Childrearing In Thailand

[OxfordWill]

One thing I have never learnt much about since I am not at that stage in my life and nor is anyone around me, is childrearing in this country. The differences culturally, which I expect are reinforced during childhood are dependence on your family, the greng jai to your parents, nam jai, etc etc. English kids are taught almost the opposite- be independent.

I have no education in early learning or child studies etc so I find it hard even to pinpoint how it is in English culture that kids develop to be independent.

Anyway, I am interested in finding out specific example of how parents get their Thai kids to grow up. How are the above cultural norms enforced? What "rituals" of behaviour and teaching cause Thai kids to be quiet and composed at young ages in public whereas their western counterparts might be "playing up" or crying loudly.

Can you think of other interesting examples and ways in which children are reared differently? Is there a big difference in the way it is done in the "traditional" Thailand of the Northeast and the "modern" thailand of bangkok? How about the South?

Looking forward to hearing from the older members of the forum who have had more experience of kids and being around Thai parents/kids.

[OxfordWill]

Maybe I should have made the title "YOUR CHILDREN vs THAI CHILDREN" or something similarly hyperbole based..

[Solosiam]

It seems to fit that Thias are less independent because they are so much more social.

In the West for example a child is given his/her own room often at a very young age - often from birth, whereas here in Thailand it's not uncommon to have family and friends all sleeping in the same room (not always due to lack of money/room). This independence is further promoted with things like pocket money, clothes allowance etc...

Personally I find that the 'independence' that people often mock the Thais for lacking, is actually a big part of some of the large problems that are showing their head in the West. Parents who don't take responsibility for their children is an example, parents who just don't seem to take much notice or care of their children may be a direct consequence of Western culture's view on the independence of children.

Increasingly I'm favouring the outlook of the Thais or at least a mix between that and Western child upbringing, For example I wonder why it's important to put children into a different room from their parents at a young age, its a relatively new concept in the scheme of things its only been the last 50-100 years or so when people have had the wealth to do this.

[OxfordWill]

Thanks for the reply. Yes that's one big difference, the proximity to the parents and so on.

As for if its better or not.. definitely pros and cons on both sides.

How about how parents talk to their kids. I always wonder how the idea of greng jai to ones parents is so heavily instilled.. is this done more in the home or at school by the teachers, or both?

[markwhite]

I found this information useful in respect to what you're asking, though I'm quoting at will as the text isn't directly concerned with what you're asking. And the writer is talking about India but from my minimal experience I think it relates to Eastern approaches for other countries, especially Buddhist ones.

"This [individual methods of personal development] is possible if the ego has not been helped to grow to a point where it becomes a burden. In India it has never been helped to grow - from the very beginning we have been against the ego. So you grow in ego but the ego remains vague, blurred; you remain humble, you are not really an egoist. It is not a peak in you, it is flat ground. You are egoistic, because everybody has to be, but not absolute egoists. You always think it is wrong, and you go on pulling yourself down. In certain situations you can be provoked and your ego becomes a peak - but ordinarily it is not a peak, it is flat ground.

In India, the ego is just like anger - if someone provokes you, you become angry; if nobody provokes you, you are not angry. in the West, the ego has become a permanent fixture. It is not like anger, it is now like breathing. There is no need to provoke it - it is there, it is a constant phenomenon.

[Talks about how fascism has appeal in the West due to providing a strong group ethic not an individualistic one which allows people to 'lose themselves in the movement' and acknowledges Japan as 'the most Western country in the East']

The same thing is happening in other fields also - in religion also, in psychology also. Group meditation is happening, and only group meditation will happen for a long period to come. When a hundred people are together - you will be surprised, particularly those who don't know the Western mind will be surprised - just holding hands, one hundred people sitting, just holding hands, feeling each other, and the feel elated.

No Indian will feel elated. He will say, "What nonsense! Just holding hands with a hundred people sitting in a circle, how can it be elation? How can you become ecstatic? You can feel at most the perspiration of the other's hand"

But in the West a hundred people holding hands are elated, ecstatic. Why? Because even holding hands has become so impossible because of the ego. Even husband and wife are not together. The joint family has disappeared, it was a group phenomenon. Society has disappeared. In the West now, no society exists really. You move alone.

In America - I was reading the statistics - everybody moved within 3 years to another town. Now, a man in a village in India remains there - not only he, his family has remained there for hundreds of years. He is deeply rooted in that soil. He is related to everyone, he knows everybody, everybody knows him. He is not a stranger, he is not alone. He lives as part of the village, he always has. He was born there, he will die there.

