to smack the kid on across the head to smarten up and give them a good shake and ask them WTF is wrong with them.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

Do any of you guy spank / discipline (not beat) your kids?

Too young to tell right now, I'll report back when he's older. We are leaning towards not doing it.

I was spanked as a kid and I resented my parents for it, and I've been spanked for no reason at least once or twice (at least in my opinion there was no reason)

My dad also did this thing where he withheld things that I wanted or mattered to me as punishment, sometimes for absolutely asinine reasons. That really did nothing to me as I just found something else to do, and whatever goods it was ended up not used until it was out of date or I was no longer interested.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by Bonka

I believe in it, although I am probably the only one among my peers including my wife.

It really does depend on a lot of factors like the personality of the child, reasons that warrant spanking, timing, age, frequency. To clarify, I mean spanking and NOT beating. I think some kids respond positively to spanking while with others it will create serious negative psychological effects. For the right kid, it should be an option (really as a last resort) and for outright defiance after forewarning.

Both my wife and I were spanked as children and with the usual implements - flip flops, sticks, kitchen utensils, Hot Wheels track, etc. We both reflect back on it differently. I, like Dukes think it set me straight while my wife believes it impacted her confidence and inability to speak up presently.

One thing is for sure, both our parents deny having spanked us. At most they will down play the "instances". Typical.

WTF hotwheels tracks? Damn you had a sweet childhood.

But seriously... aren't hotwheels tracks just flappy plastic?

I don't think it set me straight, as whatever that was disciplined on can't be smacked into me, really just made me resent it more and not want to do it. Scaring me with pain into agreeing doesn't make me actually agree.

Blabbering now, but I don't think it made a difference to me. Really only thing that made a difference was Chinese as a language was beat into me. That I appreciate, but not until I was a little older.


I want my kid to learn Chinese, but so far I haven't figured out a way to do it where he won't resent or hate it. Doesn't help that we don't speak it at home, and I'm canto while my wife is mando/shanghainese.

[underscore]

I think enough kids that don't get smacked turn out just fine so I doubt there's much benefit (if any). I think how it's employed would be a factor too, if you just jump to smacking your kid without even explaining anything to them I doubt they're going to learn much and imo it's just lazy on the parents part. Similarly how it's done, grabbing a duster or la chancla instead of just using your hand seems...excessive.

[bcrdukes]

I'm probably wrong, but I think the way where your child won't resent you is exposure to the language and culture. It's not easy to do now but when it's safe to, spend some time in HK/Macau or in Southern China where they speak the language.

Ever since coming back from my travels to Asia, I realized I was forced to speak and read (what little I could) and when I came back, I've only ever been watching TVB dramas since, and making it a point to read the Chinese menu when ordering takeout at a restaurant.

Seeing as your wife is Mandarin-speaking/Shanghainese, you'll have to juggle that with her on what you want to teach your kid; My uncle is exactly like you (Mandarin-speaking /Shanghainese wife) and they didn't agree on any sort of regimen. Kid only speaks English. #AsianFail

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

I'm probably wrong, but I think the way where your child won't resent you is exposure to the language and culture. It's not easy to do now but when it's safe to, spend some time in HK/Macau or in Southern China where they speak the language.

Ever since coming back from my travels to Asia, I realized I was forced to speak and read (what little I could) and when I came back, I've only ever been watching TVB dramas since, and making it a point to read the Chinese menu when ordering takeout at a restaurant.

Seeing as your wife is Mandarin-speaking/Shanghainese, you'll have to juggle that with her on what you want to teach your kid; My uncle is exactly like you (Mandarin-speaking /Shanghainese wife) and they didn't agree on any sort of regimen. Kid only speaks English. #AsianFail

I haven't been able to come up with anything concrete. Really the only thing I can think of is IF he likes chinese food, and we take him to some chinese only places, it would entice him to want to learn to read it.

I guess we'll see how he grows up. When I was a kid there were so many canto speakers in school in some districts that you were peer pressured into at least understanding and speaking some. Nowadays I'm not sure that's the case anymore.

[Bonka]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

WTF hotwheels tracks? Damn you had a sweet childhood.

But seriously... aren't hotwheels tracks just flappy plastic?

I don't think it set me straight, as whatever that was disciplined on can't be smacked into me, really just made me resent it more and not want to do it. Scaring me with pain into agreeing doesn't make me actually agree.

Blabbering now, but I don't think it made a difference to me. Really only thing that made a difference was Chinese as a language was beat into me. That I appreciate, but not until I was a little older.


I want my kid to learn Chinese, but so far I haven't figured out a way to do it where he won't resent or hate it. Doesn't help that we don't speak it at home, and I'm canto while my wife is mando/shanghainese.

LOL after re-reading what I wrote I should clarify that I wasn't hit all that much as a kid and my childhood overall was great outside of the typical boomer Asian "lack-of-affection" shown by my parents (mostly to each other but carrying over to us kids).

With language, same issue here but I think to be pro-active just start speaking to your child in your native tongue - at least this gets them to understand the language even if they respond in English. English they will pick up, if not from home at school for sure unless they somehow manage to be in a group of friends who speak their native tongue.

