More than half of Taiwanese parents with children under the age of six use corporal punishment on their children, a recent survey conducted by the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families showed.
The group said that the results indicate a common lack of parental education and an alarming tendency for parents to vent their personal stress and anxiety on their children.
The survey was completed through information provided by 869 childcare-related professionals — including social workers, preschool educators, psychological counselors, medical workers and police officers.
It indicated that 57 percent of parents use corporal punishment on their children — most commonly slapping the child’s palms or buttocks; 31 percent tug their children; while 83 percent yelled at their kids.
A large majority, or 93 percent, of respondents said that parents required more parental education, while 73 percent said that parents brought about negative effects on their children as a result of stress and emotional instability.
The survey also found that parents were reluctant to seek professional assistance when they encountered problems in childcare.
Wang Sheng-chi (王聖基), director of the fund’s social work division, said that corporal punishment could easily escalate into severe acts of violence and cause irreversible damage on young children.
He said that the organization’s research has found that while many parents start with relatively minor punishments such as a slap on the palm, the severity of their punishment often increases with time.
“A lot of parents seem to think [of their children]: ‘You are supposed to understand what I mean, why do you not understand?’ which leads to more severe beatings,” Wang said.
According to statistics provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, there were 11,589 cases of child and teen abuse last year, with 23 percent of the children less than six years of age.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS