Chinese father makes daughter collect tears in bowl for watching too much TV

A father in southern China's Yulin has sparked debate after punishing his 3-year-old daughter, nicknamed Jiajia, for excessive television viewing. The incident occurred when the father was preparing dinner and called his daughter to the table, but she was too absorbed in a TV show to hear him.

Angered, the father turned off the television, causing Jiajia to cry. He then presented her with a large empty bowl and said, "You can watch TV again when your tears fill up this bowl." The girl's mother captured a video of Jiajia holding the bowl under her face, trying to collect her tears and squeezing her eyes to produce more, according to a report from South China Morning Post.

After more than 10 seconds, Jiajia complained that her hands were tired from holding the bowl and declared the task impossible.

The father then asked Jiajia to smile, and the image of the girl grinning with tears on her face amused her parents. The video, posted on Douyin, went viral, garnering 220,000 likes and mixed reactions from viewers. While many found Jiajia adorable, others criticised the father's parenting approach.

Strict parenting stories are common in China, with some parents going to extremes to teach their children life lessons, while others take the opposite approach by overindulging their children. In 2022, a father in Hubei province made his 11-year-old daughter dig for lotus roots in the scorching sun to appreciate the value of education.

Conversely, earlier this year, a father in Shanxi province knelt before his teenage daughter in public, apologizing for not being able to afford an iPhone for her.