IT IS an age-old disciplinary method used by parents here to scare mischievous children into behaving - the small, but extremely spicy chilli padi being rubbed on their lips.A teacher at a childcare centre in Ang Mo Kio did just that to a child left under her charge in May last year.

The boy, aged four then, ended up with rashes on his face and neck. The sight of the boy's red face and watery eyes prompted his mother to lodge a police report.

At 7pm that day, his teacher Hasanah Ahmad, 25, noticed the boy about to throw a wooden stick playfully in the direction of her three-year-old son, who also went to the same centre.She panicked and shouted at him to put the stick down before taking him to a classroom to reprimand him.