SINGAPORE

Research by the Singapore Children’s Society, published in October 2006, examined parents’ childrearing and how children view this. Over 1000 interviews were conducted with 533 parents (248 fathers, 285 mothers) and 533 children aged 10-12 years (262 boys and 271 girls) covering different ethnic groups, mostly middle-income families. The part of the study which focused on disciplinary practices found that reasoning was considered the most effective practice by both parents and children, but physical punishment was also used. Mothers tended to inflict physical punishment more frequently than fathers, though both regarded it as ineffective. Children were reported as “neutral” about both its effectiveness and its fairness.

(Shan, S.-C. H., Hawkins, R. & Whee, L. K. (2006), The Parenting Project: Disciplinary practices, childcare arrangements and parenting practices in Singapore, Singapore Children’s Society)

A telephone poll of 358 people following the resignation of a school principal for breaking Ministry of Education guidelines on corporal punishment was carried out by the Sunday Times (by the Singapore Press Holdings' research arm in April 2004) and found that seven in 10 favoured corporal punishment, while nine in 10 said parents today were too protective of their children.

(Reported in Quek, T., 2004, "Go ahead, cane wayward students", Sunday Times, Singapore, 2 May 2004)

A Lifestyle (Sunday Times) poll of 50 people found that nine in 10 think girls are less well-behaved than they used to be and six in 10 approved of corporal punishment for girls.

(Reported in Wee, T. C., 2004, "Girls behaving badly", Sunday Times, Singapore, 9 May 2004)