China kindergarten teacher trio fired for ‘repeated abuse’ after boy tells mother of relief at ‘not being hit all day’, social media in shock

The mainland public in China has been shocked by the revelations of a five-year-old boy who told his mother that he had not been hit by his kindergarten teachers for a whole day, according to reports. The physical abuse was reported to the police in Qingdao, located in the eastern province of Shandong, by the boy’s mother, surnamed Sun, in July. Three kindergarten staff members have reportedly been fired for repeatedly abusing the young boy, as reported by the Huashang Daily.

The boy’s mother first became suspicious on July 3 when her son informed her that a teacher told him to take the following day off as she found him “too annoying”. Despite the warning, Sun sent her son to kindergarten and asked the teachers if they had ever hit him, which they denied.

However, when the boy returned home that afternoon, his mother noticed a change in him. “My son told me, ‘Mum, I am very happy today. My teachers didn’t hit me for the whole day’,” Sun shared. In order to investigate further, she went to the kindergarten accompanied by police officers to review the surveillance footage from previous days. To her shock, she discovered that an auxiliary worker had physically abused her son multiple times.

On July 7, Sun officially reported the abuse to the police. Surveillance records revealed that her son had been physically punished in various ways 130 times over a 17-day period. One incident captured on the footage showed the auxiliary worker slapping the boy’s face for talking while drawing a picture. In another instance, she pinched his arm, causing him to cry.

In a separate incident, the boy’s form teacher dragged him to the washroom where she repeatedly hit him in the stomach. The kindergarten has since received backlash online after Sun shared her son’s ordeal. “The kindergarten should be shut down. Its principal and the teachers involved should be put on a blacklist,” one commenter stated.

Physical abuse of children in Chinese nurseries has been previously reported. In a recent incident earlier this month, a teacher in the southern province of Hunan sparked outrage after beating a nine-year-old girl on the head so severely that she required emergency treatment for a fractured skull. In another case from April, a secondary school teacher in the eastern province of Shandong was caught on video kicking and slapping students on their heads in the classroom due to anger over poor exam scores. – South China Morning Post