How Japan Prepares Its Children for Independence

This isn't so much the Japanese being weird and different as the American's being the odd ones.

I am Norwegian, and little of these descriptions would seem odd to me. My kids go on trips every week with their pre-school, and I have never keep track of where.

My oldest son has walked to school himself since he has been 6 years old. I walked to school when I was a kid from 7 (we started school later). And I had to walk about 30 minutes to get to school crossing many roads.

From early childhood I roamed around all my neighborhood walking into forests or as I got a bit older I'd go with friends to big abandoned ship yards.

When I later emailed a distant American relative of similar age, I was confused when she didn't understand why I didn't have a drivers license. She was like "doesn't your parent's get tired of driving you everywhere?". A question that made no sense to me until I visited the US. I was of course going everywhere and I didn't need parents or a car to do that. I could take the train, bus or subway myself or bike.

In America however it is simply sad how dependent children are on their parents. Parents take them to every sort of activity and thing they got to do. In so many American cities you can't have a life without a car. There is nothing to do without a car.

Independence as in independent physically from their parents who may be far away, but not as in independent psychologically to make responsible, self-governing decisions based on their own free will.

The former is not that surprising considering how safe Japan is. The latter however is a known social issue. Oyabanare (leaving the parents) is the term for independence, and many have a hard time.

Physical independence is a step every toddler takes when they learn to cope with not having their parents around during day care and such, and in Japan it simply extends to the commute. Traditionally, the Japanese would not even lock their doors. The entire community is an extension of their living space, with lines drawn with respect, not fences or locked doors. So just as you wouldn't call a child independent for being able to go to the bedroom and back, going to school and back is the same but farther, with the community acting as a safety net to ensure these children commute safely. Kobans also help (community police manning one man police stations that patrol on bicycles).

Psychological independence unfortunately does not extend naturally from the above. With many young adults being too dependent on their parents and on instruction, they suffer from the inability to think or act or speak for themselves. They can commute fine alone. They can be hikikomori fine alone. They are fine alone. They just are not independent in the western sense. They are afraid to act on behalf of themselves or enact their identity. So they also resort to 2chan and anonymous free speech which does not help them gain a voice.

Westerners are almost too comfortable acting on behalf of themselves. It is almost a given. And that is also why parents are less inclined to "let them loose" because "loose" is what they are. They are free thinking and free acting, hence a long solitary commute only sounds dangerous. But it is this perception that instills that very quality in their children. The perception of being on an infinite leash yields physical freedom and distance, but to confuse this with psychological independence is an egregious mistake.

This is a bit of overblown "look at the crazy foreigners!" Most people don't raise kids through the same ages in multiple countries so they have no idea what the real differences are. There is also more variation in the USA.

Here in San Francisco you can go watch little kids doing this exact same thing every single day. Teachers walking the kids to Golden Gate Park, showing them how to wait for the WALK sign, look both ways for cars, etc with no parents around.

It is also extremely common advice to make your kids cleanup after themselves to learn responsibility. At 18 months they naturally want to help, so you give them jobs to do and slowly ramp up the complexity.

The only thing unique to Japan (that I got from the article anyway) is that really young kids walk to school by themselves. Part of this might be urban vs suburban/rural, I'm not sure. SF doesn't bus kids, and I definitely see middle-schoolers navigating muni on their own. Not sure how much younger that goes.

When I was a kid in Iraq (1990~) going to school by yourself was very natural. Our school was nearby so we walked every day. Other kids took the bus.

The only thing amusing in the article is how Americans are amused by this.

I remember on my first day to school my mom took me there, but she didn't come to take me home. I was one of the few kids that cried because my mom wasn't there. Later, I felt embarrassed by that.

Our school organized some kind of a school trip about once or twice a year. I was the odd kid whose parents would not let him go on the trip. For everyone else, it was a natural part of school that they looked forward to.

Needless to say, the parents do no join the kids for the trip.

