Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
citylab.com
Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
1–10 of 128 posts
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#2> This assumption is reinforced at school, where children take turns cleaning and serving lunch instead of relying on staff to perform such duties. This “distributes labor across various shoulders and rotates expectations, while also teaching everyone what it takes to clean a toilet, for instance,” Dixon says.
> Taking responsibility for shared spaces means that children have pride of ownership and understand in a concrete way the consequences of making a mess, since they’ll have to clean it up themselves. This ethic extends to public space more broadly (one reason Japanese streets are generally so clean). A child out in public knows he can rely on the group to help in an emergency.
This sounds alot like a Montessori school philosophy. I've got two kids in one and that's one of the biggest things we love about the school.
The freedoms that the kids are allowed and the lack of constant hand holding is something that we really appreciate.
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#3Interestingly, the same also tends to happen in Germany frequently.
Helicopter parents tend to be more of a US-American invention.
The question is how helicopter parents will change the way the next generations behave in society, as children have to take responsibility and become independent at some point.
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#4Japan has a very low crime rate, which is surely a key reason parents feel confident about sending their kids out alone.
They mention a lot of good things. What they don't mention is that Japan has a relatively high average age. It is a country full of old people.
In Africa, when too many adult elephants get killed, you see unsupervised adolescent elephants get injuries that essentially never happen if there are enough adults around. Countries with an average young age for the population tend to have more problems, generally speaking, especially with a violent angle, whether violent crimes or civil war or terrorist groups or what have you.
This is not the sort of thing where you directly observe "Specific old person does X, young people respectfully go along and we can see how it happens." It is more subtle than that. But the effect nonetheless exists.
I think it is a good article, but I think that detail is one they overlooked.
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#5And this is in stark contrast to my neighborhood in the USA, where parents will wait with their children for the schoolbus pickup... not even a block from their own house.
Now granted, we occasionally have reckless drivers speeding down the street. There isn't as much respect for pedestrians in the USA, so I guess that's a factor.
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#6And this is in stark contrast to my neighborhood in the USA, where parents will wait with their children for the schoolbus pickup... not even a block from their own house. Now granted, we occasionally have reckless drivers speeding down the street. There isn't as much respect for pedestrians in the USA, so I guess that's a factor.
I would advance that there isn't much respect, period. Part of the American mentality of everyone for themselves I guess.
It's frustrating. You can lose something expensive in Japan like a watch and be relatively assured that no one will touch it for hours/days unless it is to safe keep whereas if the same thing were to happen in the US, it's pretty much a goner. =(
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#7Reading this article, I can forsee comments about how American kids are being messed up since they can't go and do things freely, pointing to this story about Japan as an example.
While I myself would wish to live in a community where this kind of behavior is OK or encouraged (I'd like for my son to be able to walk to the grocery store a quarter mile away at age 6 or 7 without fear of societal repercussions), I also reject some of the narrative that this article seems to be putting forth (and I predict the comments here will also put forth) that if we let our kids be independent, they'll turn out better. They might, they might not. They'll definitely have a different set of problems, just like every generation before them.
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#8> "Japan has a very low crime rate, which is surely a key reason parents feel confident about sending their kids out alone. But small-scaled urban spaces and a culture of walking and transit use also foster safety and, perhaps just as important, the perception of safety."
Honestly, this perception – that they try to place secondary – is KEY. Living in Japan, it's a stark contrast to walking around the States in any major city. Japan feels – and is – significantly safer.
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#9This sounds normal where I'm from (Norway). The cities are slightly smaller here though.
Re: Why are little kids in Japan so independent?
#10And this is in stark contrast to my neighborhood in the USA, where parents will wait with their children for the schoolbus pickup... not even a block from their own house. Now granted, we occasionally have reckless drivers speeding down the street. There isn't as much respect for pedestrians in the USA, so I guess that's a factor.
A lot of this is because of assumptions made by other people & law enforcement. A couple friends of mine had DSS called on them for letting their two daughters, ages 10 & 5, walk to a park a block away, with a cell phone, within shouting distance, while their mother was at home. The charges were eventually dropped, but it's not really a hassle that any parent wants to go through.
The assumption in many parts of the U.S. is that if kids don't have a parent standing next to them, they aren't safe. In many cases, they're not safe because that's the assumption.