Would You Let Your Child Walk Alone?

In Japan, It Happens Every Day.

Welcome to Culture Shock…Imagine packing your elementary school student off from home near 4S Ranch with a box lunch and a mass transit pass five days a week—alone without parents, nannies, guardians, or a device with GPS.

In Japan, it is common for children as young as 5 years old to walk and take the subway daily to and from school without an accompanying adult. But, here, parents with preschoolers would be cited for criminal negligence or traumatizing children! Then, after your children arrive at school, would you find it strange that they are serving lunch and cleaning up afterward? Now, imagine how these behaviors create independence, self-reliance, and freedom in the child. Are the Japanese more brilliant parents because they are building ‘free range kids?’

In today’s American culture, our parenting has shifted over the past several decades. Baby boomers remember when they biked everywhere without regard to ‘stranger danger.’ Now, if a parent saw a child on the road alone, they would stop the car and ask if the child has lost his parents and was okay. 

 

A key foundation of Maria Montessori’s Method is creating a child who builds individualized learning from experiences. Your child may be apprehensive at first about trying new things. Still, through their fellow classmates and our teachers’ positive reinforcement, they learn to solve their problems by using the tools we’ve given them to navigate the next challenge.

 

Indeed, there are many differences between our two cultures regarding raising our children. For example, Japan is a homogenous culture with a low crime rate, low-income inequality, and high educational expectations. People there believe in a group reliance where any community member helps and serves others. Still, there is much to be said about the severe impact of ‘helicopter parents’ who micro-manage their kids’ lives as if they are barely participants in their development. Treating our children like they are babies who can’t do anything at age ten is not the approach one needs to develop independence via experiences. If anything, it may lower their ability to deal with the world.

 

In rural America, you can still see the signs of teaching youngsters the value of responsibility at an early age—on a farm. Chores are a family commitment because of the number of requirements that working a farm requires—milking cows, tending to barnyard animals, and growing and harvesting crops. However, it’s a different story in North San Diego County than in Tokyo. It’s fascinating to see how other cultures raise their children. The Japanese do a great job of teaching self-reliance, learning by doing, and learning by mistake. Thankfully, Dr. Montessori’s teaching method offers the same learning experiences—just in a different way. A Montessori environment helps create the same type of self-reliance as the Japanese culture by teaching kids how to think and build independence.