On the other hand, there's this claim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Dependence

"The person who is carrying out amae may beg or plead, or alternatively act selfishly while secure in the knowledge that the caregiver will indulge him. The behavior of children towards their parents is perhaps the most common example of amae, but Doi argued that child-rearing practices in the Western world seek to stop this kind of dependence, whereas in Japan it persists into adulthood in all kinds of social relationships."

Interesting discussion on amae ("English equivalent of “amae” (甘え) - the feeling of pleasurable dependence on another person") in the Q & A here: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/236808/english-eq...

Children in Japan going about their lives with no adult supervision (usually in small groups) is one of cutest things I've seen.

That this happens in places like Tokyo and Osaka is even more impressive given the size of those cities.

A large part of that is made possible by community support. If something goes wrong there's usually an adult nearby ready to help.

The Dutch have a similar approach albeit at a bit older age. During my last visit to the US I was really astonished when my colleague told me he was driving his kids (12-15 years old) everywhere anytime and that this was common.

One of the best moments of my childhood were those in which you could stroll around the city in full freedom.

I still don't fully get the protective attitude of US parenting. I wonder if it has to do with crime stats being higher.

The article describes how Japanese children are socialized. They are taught to become independent off their parents at an early age. They learn to rely on they local social network.

We in the west understand may independence differently. With our western eyes we seen transfer of dependence on family to social community not as we would expect more becoming an individual.

There are few cultures like the Japanese that have such close social links to their peers at adult age. These differences seem to be cultured at an early age.

Helicopter parenting is certainly damaging in the long run. The Japanese approach also has some long term implications. It is worth looking at other alternatives too. In the end we are responsible for our choices.

I start doing some grocery buys as 7/8 years old and go to school alone at the same age.

In medellin.

In the 90s.

Towards schools with some gang members.

Where some shootings happened (outside!).

And get mugged a few times.

After bombings 7 blocks away home.

And get to the school alone next day.

Equal as elsewhere. Now here are copying some of the unfortunate aspects of the US culture and some of my younger cousins have not idea how navigate the city alone.

Despite to be very shy and introvert, I'm certain I can get lost anywhere and find my way back home! ---

By the way, bullying was very uncommon, despite being the most nerd there. Now is epidemic. When kid looking at US movies I wonder when we will start to copy it.

My daughter's preschool [American] went on several field trips, it's not that weird. And her first "solo day of class" was sooner than a month in.

I walked to school by myself in NYC. Now I live in the suburbs, and I see plenty of kids walking themselves to school in my neighborhood. But a lot of it depends on how far away you live and the route.

Basically, I don't worry about my daughter's ability to find her way to school, I worry about her getting run down by some idiot in an SUV.

For young kids this is awesome but Japanese young adults are not nearly as independent as western kids. It is far from uncommon for 20 somethibugs to choose to live at home even into the their 30s. Where does the system fail from this great stuff as 3-6 year olds vs the 18-30 year olds?

I want to make two points.

First: People on this website tend not to have grown up poor, but let me assure you that that demographic of Americans has no problem with independence. My friend has had a job since he was twelve, and until he moved out (at 18) he had to pay his share of the household bills. And he has bad credit because when they needed money his mom borrowed money in his name.

Second: Im a college student, so I see a lot of people floundering with new found independence. First people who grew up poorer can, in general, cook, clean and shop properly. Of those that grew up in wealthier families, the "only" children are the ones that tend to struggle at first.

In the end though, most of them figure it out. Large universities are pretty good at fostering independence. Primarily because they don't really care about their students. Either you figure it out or flunk out. I know that anecdotes of peoples parents coming with them to interviews are common, but I don't know a single person who has had this particular indignity inflicted on them. In general I think that adults in the United States are fairly good at being independent from their parents and American Universities have helped with this. I also know that Asian, and Japanese universities have a reputation for coddling their students, to the point that American professors are wary of taking them on as grad students (not to say that some of them aren't fantastic students because they are).

I also know that Japanese parents are far more likely to support their children financially into their adulthoods than American parents are. So while I agree with many of the sentiments here I want to point out that Americans do force their children to be independent. They just wait until they are 18-25.

