‘Bad’ Kid Left in Woods by Bad Parents

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There’s discipline — and then there’s insanity. Or perhaps it was just an extreme form of “shitsuke” — the Japanese word for discipline.

“Some overreactions are beyond excusable — so reprehensible that it’s the parents who should then be punished by the law of their respective land,” said one expert. “This is one of those times.”

A father who abandoned his kid on a forest roadside is apologizing for putting his seven-year-old son through a dangerous experience. The parents left the boy on the edge of the woods of Nanae, Japan — known to be home to wild bears — as punishment for his misbehavior, according to many news outlets including CNN International.

When the parents returned for little Yamato Tanooka a short time later — he was gone. Thus started a 7-day odyssey for the tough little boy, who managed to survive on tap water but had no food during his solo time in the woods.

A search party of more than 150 officers and firefighters looked for the boy, and many expressed worry about the fate of the child alone in a forest as heavy rains hit the area overnight. Mitsuru Wakayama, a spokesman for the nearby town of Nanae, said local residents pass through the mountainous area only occasionally, using it as a shortcut.

“Not many people or cars pass by, and it gets totally dark as there are no lights,” Wakayama told The Japan Times. “It’s not surprising to encounter bears anywhere in the area.”

Clinical psychologist Dr. Shoshana Bennett weighed in on this form of extreme discipline.

“In the heat of the moment, it’s easy for even good parents to overreact to the misbehavior of their child — hitting, yelling, slapping, grounding,” she told LifeZette. “Those are bad enough. As parents, we have all punished our children, at one time or another, to a degree that didn’t fit the crime. However, some overreactions are beyond excusable — so reprehensible that it’s the parents who should then be punished by the law of their respective land. This is one of those times.”

Related: To Spank or Not to Spank? Maybe. Sometimes.

The boy’s father, Takayuki Tanooka, later said he was “very sorry” for what occurred and said he regretted meting out the extreme punishment.

“I told my son that I am sorry that I made him go through a very hard situation. He nodded to me,” Tanooka said at a press conference after he was reunited with his son. With his head bowed while speaking, Tanooka said, “I have been raising him with lots of love. I would like to pour a lot more love over him from now on, and watch him growing up.”

The father indicated that the family, when re-thinking their actions, hesitated to report the child missing because of the punishment they chose.

To make matters worse, Tanooka at first mislead authorities by telling them his son disappeared while picking wild vegetables with his family. He later admitted they left him on the side of a mountain road. The abandonment was punishment for throwing stones at passing cars and people.

“Can you imagine watching your parents drive away from you on a mountainside?” Mary Donaghey, a Boston-area mother of four, told LifeZette. “I would call this an issue of rage as well as extremely negligent and dangerous parenting.”

Tanooka seemed to express that the family, when re-thinking their actions, hesitated to report the child missing because of the punishment they chose. “I thought it might be taken as a domestic violence,” he told TV Asahi.

The Fire Department said the delay may have hampered rescue efforts.

“We cannot speak retrospectively, but we would have seen a different development if we had known the story from the beginning,” a fire department spokesperson told The Japan Times earlier this week.

Fortunately, three soldiers from Japan’s Self-Defense Forces found Yamato on the premises of the military’s Komagatake exercise field Friday morning, said Hiroki Komori, a spokesman for the Northern Army 11th Brigade, according to CNN International. The child was discovered in a hut at a military exercise ground about four miles from the spot where he was left. The small building is usually used as a rest station but hadn’t been used recently, Asahi TV reported.

“Not many people or cars pass by, and it gets totally dark, as there are no lights.”

To keep warm, the boy had wrapped himself in two of the futon mattresses that were stored inside, and drank water from a tap outside. The child told police he reached the building the first night of the ordeal, local media reported.

Dr. Yoshiyuki Sakai, the doctor who examined Yamato, said at a press conference the boy appeared to be in good condition for someone who had gone seven days without food. He had signs of mild dehydration and malnutrition, and had scratches on his arms and legs.

The boy will remain in the hospital while his internal condition is checked, the doctor said. He was also being treated intravenously for dehydration.

While Japanese authorities decide whether any charges will be filed against the family, social media has lit up with anger, and a parenting debate has begun in Japan.

@EnigmaHood tweeted, “Idiot parents need to be thrown in jail for life if that boy dies,” during the search.

@FakeLion tweeted, “Crazy parents!! Left a little boy in the woods age 7 is crazy and stupid!”

Some offered understanding for the father of the boy. Yumi Toyozaki, a well-known literary critic, tweeted on Tuesday: “I was a restless, rambunctious, cantankerous child, so I feel very much for the father who left his child in the woods for a bit in order to discipline him. I hope people stop condemning him.”