Now, granted, I am not an expert, but I have been observing parenting behavior in Bangkok and in the village and I have come to the conclusion that Thais, unlike the Helicopter Parents in North America, under-supervise their children. Out of sight, out of mind is a happy state for many of the Thai parents I observe. Mind you, they would all be classified as lo-so but I suspect the hi-so parents follow the same pattern but employ maids and caregivers to look after their children.
The two urchins (for want of a better term) that have been staying with us for the past month and the next 10 days have been a struggle for me. I have slowly been turning into the enforcer as Thavorn states .. 'They don't listen to me!' I have tried to explain that yelling and stating the same thing over and over again with no consequences is a waste of your breath.
Urchins at Play
For example, the male urchin had no idea of how to sit on a chair, or sofa and basically looked like a skinny slob. After seeing Thavorn at first ignore him and then constantly tell him to sit straight up, feet on the floor, etc. and then see him 5 minutes later playing the sloth, I decided enough is enough. When I see him do it, which is less and less, off to the corner he goes, where he sits on the floor for 30 minutes at a time. He is getting the message..
Hygiene! Thais are flabbergasted that after we use the toilet we don't hose down in North America. Thais do hose down, but from my experience, the bar of soap is never touched. Ditto for my experience in mall washrooms. A shake or two and off they go. I have now trained the urchins that they have to wash their hands before sitting down at the table to eat. It has been a constant trial, but they are getting it. They now know they are responsible for scraping their own dishes and washing their plate, glass, and utensils. That too has been a struggle.
Part of the problem stems from the fact there are no tables, chairs, couch, beds, etc. in the village. The floor, which used to be concrete, but which is now tiled, is where all activity takes place. It will be interesting to see how the urchins revert back to sleeping on the floor, under a mosquito net, with no air-con, after having been with us for 45 days. I suspect they have also been eating about 500% better than they do in the village.
At 21 months, Jaidan is significantly better trained than the urchins, but he gets much more attention and care than the urchins do back in the village where the grandmother looks after them in return for the 10,000 Baht a month that we send her. This story is played out thousands of time across Thailand. Once again, as I have mentioned many times in the past, it is all economics. There is no welfare so single moms, which appears to be the norm, have to seek work where they can, and park the kid or kids with the grandmother (grandfather is dead or long gone in most cases).
I am not sure how you get out of this situation. It is not all that different from poor inner city communities (read ghettos) in many North American cities, which have a lot more resources available to them. Bernie .. where are you? Thai lives matter!
TTYL
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