Japanese Parents..

By western standards, Japanese parents are very indulgent with their children when they are very young. Westerners in Japan are surprised at how undisciplined Japanese children seem to be. And it's true. But everything changes when the child reaches the age of five or six. Then the permissiveness ends very abruptly.

The reason for the change is because it's the beginning of the child's formal education. That officially starts with entrance into elementary school at age six. But these days it begins even earlier with kindergarten at four or five.

The change is so abrupt because the Japanese system of education is very demanding. Once children enter the system they have to work extremely hard. So parents tend to be overly permissive while they can during the early years. After that they have no choice but to be strict.