The Dark Side of Thai Parenting: Chaos, Lies, and a Lost Generation (Reader Submission)
By: A parent in Thailand facing a harsh reality
A direct response to “Children in Thailand can do anything: Thai education through Western eyes”
I read an article that glorified Thai upbringing: a harmonious world full of patience, trust and children who learn what is good by themselves. A beautiful fairy tale, but miles away from reality. I wanted to respond under that piece, but that option was closed. This is my response, a sharp counter-narrative that exposes the dark side: a culture of limitlessness, lies and a youth that becomes lazy, rude and addicted, often with tragic consequences. Where the original article preaches harmony and respect, I show what is really going on.
Freedom that ends in anarchy
My 11-year-old stepson, raised by his grandmother, came to live with us. Within a week, he had slammed a PVC pipe through my new TV. His response? “What’s the big deal? Get a new one.” The family smiled and shrugged—no apology, no sense of consequence.
I intervened: a month of house arrest and daily homework exercises. But it went further. After a punishment for unacceptable behavior, he lied to the whole village that I had kicked him. With crocodile tears and a lot of drama he announced this to the in-laws and grandma.
My reaction? I confronted him in front of the family and gave him a real kick in the ass, saying: “Now you have a reason to say this, without lying.” It worked. No more tricks since. After two years and hundreds of hours of house arrest, he finally started showing respect and said “sorry” for the first time. Where he used to lie about everything without thinking, he now realizes that unacceptable behavior has consequences.
The original article calls this "parenting with trust." I call it a total lack of parenting. Children are not taught boundaries here, but that lying and evasion pay off. "Mai pen rai" (doesn't matter) is not a philosophy, it's an excuse to avoid responsibility.
Chaos and theft as a daily reality
The article claimed that Thai children do not cause chaos, but sense the atmosphere. What an illusion. In our village live my mother-in-law with her daughter and family, and on the same property my aunt with her daughter and grandchildren. Her six-year-old grandson went completely crazy during a party (much too late for him). He smashed plates, glasses and bottles with a chair, knocked branches with Christmas lights from a bush, threw the chair through the house and rammed the TV, which is now cracked.
Later, he dropped his Apple tablet while playing soccer with the tablet in his hand; it landed on a pile of broken TVs and laptops, remnants of previous excesses. No one intervened. He ended up sleeping in a tent between loud disco speakers while the party continued.
And at school? Everything my stepson takes (pencils, dolls, toys) is guaranteed to be stolen. Classmates steal it and lie without blinking: "I didn't do it." The article speaks of social skills and respect. I see theft, rudeness and a lack of discipline, learned from day one.
A youth that sinks into laziness and addiction
It gets worse. While the original article praises Thai children for their patience and respect, I see a generation that is lazy, selfish and unproductive. Many young people here do nothing, no school, no work, no ambition. They refuse even the smallest chores. They hang around, play endlessly on their phones and treat their parents like dirt. My stepson was on the same path: no motivation, just complaining and demanding. It took me two years to discipline him.
And then there's the elephant in the room: yaba, the cheap methamphetamine that is circulating here. According to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), 1,5% of the Thai population (over 1 million people) regularly use drugs, with yaba as the most popular choice among young people. In 2022, 287.000 drug-related arrests were reported, often in teens and twenty-somethings.
These kids get hooked, sometimes even in high school, and what do they do? They steal from their own families, money, jewelry, anything they can sell, to pay for their daily fix.
I saw it happen in my environment: a 16-year-old cousin of my in-laws started yaba and robbed his parents to feed his addiction. His mother cried, but no one intervened in “mai pen rai” again. Now he wanders, a shadow of his former self. This is not an exception, it is a pattern. The article is silent on this, but this is the bitter reality of an upbringing without structure.
Lying as second nature
Untrustworthiness is deeply ingrained in this culture. My stepson lied about abuse to avoid punishment, and no one thought it was strange. I see it every day: no apology after a collision, driving away from an accident and then denying it, passing the buck with a smile.
Children learn early on that a lie saves you and it works because no one holds them accountable. The article calls this "implicitly learned rules." I call it a breeding ground for deceit and untrustworthiness.
Numbers that scream the truth
I compared fatal accidents among children in Thailand and the Netherlands. In Thailand, accidents are the number one cause of death. UNICEF Thailand reports that in 2010, 118.323 children and teenagers ended up in hospital due to accidents: falls (22,94%), motorcycle accidents (17,32%) and drowning that claims hundreds of lives each year.