In America, every three years, on average, people move. This is the most nomadic civilization that has ever existed, vagabonds - no house, no family, no town, no village, no home, really. In three years how can you get rooted? Wherever you go, you are a stranger. The mass is around you but you are not related to it. You are unrelated, the whole burden becomes individual.

[talks about working in groups for growth work]

In the East, people are in the community too much. So whenever they want to be in a spiritual space, they go to the Himalayas. Society is too much around. They are not fed up with themselves, they are fed up with society! This is the difference.

In the West, you are fed up with yourself and you want some bridge, how to be communicative with the society, with others; how to create a bridge, how to move to the other so you can forget yourself. In the East, people are fed up with the society. They have lived it for so long, and the society is all around so much, that they don't feel any freedom. So whenever somebody wants to be free, to be silent, he runs to the Himalayas.

In the West, you run to the society; in the East, people run from the society. That's why individual methods [of personal development] have existed in the East; group methods in the West.

[Finishes saying that neither is the 'right' way and...]

A synthesis will be needed - group and individual both..."

I don't agree with all that he says (it's a book by Osho, the Indian mystic) but the ideas about the underdeveloped ego fit with everything I've learned in psychology, personal development and Buddhism. I also like the idea of the way of life here in that not so long ago people just did not migrate for work like they have done in the West for hundreds of years. Community was much more important in that way. And with my limited knowledge of Thai history, I'd say that that's only one, maybe two generations ago at the most.

In this, I'm a big fan of nurture. I believe that a child copies what it sees in a big way. So 'enforcing the cultural norms' is really kids copying how their parents are. And parents are like the grandparents who had a very high stake in the community because living was communally dependent.

In Buddhism, the absence of ego is seen as a highly beneficial state to attain. My wife was taken to the wat by her granny every Sunday when she was a kid and had to listen to the talks. She admits they made little sense then, but acknowledges that they have sunk in and affected her way of thinking and behaviour. I have mixed views on whether this is a Good Thing as I have no first-hand experience of how Buddhism is taught by Thai monks to Thai people. But I can believe it's a impure form of the Buddha's message in the same way that I feel the Church teaches an impure form of Jesus's teachings. Eg: the ideas of duty and how that relates to the family is one of many things that leads girls to work as sex workers - because the family needs the money and their 'duty' is to earn it. I don't believe this is a fair representation of the Buddha's teachings about duty, but that's just my view and I won't claim to be an expert.

As the cultures clash and intermingle, things will change. Old traditions will slowly die away, just as they did in the West when we became more materialistic and started chased the money and stopped thinking about what other people need and how we can help them. I imagine that'll be most apparent in Bangkok and other highly Westernised areas, and of course as a result of us farangs with luk-kreungs who have a desire to instill some of the Western individualism in them whilst recognising that the Thai sense of society does offer something that is absent, certainly from my life and experience in the West anyway.

I hope my kid hits a happy medium between the two. It's something I'll try to play my part in, while I grit my teeth seeing the Thai side of the family doing things with my son that I would never do, but accept that he will learn things from them that I just cannot teach him.

Enough for now, but this thread has very much got my attention :-) Good question from the OP!

[OxfordWill]

Hey thanks markwhite for your very interesting reply. I find myself nodding to much of what you cited from Osho. The ego must surely play a large part- and I am instantly reminded of my Thai friends, particularly the girls, who are often so fast to blame themselves when something goes wrong even when it clearly was not their fault. What we might be tempted to see as a "disgusting" lack of self confidence or lack of self respect may in fact be a wonderful lack of a "peaking ego".

For the last few days since posting this thread my thoughts have been coming back to these questions often- I am really keen to be a fly on the wall for a million Thai families with young children and see what goes on.

I agree with you that nurture must play an important part in early development. Surely there are books and books on what specific habits in asian adults might lead to a young child picking up certain cultural norms and behaviours.

I think there has to be more to it than passive nurture however, as the same concepts can be seen just as strongly in countryside kids, who have observed a highly inter-dependent community in rice growing areas, as it does in city kids who had their own bedroom from an early age and lived in a detached housing estate in central bangkok and didn't really know the neighbours. I suppose I want to know what activities bridge the two, because I know of at least two such "city kids" who have just as strong if not a stronger sense of the "Thai duties" than many of my countryside kids, despite not observing the same "facts of life" from an early age and being somewhat spoiled by comparison. This is what leads me to my guess about schooling having something to do with it, but it is purely a guess.

Thanks again.. and hit a note with the bit about westernerns holding hands and finding it somewhat special.

