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Yet the Japanese parents seemed not to intervene at all. If we caught sight of Japanese toddlers having an elusive tantrum in public, we would sigh to ourselves in relief. Finding a misbehaving Japanese toddler became something of a game with other international mom friends whenever we took our children to parks and museums. I wasn’t the only American mother asking myself this question. I began to wonder: how exactly are Japanese families disciplining their children? How are they eliciting such perfect behavior in the first place? Managing “Ma no Nisai” (The Terrible Two’s) There was simply an obvious cultural difference in how he was expected to behave and what his Japanese peers were taught. While I whispered urgent reprimands, the Japanese mothers seemed to radiate calm serenity, their children seated beside them in well-behaved glory. Children younger than my two-year-old son sat in silence and stillness on the plush train seats, whereas my child treated the captive audience of the car as his own private performance arena: dancing, jumping, doling out charming smiles to the indulgent passengers who (thankfully) never truly seemed to mind his antics. I pictured tiny automatons, listening to their parents with respect, quietly following all the rules with innate obedience and precision.įrom our early trips on the trains, this certainly seemed to be the case. One of the great misconceptions I had upon moving to Japan was that its children were perfectly self-disciplined from birth. How are Japanese families disciplining their children - and how are they eliciting good behavior in the first place? I wasn’t the only American mother asking this question.