No supervision, no borders and the price is high. In the Netherlands, there were only 2022 fatal accidents among children under 36 in 15 (CBS). Per capita, 20 times as many children die from accidents in Thailand as in the Netherlands. Twenty times!
This is what borderlessness produces: a generation that not only fails, but sometimes doesn't even survive. The article speaks of harmony; I see tragedy.
Love that blinds
Thai parents love their children, with a warm network of family. But love without discipline creates problems. Respect is not learned by allowing theft. Responsibility does not grow by ignoring lies.
A child who grows up lazy, becomes an addict and steals from his parents is not a blessing, it is a nightmare. The article paints an idyllic picture of social skills and patience. I see a lost generation that achieves nothing, destroys everything and often ends up in the gutter.
The other side of the story
The original article called Thai parenting “not better or worse, just different.” I say look further. This is not a harmonious parenting style, it is a recipe for chaos, unreliability, and failure.
Children who steal at school, lie without shame, sink into laziness and end up with a yaba-pipe in their hand, are no exception. This is what you get when you shy away from boundaries and declare “mai pen rai” sacred.
We can learn from each other, but only if we face the truth, not just the fairy tale.
Submitted by Bert
Good article.
I have two children of my own who attend municipal education.
Fortunately, I can correct them myself, but I see friends there who come to nothing.
Some children have already left school at the age of 10 (no longer interested) or have been kicked out.
I know these boys personally, they can earn some money cutting rubber trees, but they show all the signs that they will soon enter the criminal circuit.
Teachers are not there to teach but to pay off the Toyota and the pension.
They spend all day on Facebook and TikTok.
I can write whole stories about what I have seen and experienced.
Perhaps I'll reveal more about it someday.
There are too many rose-colored glasses who do not see it and do not experience it and then react to it as a positive person.
The problem with this kind of generalization is the writer's limited field of vision. He uses his own experiences as a lens through which to look at the rest of Thailand.
I have a stepson myself and I don't recognize anything in your story. The boy listens perfectly, doesn't lie, does his best at school and is not a burden to anyone. He is simply corrected by his environment and accepts that. I see the same behavior in his friends, they are neat and polite to me.
So maybe you are doing something wrong yourself?
I also didn't like the article "Children in Thailand are allowed to do anything: Thai education through Western eyes". I suspect it is an AI-made story that uses outdated ideas about the Thai harmonious society.
Bert writes a personal story here. I think this is more common but not a general condition. Just like in the Netherlands, parenting rituals in Thailand are very diverse.
There is also a lot of violence against children. I taught English as a volunteer at a monk school for a number of years. One day I walked into the school yard and saw a group of monks and novices standing there. When I got closer I saw two novices of about 14 kneeling on the ground in the middle of the group with their upper bodies exposed. Two older monks were beating them with a whip and a stick. I asked the bystanders what had happened but they said they didn't know (or didn't want to tell).
My son went to a regular Thai primary school. There too, a pupil was regularly beaten, my son with a stick on his palm. He only told me about it later, he didn't have much trouble with it at the time.
And then about 'mai pen rai', usually translated as 'doesn't matter, doesn't matter'. That sentence does not mean to shrug off responsibility. It is a word of comfort to dampen emotions. Someone knocks over your glass of beer. He says 'Sorry!' and you answer 'mai pen rai', 'it happens, I'm not (very) angry, I forgive you'. It absolutely does not mean that knocking over beer glasses is allowed and does not have to be condemned.
And here's another very long article about 'mai pen rai'.
https://www.thailandblog.nl/taal/mai-pen-rai-betekent/
This story from Bert is very recognizable.
I live in a small Isan village and see this too. I don't have rose-colored glasses and see this kind of behavior in my girlfriend's family and in thai people around me.
Of course there are also families where things are going well, and I see those too.
Yaba and alcohol use is completely out of hand, I don't recognize the Thailand of about 20 to 25 years ago.
I'm scared when a 4-year-old nephew comes to visit me, an ill-mannered little devil who is allowed to do whatever he wants by his parents, his father is an alcoholic.
The niece, daughter of a divorced teacher, is now 11, but I can already see that nothing will come of it.
Furthermore, 2 nephews are adults but heavy on yaba.