[Scott]

The quieter nature of Asian (S.E. and West Asian in particular) is partly genetic, probably. Quite some years ago in San Francisco (I believe), they did a study on newborn infants. Caucasian babies cried the longest and the loudest when left hungry or unattended. Full-blooded Asian babies cried the softest and the least amount of time.

This makes a big difference in the cultural differences that come about later, since you're starting with a somewhat more docile population.

Secondly, let's remember that much of what we see has to do with rural vs. urban populations. Chilren living in very small towns and in rural settings probably have a greater level of overall "watching", nurturing and supervision than many urban children--regardless of culture. Since the population of Thailand has been very rural up until recently, we see a population more socialized in the normative standards of villages and less "arrogant" than the Bangkok folks.

[Heng]

Even growing up stateside, I find that I have more Asian/Thai traits in terms of duty to family (and that's parents, siblings, cousins, etc... the whole crew) than a lot of locals. And that's growing up in 400-500's suburbs with relatively minor polite 'hi there! good morning!' contacts with neighbors, Jewish on one side, HK Chinese on the other. As for my parents, both left home as students and didn't return home for extended periods (annual 3-4 week holidays not included) to Thailand for 30+ years. Hardly models of those dependent or in constant support of / contact with their families.

[katana]

In the past, apparently 'trick teachings' (UBAI อุบาย) were used to steer Thai children towards good behaviour (although they do seem a little hard to believe lol):

Bangkok Post

22 July 1999

By Suthon Sukphisit

"Thai tradition is full of tricks and stratagems used to teach the rules of daily living," said Sujit Buaphim, of the public relations department of the Office of the National Culture Commission, "but what is interesting is that their real intention is kept hidden so they achieve the desired effect." Mr Sujit, who has researched these tricks for years, compiled them into two books, Jao Nok Krawao and Banthuek jaak thaai rai. Both became big sellers immediately upon publication, because, for perhaps the first time the meanings behind many well-known sayings were there in print! Even though the trick teachings (ubai in Thai) are rarely used today, they shed light on traditional ways of thinking, and on the currently fashionable notion of Thai folk wisdom. Mr Sujit said these ubai are intended as warnings against harmful behaviour. Their actual intention is kept hidden, however, to disarm the Thai tendency to do exactly the opposite of what one is told.

"The more you forbid Thais to do something, the more determined they are to do exactly that," he said. "In this respect, they are like cats. If you pull a cat's tail, it will try its hardest to go forward. Then, if you pull its head forward, it will do its best to back up. If you try to lift its back, it will try to crouch down, and if you pull its stomach down toward the ground, it will try to arch its back upward."

"There is no use trying to use reason against this

tendency in Thai people; it won't work. Instead, you have to use threats and trick warnings instead of stating things directly."

"The three types of threats that work best are those involving ghosts and other frightening things, those that involve being struck by lightning, and those that concern personal or family decline."

"Ubai can also be categorised according to the age

group of the people to whom they are directed. There are trick warnings for boys and girls, others for teenagers, and a third type for pregnant women."

"It's important to understand the social context in

which they developed. In the old days, communities

were organised largely in

villages in which everyone was related and knew each other. Everyone made their living the same way, as farmers. All the tools used in daily living were home-made, and water travel was most common. I became interested in ubai because I come from a country background. I heard many ubai myself while I was growing up. Then, while working with the Office of the National Culture Commission, I got the idea of collecting them and explaining the meaning hidden inside each one. It took me years to do this for the 200 of them I collected."

"In the countryside, children were warned if they

tried to ride a dog, lightning would strike them.

Rural households raised dogs to guard the property,

and children liked to play with them. Sometimes the

children tried to climb on the dog's back and pull its ears. This hurt the dog, and sometimes the child would be bitten."

"Adults knew that, by nature, children were afraid of thunder and lightning. If they told youngsters not to harass the dog because it might bite them, the children wouldn't believe them. They would probably think the dog would not hurt its owner. After all, if they had played with the dog since it was a puppy, why would it bite them now? But if you told them lightning would strike them, they got scared and listened."

"Girls often heard that if they went to sleep in the early evening, at around five or six o'clock, and didn't wake up again until after dark, a ghost would come and carry them off. The hidden intent here was to keep them from sleeping at a time of day when it was their duty to help mothers in the kitchen."

"Girls were forbidden to do more things than boys. For example, they were told never to play with a mortar and pestle by pounding into an empty mortar, otherwise their breasts would droop!"

