Heightened awareness is key to eradicating mistreatment

In the aftermath of recent allegations about the mistreatment of children in kindergartens, experts and insiders have called for severe punishments for offenders and better public awareness to promote a zero-tolerance approach to the physical abuse of children.

"Our society has not yet formed such a consensus because child abuse is translated differently by different people," said Tong Xiaojun, professor and director of the Center of Early Childhood Education at the China Youth University of Political Studies, in an interview with thepaper.cn.

According to Tong, because early childhood education is a relatively new concept in China, parents - who have grown up with the tradition that spanking is justified as "good parenting" - often fail to understand what constitutes child abuse and how it can be avoided.