Spare the rod, spoil the child. But what if the rod leaves a mark instead?
For local actress Felicia Chin, the memory of being slapped on the first day of Primary One still haunts her and it has even contributed to a rather unhealthy obsession with perfectionism.
In a recent episode of the R U Okay? podcast with Jean Danker, 37-year-old Felicia confessed that she is afraid to make mistakes and has attributed the origin of that fear to a particular point in her life.She said:
“If I can’t do 100 upon 100, I’ll feel like I’m not good enough… and I just realised why… I recounted back when I was a primary school kid, I remember that on my very first day of school, I was slapped by my teacher.
“Back then, this was still acceptable.”
It was also pretty intense as the teacher “pulled [my] cheek the furthest she could go” before slapping her. When Jean asked what happened, Felicia replied:
“I can’t remember what happened but I thought there’s only so much you can do as a Primary One kid, like a scared little kid.
“And I think that kind of scarred me — I’m afraid of making mistakes. To me, if you make mistakes, [it] equals to pain, equals to punishment.”
This translated to her studies as well, she confessed.
Her teacher segregated the class into two groups — “Apple” and “Orange” — with the latter being made up of students at the bottom of the class.
So, Felicia worked really hard to get into the “Apple” group. She said:
“I realised that looking back right, that affected me… I think it affected the way I viewed things or lived as an adult growing up.”
This article was first published on AsiaOne and republished on theAsianparent with permission.
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