"Naturally this was more to do with the fact married women traditionally did not wear bras! However, the reason behind scaring girls in this way, was to stop them from pounding when there was no nam phrik or other food in the mortar. Pounding an empty mortar would mean chips of stone would be knocked loose and settle in the bottom-and the noise was irritating to adults."

"Another ubai concerning mortars and pestles was:

'Don't use a mortar and pestle to pound curry paste

and then stir the curry pot with the pestle, or you'll marry an old husband.' The reason for this one was that, after the curry paste has been pounded it had to be transferred to the curry pot using a spoon. The paste that adhered to the pestle had to be scraped off with the spoon, but it was tempting to take a shortcut and stir the pestle in the curry."

"If the pestle was dropped when they were doing this it could shatter the pot, which was made from ceramics. Then the family would have to do without a meal."

Mr Sujit went on to explain that there were also ubai concerning menstruation. Girls were told, if they went to the ubosot of the temple while they were having a period, it would bring bad luck to them and their families. "In those days there were no sanitary napkins," he said, "and it was feared the floor would be stained."

There were also trick admonitions for boys. For

example, they were told bad times could be expected if they combed their hair at night without first running their fingers down the teeth of the comb three times so it made a noise.

"The reason was that people normally do not comb their hair at night unless they are going out. If a boy was going to gamble or drink with his friends, he wouldn't bother to comb his hair. If he stroked the comb his parents would know he was sneaking off to visit a girl! In the morning, when everyone went to work in the fields, it would be known whose son had visited whose daughter the previous evening. If the girl was from a family whose behaviour the boy's family didn't approve of, they would forbid him to go again. But if they liked the family, they would encourage him by telling him that if he went to visit the girl, he should bring along some fruit for her parents."

"There were many ubai for pregnant women. For example, they were warned if they walked over the long rope used to tether a water buffalo while it was eating grass, her baby would be as dark as a water buffalo. The intention was to keep her from tripping over the rope and suffering a possible miscarriage."

"A pregnant woman was also told she shouldn't attend cremations because a ghost might enter her womb. If she absolutely had to go, however, she should wear a belt around the hem of her blouse to prevent the ghost from getting in."

"The reason behind this ubai was that cremations were open, with the remains burned on an open platform. Sometimes the coffin would break open and the corpse would roll out, presenting a horrifying sight that people of the time thought was harmful to pregnant women."

"Belts were scarce and expensive in those days. They were made one at a time by hand. Some households didn't have any at all. A pregnant woman often had to borrow one from a neighbour. If she requested it, she would be asked what she needed it for. When she answered she was going to a cremation, she would be warned to stay away."

"Sometimes she had to go from house to house before

she was able to get one, and each time she would be

given the same advice until she eventually changed her mind."

"Some ubai were directly concerned with agriculture. One warns that if a mango harvester [a long pole with a basket at the end used to gather the fruit from the tree] is made from a type of bamboo called mai phai luak, the mangoes will be wormy."

"Here the actual reason for not using the wood was

that it was very thin and brittle. If it broke, it

could cut the hands of the person doing the

harvesting."

"Another agricultural ubai was more complicated.

During the rainy season, rivers and canals would

flood. Then, with the coming of winter, the water

would recede and the banks of these watercourses would be rich with natural fertiliser. Rural people liked to grow long beans, cucumbers, and gourds there, putting in trellises for the vines to climb on."

"As soon as the fruit began to form on the vines,

fathers would tell their sons to go out into the

fields and find some land snails. Then he would say to bind them together in groups of three using tawk, a thin skin taken from the bamboo plant that can be used as a kind of temporary twine."

"The tawk had to be threaded through the snails by

cutting off the ends of the shells and passing it

through all three. While doing this, the boy had to

hold his breath. Then the threaded snails had to be

hung from the supporting poles of the trellises. If

this was done properly, the boy was told, the vines

would bear good fruit. Looked at superficially, it's hard to see any connection. But after several days, the snails would begin to putrefy and flies would come to eat them and lay their eggs. The flies and maggots would confine themselves to the dead snails and not disturb the fruit, which would mature healthy and undamaged."

"The reason the boy had to hold his breath while

threading the snails was that they have a strong,

unpleasant smell, and if he got a whiff of it he might not do a good job."

Mr Sujit said these old tricks involving ghosts, thunder, and matters concerned with the kitchen and the fields don't work any more.

People want straight explanations for things now, and the traditional ubai have disappeared almost

completely from Thai life.

But on the other hand, he added, a different type of irrational belief is gaining ground. "Worshipping plants that have unusual or suggestive shapes, appeasing supernatural beings that are supposed to be able to confer good luck, avert danger, or cure diseases, and similar phenomena are finding a growing number of believers." he said.

