Can scaring kids with “The ghost is coming” get them to brush their teeth in a flash? ... A child sobs at “Dark Oh Eun-young”—a devastating blow to brain development? [Health Talk]

[Financial News] Attention is turning to the effects of fear-based discipline on the health of young children after singer and TV personality Lee Ji-hye revealed that she had personally tried the so-called “ghost discipline” (“Dark Oh Eun-young”) program at the Korean Folk Village with her child. The program has recently sparked controversy over allegations of child abuse and trauma.
On the 9th, Lee Ji-hye posted a video on her YouTube channel showing her visit to the Korean Folk Village with her daughter Ellie. In the video, a performer in ghost makeup playing “Eoduksini” told a child who was reluctant to bathe and brush her teeth, “If you don’t wash, the germs inside your body will tell me to take you away, and I’ll eat you.” Terrified, the child burst into tears and promised, “I’ll wash.” Lee Ji-hye expressed satisfaction with the immediate improvement in her child’s behavior, saying, “I don’t think it was traumatic,” and “Since the experience, she’s been doing her homework and taking baths without a fuss.”
But the program became the focus of controversy over the excessive fear it induced, prompting 112 calls and complaints to the e-People portal, and leading the city of Yongin, child experts and police to conduct on-site inspections. Views are sharply divided between those who see it as “a form of play and a quick way to correct behavior” and those who regard it as “abusive discipline that harms children’s mental health.”

Child and adolescent psychiatrists point out that “fear-based discipline using external threats such as ghosts or goblins can produce powerful short-term compliance, but is never recommended from medical or developmental perspectives.”
When a young child experiences fear, the brain’s limbic system—particularly the amygdala—is strongly stimulated, causing excessive release of the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. During this process, the prefrontal lobe, which is responsible for rational judgment and regulating responses to situations, is temporarily impaired, and the child enters a state of “freeze” as part of the “fight-flight-freeze” response, a survival defense mechanism.
In other words, the child is not brushing their teeth because they have come to understand for themselves why hygiene matters, but is simply complying unconditionally to escape fear in the face of an extreme threat to their survival.

Before age 7, children have not yet fully developed the cognitive ability to distinguish imagination from reality. A ghost that adults see as simply “makeup” or “acting” is perceived by young children as a real, absolute terror and a threat to their lives.
If this kind of fear stimulus is repeated or excessively intense, it can leave children with a range of physical and emotional aftereffects. Intense fear experienced during the day can disrupt REM sleep and interfere with deep sleep, making it more likely to lead to night terrors—in which children suddenly wake in the night screaming or crying intensely—as well as nightmares.

In addition, anticipatory anxiety, such as the fear that “if I don’t wash, I’ll be taken away,” can develop into everyday separation anxiety or physical symptoms such as nail-biting and tic disorders. Furthermore, if children feel that their parents—the people who should be their safest refuge—have left them exposed to a threatening presence, it can create deep cracks in their attachment and emotional trust.
Experts therefore agree that, when correcting children’s poor habits, parents should choose “positive reinforcement” instead of fear, an easy way to get a reaction. Even if it takes a little more effort, calmly explaining why hygiene matters in terms children can understand and incorporating play—such as rewards with praise stickers or using a water pistol to defeat germs—are much healthier and safer approaches, both for children’s emotional well-being and for their long-term brain development, experts advise.


[email protected] Moon Young-jin Reporter