[Mr.Money]

i'm glad i got my ass beat for mouthing off to my parents acting like an adult who owns everything in the house and gets what he wants...trying to control them in anger.


you're creating a monster in that sense if you let that fly in the radar.



people say it was a different era but respect is respect and if you keep breaking shit inside the house with no actions....Really who are you training right now?

[Traum]

I don't believe in using physical means to discipline a child, although I would say physically (and personally) restraining the child when he is throwing a tantrum is acceptable and something I have done. At the end of the day, the goals I am trying to achieve are:

1) stop the child from doing whatever unacceptable thing he was doing at that moment
2) ensure that the child won't do that unacceptable thing again, or at least, make him realize that the behaviour is unacceptable

With my kid, the problem is, if I were to come on too strong in stopping him from doing that unacceptable thing, he would get scared / freak out. And at that point, his brain just shuts down and nothing is gonna get through to him. So certainly I would have immediately stopped the undesirable behaviour right at that moment, but he would not have learned any lessons from the incident at all. If anything, he would only have negative emotions and memories associated with the whole incident, and I do not think that is helpful at all.

Instead, I mostly just talk to him in a plain tone, telling him that what he is doing is not acceptable. If necessary, I will physically stop him from doing whatever he was doing. Since he isn't getting freaked out, I can explain to him what the behaviour is unacceptable. It is likely that he won't have the self restraint to not do it again the next time, but when I repeat the same thing to him when it happens again, after a couple of tries, it will sink in. Quite often, he will remember that this was something he has been told not to do before, and he will stop doing it as soon as I mention it. Additionally, because I mostly try to use the same plain tone to tell him to stop, it has gotten to the point where he knows he did something he shouldn't when I use that tone.

The absolute worst thing that can happen when I am disciplining my child is -- the grandparents do something to sabotage my efforts. They generally know better than to try and harbour the misbehaving child -- I think that has only happened a handful of times, and each time it happened, I gave a stern talk to the uncooperative granny. The thing that totally boils me up is, when my kid does something naughty / he is not supposed to do, the grandparent(s) laugh at the undesirable behaviour. Laughing like that as a response is a reward to the child, and it will only serve to encourage him to do that thing some more (in the anticipation of getting rewarded for the bahviour again). That sort of undesireable reward can undo a long string of behavioural training, and to have a grandparent do that, it just pisses me off...

[320icar]

@evofire there is an amazing trick for bilingual households for teaching both languages. There’s different variations, but an easy one to start with is (because this is Canada I’ll use this example) have yourself ONLY speak English while at home, This includes to your child and your wife. But your wife will ONLY speak French to you and your child. Young brains are like sponges and they will leave very quickly which language to use with which parent and learn both At the same time. (Side note our friend did this with their child (Portuguese iirc and English, worked very well but was funny sometimes when they’d forget the English word and use the other language for like cracker or cup or something)

Alternatively, ONLY French at home, then ONLY English when out of the house. You get what I mean

[Special K]

I was spanked as a child until probably 10-12 years old. Not sure if it worked but I did stop whatever I was doing. As I grew older and bigger, the sticks would break and I’m like hell yeah give it to me!

As a parent now, we don’t spank our daughter. Quiet time usually does the trick. I did raise my voice and yell but quickly learned that didn’t work because it’s like a mirror. She does the same back to me, and more intense. My wife has the patience to remind our daughter to be nice and kind to people every time my toddler throws a tantrum. Amazing.

[!Aznboi128]

^ That's awesome!

Mine can now roll over during tummy time. Both my wife and I are like "Okay Oliver Roll over! Roll over" Dog's on the side doing it but doesn't get any attention

[winson604]

Originally Posted by Bonka

LOL after re-reading what I wrote I should clarify that I wasn't hit all that much as a kid and my childhood overall was great outside of the typical boomer Asian "lack-of-affection" shown by my parents (mostly to each other but carrying over to us kids).

With language, same issue here but I think to be pro-active just start speaking to your child in your native tongue - at least this gets them to understand the language even if they respond in English. English they will pick up, if not from home at school for sure unless they somehow manage to be in a group of friends who speak their native tongue.

We went with this model with our first child who's now 6. We focused heavy on Canto early on because we already knew English will come no matter what once he goes to school and for the first few years he was amazing. Mostly speaking Canto and all then pre school happened and it slowly went down hill. To add to that another big thing that happened was around the same time we moved out from the in laws so we lost consistent Canto speaking in the house. The wife and I will bust it out but it isn't the same as the inlaws because it still isn't our first go to in the house. Recently I've been trying to sneak canto back in again but he's pretty rusty and now he's starting to not want to speak it because he's kind of embarrassed or something sigh

[GGnoRE]

What are your expectations for your child learning foreign languages? Growing up, I can't recall meeting any cbc's that spoke their parents' mother tongue fluently. The best I've seen is basic conversational level with an accent but not fluent enough to work in non-English speaking firms in China or HK. Unless you're sending your kid abroad on an exchange or your kid is really committed to learning the language, I think the ceiling is pretty limited realistically speaking.