Next door neighbours also have 2 sons on the yaba.
Today's generation is different from a few generations ago and that is not progress.
It's no longer safe here in the countryside.
So I see it around me and these are not exceptions, and that also has to do with a lack of education and the parents looking the other way and laughing the other way, but also because many children are raised by grandparents and other family members.
But maybe I'm wrong because I'm a bit older and grew up in a different time and in a different culture.
Excellent observations: 'Children here learn no boundaries, but that lying and evasion pay off. “Mai pen rai” (doesn't matter) is not a philosophy, it is an excuse to avoid responsibility.' Lying is indeed their second socially accepted nature that can even command awe or respect from others. Because they recognize it as someone who is a master at avoiding loss of face, alternating reality and, if necessary, fooling those with a different class status or background. Farangs, for example. Easily accessible and dirt-cheap drugs, the continuing lack of proper education, the loss of the values and standards of Buddhism, social media that magnify and reinforce Western ideals and illusions do not really help here.
“Social” media is the real engine behind the decline of civilization, not only in Thailand.
Where a child used to have a single “bad friend” at school or on the street, he now has a whole collection of bad friends on social media, who encourage each other to commit criminal behavior.
Social media is extremely dangerous for children if there is no parental supervision.
It has become so bad that last year I saw a drug deal between 2 children of about twelve years old right in front of my parents-in-law's house (Isaandorpje). That went wrong. One broke a plank, the other came back with an axe and threw it at his opponent, who then fled. None of the bystanders did or said anything and turned their backs on the incident. Two days later the toddler from across the street came to throw stones at our street dog and at me, he picked up a twig and stuck it almost 1 millimeter next to the eyes of the toddler of my partner's sister. The toddler's grandmother saw it all and let it happen. I myself was not allowed to say anything because that would cause the 'educator' to lose face and very likely result in aggressive reactions from her family. Hallucinating. It is one of the reasons why we both finally decided never to move there. A country that has gone mad where no one is corrected in school. So everyone does their best. Otherwise they could trigger 'loosing face' again. In the meantime, young people are secretly consuming 'kratom' just as some adults consume their som tam daily. Those who don't notice all this are wearing dark rose-colored glasses or are perhaps on the 'happy plant' or on crates of Singha themselves.
I have been coming to Thailand since 1981 and have lived there for 27 years. The land of smiles has become a myth.
That education and the related reality of disrespect and drug use is a cause cannot be denied. Perhaps it is facilitated by an elite who see education and literacy among ordinary people as a threat to their status. Especially in the countryside, all control is lost, the children go to school or not is uncontrolled and remains without consequence. Mai pen rai!
Absolutely, recognizable in Isaan, there the police do nothing if they are minors, if it is really bad they might go to rehab for a while, unemployment, hopelessness, yabaa, that is the reality nowadays in the countryside.
In our village in Phayao things are still not too bad.
My (step)children and grandchildren are polite and well-behaved. The oldest 16-year-old lout does his best at school, plays basketball twice a week, and is told that he will only be allowed to continue his studies at the expense of grandpa and grandma if he continues like this.
One nephew didn't finish school and just spent 2 years in jail for stealing a moped. He got such a heavy sentence because he lied to the judge. Now he works for a waste company.
My wife's brother has a reasonable job with the police (and yes, he does all sorts of things on the side), his 3 children are also doing well.
None of the approximately 20 nephews and nieces in our family smoke or are alcoholics.
Of course we also have a few local good-for-nothings and addicts in the village, but not as bad as I read above in the other contributions.
Wow, very sad to read.
But I don't think this only happens in Thailand but all over the world.
Even here in the West, young people no longer have any respect for anyone.
No respect for parents, teachers, public health (police, fire brigade, ambulances, etc.).
Unfortunately also by other cultures that have the freedom through parents who are not integrated (sorry not to be racist but it is true)
They get everything they want. Curious about their reaction when they have to pay for it themselves.
I understand that parents want the best for their children but I think there is a limit.
WE were raised with: had/have respect for our parents, teachers, police, etc.
And they deserve it because these people really do their best.
I fear for those who will have to care for us (and when you read that there are several 18/19 year old interns who abuse the elderly in nursing homes and share this with each other, I hope to drop dead as soon as possible)
The sad thing is that there is no respect for each other anywhere.
Stay healthy and enjoy life as long as possible