One of the most common parenting practice found in Kupang city is harsh parenting. This type of parenting put less focus in understanding children's opinions, feelings and hopes and more in physical and verbal punishment such as spanking, yelling and slapping. This study aims to explore children's perception on their parents' parenting practice with three main objectives, what do their parents do when they do something wrong, what causes their parents to do that and what is their feelings and hopes for their parents. Participants in this study were recruited from 12 kindergartens in Kupang City. Data collection were done in two months using interview session on 26 boys (43%) and 34 girls (56%) aged five to six years old. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results shown that there are three main reactions from parents when their children made mistake, that is physical punishment, verbal punishment, and permissive punishment. The antecedent of these responses identified are internal factors from the children (e.g. children refuses to eat or sleep) and external factors (e.g. parents under influence of alcohol, conflict between parents). Fathers, mothers and even other caregivers such as grandmothers are identified to be involved in harsh parenting. Children admitted several negative feelings such as feeling sad, alone, afraid and also often expressed their emotions in crying. There are six hopes from children for their parents, they long for physical contact, verbal expression, non verbal expression, spending time together, gifts and also sometimes they want nothing at all. Based on this study, parents in Kupang City could use more knowledge and skills to understand young children and how to discipline them without resorting to harsh parenting practices.
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