"All this goes to show we Thais are still as stubborn as ever in the way we think!" he said. "We're not as easy to frighten as we used to be, but we're more ready than ever to believe all kinds of groundless nonsense!"

[markwhite]

Hey thanks markwhite for your very interesting reply. I find myself nodding to much of what you cited from Osho.

Excellent! I'm a bit wary about quoting like that from books as it can be a bit dull, but it seemed to ring the same bell with you as it did with me when I read it :-)

What we might be tempted to see as a "disgusting" lack of self confidence or lack of self respect may in fact be a wonderful lack of a "peaking ego".

And it might not just be a lack of strong ego. There is the underdeveloped ego, which I think falls into Osho's example, and the unhealthy ego.

An unhealthy ego (or an over-active super-ego if you go Freudian) will block the person from fulfilling reasonable needs. I'm hungry but I daren't ask someone for food because it's not my place - I have to wait until it is given to me. I need help but I'm frightened of admitting weakness so I get angry and frustrated with myself instead. Someone is taking advantage of me but that has happened all of my life so it must be my fault. All of those things and any other myriad neuroses that you care to mention.

In trying to balance the Eastern and Western view I've got this opinion (and that is all it is) that a healthy ego is a requirement of progressively growing throughout life. I don't think that's any new way of thinking, but I also think that a healthy ego will see its limitations and be prepared to be subdued (it's hard not to personify the ego...) when the time is right in life. So a healthy Western individualism will lead to an early mature adult who can bring up their family and then get on with supporting the community and society as they broaden their ego boundaries in an Eastern way. But my thoughts were greatly influenced by Erikson's 7 stages of development so maybe I got it from there or somewhere similar.

http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109...son.stages.html

Check out stage 2 in respect of what we're discussing here. Which way does West go and which way does East go? ;-)

I agree with you that nurture must play an important part in early development. Surely there are books and books on what specific habits in asian adults might lead to a young child picking up certain cultural norms and behaviours.

Maybe but what's the chance they're in Thai :-) Though I can understand a little, my wife did a translation of a Cognitive Psychology research paper and the terms were difficult enough for me to explain in English!

I suppose I want to know what activities bridge the two, because I know of at least two such "city kids" who have just as strong if not a stronger sense of the "Thai duties" than many of my countryside kids, despite not observing the same "facts of life" from an early age and being somewhat spoiled by comparison. This is what leads me to my guess about schooling having something to do with it, but it is purely a guess.

I suppose the top influences have to be immediate family, extended family, friends, school and TV, though maybe not in that order. School usually kicks in about 4 or 5 years old doesn't it? I'd agree it has to have an influence, but is it overriding parents influences or supplementing them? I only have a vague feeling for the education system here, but I'd chance my arm that government schools are not particularly progressive and have fairly traditional values at the core of their approach. All guessing and assumptions on my part of course.

And it's at times like this that guessing and assumptions show their limitations. It'd be interesting if we can get some input from kon tai in the thread :-)

Thanks again.. and hit a note with the bit about westernerns holding hands and finding it somewhat special.

No problem. Like I said - I'm enjoying the thread :-)

[markwhite]

"There is no use trying to use reason against this

tendency in Thai people; it won't work. Instead, you have to use threats and trick warnings instead of stating things directly."

A very interesting post.

Though I find the idea repugnant :-/

[Charma]

"There is no use trying to use reason against this

tendency in Thai people; it won't work. Instead, you have to use threats and trick warnings instead of stating things directly."

A very interesting post.

Though I find the idea repugnant :-/

I also found this very interesting. There are examples of trick warnings in western culture, although to a much lesser extent. Things like - Don't pull that face - if the wind changes you will be stuck with it for example. Of course we were all told that carrots would help us see in the dark and something else would make us blind! The higher prevelance of these in Thai culture would I guess be down to a rural setting where families work and live together so much more and so these "learning events" would be much more numerous and relevant.

Our daughter is mixed race and I hope that we will be able to combine the best of both cultures in bringing her up. Of course we may end up with something that is neither, but we are going to try.

[torrenova]

I've got a one month old daughter and we are aware of the difficulties of raising her here in Thailand. Very simply, we will try and encompass the best of both our worlds but with more independence than the Thais and she will very surely grow up to question her surroundings and ask the question "why ?" which is so avoided in Thai culture.

I don't think it will be easy and distractions from the Thai way of life will be hard to overcome but she will be a more balanced individual I think and able to make her own choices rather than have them dictated to her by society and religion.