The View | Why Hong Kong’s pampered, whiny kids need a stint in boot camp to toughen up

Here’s my New Year’s prediction for the next growth industry: boots camps for children.

The South Koreans already have these things, and the country is big in cultural exports, for example K-pop and K-dramas. Why not K-boot camps? That’s K as in “kiddie.”

When interviewed by the press, Korean parents say they periodically ship their kids off to these military-style camps, where youngsters are shouted at, made to run drills, clean latrines and sleep in rustic conditions, because they are worried that the modern generation is too soft and spoiled.

Which is exactly true, at least for the offspring of more affluent parents. In the United States, research by Annette Lareau, a University of Pennsylvania sociologist, found that over-protective parenting occurs more frequently in educated and professional households, and that richer children are whinier and less self-sufficient.

As education and wealth levels are increasing around the globe, imagine the future that awaits humanity. A glimpse of the coming dystopia can be found on US college campuses, where students live in plush dorms, sometimes accompanied by their “emotional support” pets, and are protected by nanny-like environmental controls, such as “trigger warnings” on classic reading materials.

Admittedly, there are long-term economic benefits associated with helicopter parenting. Studies by Lareau and others show that the kids of working-class parents are less plaintive, more polite and more independent – all reasonably good traits, yes? But these old-fashioned qualities do not seem to adequately prepare the young to wring economic rewards from the modern economy.