Early child development in China.

Abstract

A psychiatrist compares his direct observations of child rearing in China with reports from other Western professionals. He differs from them in interpreting what all of them saw. He stresses the discripancy between psychiatric knowledge in the cities and absence of it among the teachers in the provinces. He distinguishes between contented children, and conforming children. Chinese emphasis on conforming, on discipline, the failure to acknowledge emotional factors, result in psychopathology going undetected or misdiagnosed and in emotional impovershment of the children.