🌱 Is "going to school" the optimal solution?

Going to school is "the norm"

When I and my generation of parents were children,
I feel like the option of "not going to school"
hardly existed.

To be honest, I am a dyed-in-the-wool Showa-era person myself.
Without any doubt,
I thought that kind of life was the standard.

That said,
in my case, I was frail until the lower grades of elementary school,
and I don't think I even met 1/3 of the attendance days
in first grade...

I had frequent asthma attacks,
had no resistance at all, and was constantly catching pneumonia and
repeatedly being hospitalized.
Thinking about it now, I really put my family through a lot of hardship, didn't I?😢

Physical ailments and mental ailments

If you are not feeling well physically, you stay home from school.
Even if you think "I want to go to school"
(though I didn't think that much (lol))
you just can't go.
And if you end up being hospitalized,
that's two weeks of consecutive absences, and since you rest after being discharged, it stretches into three weeks.

...Because I was sick, after all.
Since I wasn't feeling well physically, there was nothing I could do.
I didn't have the physical strength to lead a normal school life,
so I had no choice but to rest.

Running a fever, coughing,
having white spots on my lungs in an X-ray,
breaking a bone, getting 10 stitches...
If there are symptoms that others can recognize from the outside,
"staying home from school" is never blamed.
Instead, people ask with concern, "Are you okay?"

Then,what about when your heart is wounded?What about that?
What about when, rather than just wounded, the "will to live" is leaking out from there
and there is almost nothing left in your heart?

Even though the state of the heart cannot be seen from the outside,what if it is falling apart?
What about that...?

The filter that parents acquire

The difference between these is
whether or not it can be understood by looking from the outside.
It is difficult for humans to evaluate things they cannot see.
They cannot evaluate it, they cannot understand it.
Therefore,they try to apply their own valuesto it.

That is true even when the other person is their own child.
Because parents pride themselves on having more
experience than their children,
aren't they more likely toview their own child through the filter of their own values?

And sadly, that is also
the parent trying to understand the child
a very natural first step.
Because they are parents, after all...

When a child can no longer go to school,
parents worry. They get lost.
Why did this happen?
What should I do? they wonder.

And when they are driven by anxiety,
they might set the child's goal based on the state of "the norm"
that they, as parents, believe in,in other words,"going to school"
.

When a child becomes unable to go to school,
if there is a clear reason for not being able to go
that the parents can understand immediately,
it might be somewhat better.
However, there are many cases where that is not the case.

Also, even if the reason is known and it is removed,
by that time, the child's emotional wounds may already be deep,
or they may be harboring fear,
or they may not have enough strength left to take a step forward.
In that case, even if the cause is removed,
it will likely be difficult for them to return to school.

The reasons why a child becomes unable to go to school
may not be just one,
but perhaps a complex entanglement of things.
Also, the child themselves
may not be able to understand it well.

Being unable to go to school
is definitely a state where they have crossed the yellow light of their heart,
and a red light is shining.

The depletion of "vitality"

Instead of setting "going to school" as the solution,
I believe that before that, we should setthe recovery and accumulation of the child's "vitality"as the goal to aim for.

First, ensure that the child's own "vitality"
does not leak out any further.
To do that, don't they need time to heal their wounds in a safe zone?
A scab forms, it gradually falls off,
and the wound closes.
And only then, I think, can "vitality" be accumulated.

Because the term "futoko" (school non-attendance)
is a word that expresses "being unable to attend school",
I fear that we might be misjudging the true goal.

I am well aware that there are various opinions and messages out there.
But at the very least, both of my own children
had their "vitality" depleted,
and they are taking steps to replenish it.
What is important is not "going to school" but


the child regaining their "vitality".

Even if a child is currently able to "go to school",
I think there are many children who are reserve candidates
whose "vitality" is gradually being depleted.

Please, once again, draw close to your child,
and reassure them by saying, "This is a safe zone."

May this reach those who need it✨