[bcrdukes]

Asian parents obviously wouldn't want to settle for anything less than 110% expectation and A+++ with all the extra marks.

Joking aside, you are right in that the ceiling here is limited. Even when exploring career opportunities overseas, not speaking the language fluently has limited my options to MNCs who operate only in English. A few of the kids I grew up with would spend their summers with their grandparents or family members in HK so they came back fluent, go down hill again, and ramp back up after the summer lol

[winson604]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

What are your expectations for your child learning foreign languages? Growing up, I can't recall meeting any cbc's that spoke their parents' mother tongue fluently. The best I've seen is basic conversational level with an accent but not fluent enough to work in non-English speaking firms in China or HK. Unless you're sending your kid abroad on an exchange or your kid is really committed to learning the language, I think the ceiling is pretty limited realistically speaking.

I expect them to be on my wife and I's level. I'm the exception to what you think, out of all my CBC friends i'm probably one of the most fluent speaking ones. My parents only spoke to use in Canto growing up, i watched a ton of Canto TV growing up as well which helped. THe biggest driver though was I went to Churchill in the 90's during the big Hong Kong immigrant boom. So I had a ton of CBC and Honger friends so was able to speak a lot of Canto. It was also the rise of Richmond as a mini Hong Kong during my High School years and it was the new place to hang so naturally that was another place where I got to use it a lot.

[supafamous]

Originally Posted by GGnoRE

What are your expectations for your child learning foreign languages? Growing up, I can't recall meeting any cbc's that spoke their parents' mother tongue fluently. The best I've seen is basic conversational level with an accent but not fluent enough to work in non-English speaking firms in China or HK. Unless you're sending your kid abroad on an exchange or your kid is really committed to learning the language, I think the ceiling is pretty limited realistically speaking.

My in-laws speak pretty minimal English and my parents prefer to speak in Cantonese so I'm expecting my kid to speak it at least reasonably well (at least as well I speak it and hopefully closer to my wife who came here when she was 6). It's a bit tough with the pandemic as we're mostly limited to FaceTime calls but all the grandparents speak to my daughter in Cantonese (she's 2) and she does understand the basics so far.

My hope is that more time with the grandparents along with entry into a Mandarin immersion school (we live very close to one) will help her pick up a couple languages.

Realistically to be truly fluent in 2nd languages you have to be in a community where people it regularly so time in Asia is the best bet or I find her a job working in a HK cafe some day.

[320icar]

FML. He’s 10 months today and has his four front teeth. Yesterday he started grinding them. Everything online says if he’s not in obvious pain it’s fine and he’ll grow out of it.

I CANT STAND THAT NOISE holy fûck.

Other than that he’s great. Almost free-standing up by himself and will take steps forward if you hold his hands

[!Aznboi128]

Everyone keeps telling me it gets easier, everything that I keep learning says otherwise.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by 320icar

FML. He’s 10 months today and has his four front teeth. Yesterday he started grinding them. Everything online says if he’s not in obvious pain it’s fine and he’ll grow out of it.

I CANT STAND THAT NOISE holy fûck.

Other than that he’s great. Almost free-standing up by himself and will take steps forward if you hold his hands

I feel your pain. My little one grinded his teeth for a bit and it grinds me gears when he does it.

He's been wanting to be put in the X3 instead of the M3. There goes the hope of a future enthusiast.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by 320icar

FML. He’s 10 months today and has his four front teeth. Yesterday he started grinding them. Everything online says if he’s not in obvious pain it’s fine and he’ll grow out of it.

I CANT STAND THAT NOISE holy fûck.

Will he still take a pacifier that you give him when he starts to grind his teeth?

[320icar]

He’s never been much for a pacifier except for when he was a newborn. He has some chew toys he likes, but he grinds randomly. The sound pushes me into the red immediately so I need to think of a ‘correction’ for every time he does it or something.

[!Aznboi128]

If you guys don't already know Costco has a pretty big sale on baby stuff at the moment. Diapers, formula etc

[inv4zn]

Damn, a little late to the party as well but I'm joining in too!

Our (only) little girl is almost 1 in a few weeks, and it's been an absolute blur. She has 8 teeth, had them almost since 9 months, and has recently started chewing on the side of the crib in protest when she doesn't want to sleep. She's currently going through a sleep regression so it's hard.

She started signing things, and a few days ago started to grasp the concept of pointing, although it's mostly just waving her finger around. She walks assisted, but can't/won't try anything past that.

She's super good at using her thumb and index finger to pick the foods she likes best off her plate, although she'll eat the rest. The dexterity is kinda annoying though because she's also super good at finding the smallest piece of lint/hair/crap and immediately into her mouth.

[320icar]

I relate to your entire post man. Our boy is just about the same place. Amazing pincher-grasp but just like you said, all the pet hair that collects is quickly picked up lol.

@traum he’s already stopped grinding his teeth. Seems like he only did it for ~48h thank god