Japan’s ‘monster parents’ heap misery on teachers with absurd demands

byVerified News Online

AdvertisementJapanThis Week in AsiaLifestyle & CultureJapan’s ‘monster parents’ heap misery on teachers with absurd demands

Things have got so bad that Tokyo is creating guidelines recommending police and lawyers be called to handle difficult parental encounters

Reading Time:4 minutesWhy you can trust SCMP

With Japanese teachers often overseeing multiple classes of around 30 students per year group, parents’ demands quickly become overwhelming. Photo: Shutterstock

Julian RyallWhen the cherry blossoms fail to bloom on cue or a lunch menu falls short of expectations, teachers in Japan know what to expect: a barrage of late-night emails, angry phone calls and, increasingly, a sense of despair.Advertisement

The problem has reached such proportions that authorities in Tokyo are planning official guidelines intended to protect educators from parental harassment and establish boundaries around what schools can be asked to do.

According to a draft released this month by the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, the guidelines are “aimed at enabling teachers and other school staff to work with peace of mind”.

The phenomenon, first labelled “monster parents” by educator Yoichi Mukoyama in 2007 – referring to “unjustified, incomprehensible demands” from parents who berated teachers day and night – has since morphed into something even more insidious.

Japanese parents have become more entitled than ever, many teachers say. Image: Shutterstock
Japanese parents have become more entitled than ever, many teachers say. Image: Shutterstock

Today’s parents are more aggressive and entitled than ever, teachers say, fuelling a mental health crisis among staff and worsening Japan’s chronic teacher shortage.

AdvertisementAdvertisementSelect VoiceChoose your listening speedGet through articles 2x faster1.25×250 WPMSlowAverageFast1.25x

Related Posts

‘Everybody will be giving up’: is climate collapse Southeast Asia’s new normal?

AdvertisementClimate changeThis Week in AsiaHealth & EnvironmentClimate collapse: Southeast Asia’s new normal? ‘Everybody will be giving up’With a 30th year of Cop climate talks under way in Brazil, for many of Asia’s most vulnerable populations, the crisis is already here
Reading Time:4 minutesWhy you can trust SCMPAidan Jones,Ushar DanieleandHai DangPublished: 8:00am, 15 Nov 2025Updated: 8:05am, 15 Nov 2025For four long months and counting, the residents of Bang Ban, a low-lying district in Thailand’s ancient city of Ayutthaya, have lived their lives under water.AdvertisementElderly residents must be ferried to safety by raft, schools stand closed and under the muddy surface, ruined rice fields rot.
Even Ayutthaya’s 700-year-old stupas have been submerged, their crumbling towers jutting through a murky brown deluge that shows no sign of retreat.
Stupas are seen in a flooded Buddhist temple in Ayutthaya province, central Thailand. Photo: AFPAnnual floods are not unusual here. Each mon..

Simulation hypothesis is really a proof for the existence of God

AdvertisementScienceOpinionWorld OpinionAlex LoOpinion | Simulation hypothesis is really a proof for the existence of GodWhile science still disagrees on whether humanity lives in a simulation, philosophy has yet to rule out a ‘cosmic host’
Reading Time:3 minutesWhy you can trust SCMPAlex Loin TorontoPublished: 9:30am, 26 Nov 2025Well, thank God we don’t live in a computer simulation after all. At least that’s according to a new paper by University of British Columbia physicist Mir Faizal and his team of international researchers, including cosmologist and science writer Lawrence Krauss.
AdvertisementOr rather, there is no God to thank because if our universe is not a computer simulation, there is no supreme programmer in the first place.
The team targets an influential simulation argument proposed by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, who believes there is a very good chance we’re all like Neo, the hacker played by Keanu Reeves and trapped inside The Matrix.But after their paper was pu..

‘As Gwyneth Paltrow said…’: Astronomer CEO reveals a major update to move on from Kiss cam scandal

Astronomer's Gwyneth Paltrow ad was done by actor Ryan Reynolds' production house Maximum Effort. Astronomer CEO Pete DeJjoy in his latest message revealed that they not only roped in Gwyneth Paltrow but also actor Ryan Reynolds — to tide over the Coldplay scandal in which the company's former CEO Andy Byron and former HR chief Kristin Cabot were involved. They were caught canoodling at a Coldplay concert in Boston, cheating on their respective partners. In the wake of a major social media backlash, both of them resigned and Astronomer is believed to have the last laugh in their masterclass PR. The company released a video featuring Gwyneth Paltrow who was formerly married to Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin but now it has been revealed that the tongue-in-cheek ad was created by Maximum Effort — a production company of Ryan Reynolds.Gwyneth Paltrow has been hired by the company as a spokesperson on a “very temporary basis”. In the video, she answers questions which ar..