I find it ironic that in America, where child rearing is the epitome of life in mainstream culture, parents are so awful at it, especially at instilling independence and freedom, something we claim to value more than anything. This article is only interesting in comparison with our failed parenting. In comparison to many other cultures, it's pretty mundane and similar.

There's a TV show about this in Japan: "My First Errand". Hidden cameras follow kids as they go on their first errand alone. It's cute.

I've always found Japanese kindergarten elementary school education to be quite good. They encourage children to be independent, they have children clean the school to teach responsibility (most schools do not have janitors on staff), they often have student councils where the students determine some of the rules and how they are enforced.

However, the education after that is too focused on rote memory, multiple choice tests and not enough on critical thinking. This, I believe, is what creates a lot of problems today with Japanese young adults. If I had a kid, I'd send her to a Japanese school until around 8-9 years old and then switch to an international school.

It's difficult to separate this issue from the vastly civilized cultural context of Japan.

Kids can take the bus because there is a near zero chance that someone will do something bad to them. If they are lost, they are surrounded by people who will help them.

North American urban areas are not quite like this ...

Also, the simply geographic issues of housing/roads and large distances between things is a pretty big factor.

No guns, homogenous society, extremely well behaved people ...

American leftists and rightists would each find something to 'freak out' about were America to try to recreate the kind of civility they have there ...

In Japan I noticed that the public washrooms were always so clean, magnitudes cleaner than anything in Canada.

My wife told me at school that all the students take turns cleaning the bathroom, this meant if you made a mass you'd eventually have to clean it up. The idea seems to be that by keeping it clean you avoid having to clean up someone else's mess later, seems to encourage doing the right thing.

I'm a Sansei in Brazil, which essentially means most people think I'm Japanese while the Japanese think I'm not, so I've peeked both sides and I can tell you this: yes, childhood in Japan can be amazing, but certainly Japanese culture in general isn't about independence, it's actually quite the opposite, it's about order and individuals adhering to his/her role in this order. "Do as your parents said, get into college, respect your boss." It's even kind of bittersweet that childhood in Japan is so good, because you'll grow up knowing what you've lost. On the other hand, it's also not all smell of flowers, because children being independent also means that if mom isn't home, you have to be the responsible sibling, it could be a form to shorten childhood.

I don't know. The Japanese are usually known for their dependence on the society and social norms. In the corporate world, they find it normal to work overtime without pay, never take vacations longer than several days at a time, and they seem to find it hard to disagree with their bosses. That's not what I would call a culture of independence.

When I was little my mom would give me a few coins and send me to the store with a milk jug to get some milk and bread. A couple of times Every week. They would also give me a garbage bag to take out on my way there( dumpster was a few blocks away). I was not that small, may be 9 or 10. This was not in USA. Today I live 10000 miles from home on another continent speaking another language... Are these connected? Who knows. Was it dangerous? Who knows. My kids for sure will not be helicoptered over...

I used to spend summers in Japan to get an extra two months of schooling as American schools were out... Walking to school at age six was a daily activity. Summers in Okinawa regularly reach 30C or higher; and the particular town I was in was mostly agricultural gravel roads between home and school. The process wasn't completed alone; I typically grouped together with four or five cousins that lived nearby and we all walked the ~2km together.

In terms of outcome, pretty badly judging by the lack of initiative of all new hires in japanese companies.

Whereas my kids' school is 4 miles away with no bus service offered.

Japan is a homogeneous society;

"Diversity society will fail" --Putnam; http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...

What will the effect of self-driving cars be on children's independence?

So how do they prepare them to be hikikomori?

While it is impressive, do not forget that everything that happens in childhood, projects to your adult life, and not always in a good way.

Japan have so many problems right now: a lot of people with sociopathy, problems with demographics and so on.

While Japan has a unique approach, who knows, maybe lack of supervising and attention at such young age cause such issues.

In my view, Japan is the edge case, and there should be the more balanced approach.