Lee Ji-hyun Reflects on Painful Experience Appearing on 'Golden Counseling Center' with ADHD Son, Saying She Felt Like a 'Sinner'

Lee Ji-hyun, a former member of the K-pop girl group Jewelry, has belatedly opened up about the pain of facing malicious comments after appearing on television with her son, who has been diagnosed with ADHD. She confessed that her decision to appear on the show—a difficult choice made solely to help her child—ended up leading to unexpected criticism, causing her to blame herself.

Appearing on the YouTube channel 'Saeropge Hasoseo' on the 9th, Lee Ji-hyun recalled her time appearing on Channel A's variety show 'Oh Eun-young's Golden Counseling Center' with her son, Woo-gyeong, back in 2022. She revealed that the direct catalyst for her decision to appear on the program was the incident where her son was forcibly expelled from his kindergarten. She explained that while she desperately wanted to help her child, she did not know how to parent him correctly and felt an urgent need for professional assistance.

Lee emphasized that the decision to appear on the show was not an impulsive one. She stated that she made the decision after sufficient deliberation and consultation with the production team and the assigned PD, and that she truly wanted to receive help from Dr. Oh Eun-young. She clarified that it was not a show intended to expose the private lives of celebrities, but a choice driven by the desperation of a parent wanting to resolve her child's difficulties.

The problem began when the situation unfolded in unexpected ways during the filming process. According to Lee, her son's problematic behaviors did not stand out prominently during the early stages of filming. Consequently, the production team determined that it was necessary to make the child's issues more apparent to facilitate counseling and improvement. Lee recalled that the production team suggested intentionally stimulating the child to accurately pinpoint the issues, and such situations did indeed occur during the actual filming process.

The nature of the television medium, where specific scenes can be edited to become the center of a narrative rather than showing a full daily life, also deepened her wounds. Lee confessed that while she could somewhat endure the criticism directed at herself, it was incredibly difficult to withstand the malicious comments aimed at her son. This was because the very action she took with the intention of helping her child change resulted in watching him become the target of attacks.

“I felt like a sinner toward my child,” she confessed, adding that she still carries feelings of apology toward him to this day. In particular, while she usually avoids looking up malicious comments, she said that as a mother, she could not turn away from anything related to her child. Ultimately, the more she checked the comments, the greater her emotional pain became, describing her feelings at the time as feeling like “being torn apart piece by piece, flesh and blood.”

Lee's experience highlights the structural dilemma inherent in observational variety shows that deal with child and family difficulties. To deliver professional counseling and solutions, certain problematic scenes from daily life must be revealed, but there is a risk that the behaviors shown on television will be accepted by viewers as the complete image of an individual. This requires an even more cautious approach, especially when the subject is a child rather than an adult, as they may be exposed to the show's narrative and online evaluations regardless of their own will.

'Oh Eun-young's Golden Counseling Center' has garnered significant attention as a program that examines conflicts between parents and children or behavioral issues in children and adolescents through expert counseling. While the stories of participants have often expanded into social discussions during this process, concerns have consistently been raised regarding the possibility that online evaluations following a broadcast could act as an additional burden on the participating families.

Lee Ji-hyun has experienced this reality firsthand by directly facing the reactions toward herself and her child following the broadcast. Crucially, it is impossible to conclude a child's personality or a parent's entire parenting style based solely on a few scenes revealed during a broadcast. Developmental and behavioral characteristics, including ADHD, manifest differently in every individual, and accurate understanding and support require professional evaluation and continuous observation.

For Lee Ji-hyun, who experienced a glamorous life in the entertainment industry through her activities with Jewelry, television had long been a channel for communicating with the public, but that weight changed entirely the moment her child appeared. Unlike criticism directed at an individual star, malicious comments toward a child can leave direct and lasting scars on a family.

Ultimately, Lee's recent confession goes beyond a simple behind-the-scenes story of a broadcast; it reflects on the light and shadow of revealing a family's difficulties to the public. While it may be a single episode of variety content to some, for the participants, it is a reality involving their child's life and their responsibilities as parents. The reason Lee remembers that time as “feeling like a sinner toward her child” even after a long time likely lies in that very gap.