One of the major reasons for Japan’s rapid development into a developed country in just a few decades after World War II is the significant investment in education.
There are three major types of education that a person has to go through in his or her life, namely family education, school education and social education. Family education is not only an initiation, but also a lifelong education for a person, because the family is the natural school for children. Japan, which has relatively scarce resources and a small land area, understands the importance of family education and has planted the concept of education deep in every family.
One of the characteristics of Japanese family education is to pay great attention to the education of manners. In Japan, children start to receive etiquette training when they are young. First of all, parents teach their children manners, bowing, table manners, etc., and also teach their children the rules of behavior that they must learn by hand. For example, Japanese people bow when they say hello or thank you; In Japanese families, children bow to their parents, younger brothers bow to their older brothers, and when children bow to elders or people of higher social status, they wait until the other person raises their head first before raising theirs.
Children have a set of rules of etiquette when they leave home or return home. Every time a child leaves home, he or she must say “I’m going out” to his or her mother or father, and every time he or she comes home, he or she must say “I’m home”. This has become a habit for Japanese children. In addition, table manners are a must for children. Japanese parents explain table manners in detail to their children from an early age, such as washing hands before eating, and saying “I’m going to eat” with palms together after sitting down at the table before eating.
Japanese families also place a lot of emphasis on teaching their children to be self-reliant. Japanese families foster the spirit of independence in their children from an early age. Most families ask their children to help with household chores, including setting up the dishes before eating and washing them after eating; developing the habit of cleaning up toys and cleaning up after themselves from an early age; allowing children to go shopping alone, etc. Japanese parents are very supportive of their children learning home economics lessons in school, such as cooking, sewing, repairing and other daily living skills. As a result, children in Japan are more capable of handling problems independently, thinking and adapting to the environment. In the streets of Japan, it is common to see children fall down while walking and their parents stand by and encourage them to get up on their own instead of helping them.
At the same time, Japanese homeschooling also emphasizes the cultivation of children’s creativity from an early age and the cultivation of their curiosity and sense of adventure. Parents will try to answer all kinds of questions that their children ask. They encourage their children to ask questions from an early age and encourage them to think independently and have independent ideas and opinions. Parents often take their children to visit science and technology museums, encourage them to go to community libraries to read books, and play various creative games to develop their imagination.
Frustration education is also an important part of Japanese family education. When Japanese children are aggrieved or frustrated, parents do not go to help them immediately, but encourage them to overcome it by themselves. Before the age of two, parents teach their children to wait, and after the age of two, they teach them to be patient. It is important to note that patience is not passive patience. The Japanese believe that only when children are given a certain amount of physical and mental training based on patience, rather than satisfying their various demands, can they develop the ability to overcome difficulties and develop the qualities of resilience and tenacity. In Japan, we can often see children wearing short-sleeved shorts in the winter outdoors for exercise. Some children, without the guidance of adults, face the difficult natural environment, set up camp, search for wild fruits, collect firewood, find water, overcome many difficulties and carry out self-help activities, etc. These are a kind of training for children’s endurance.
Good family education is of great importance to the growth of children. The concept and characteristics of Japanese family education are unique and there are many things that we should learn and learn from.
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