That is why I say "thank you" to my daughter again today.

On weekends, I go to the supermarket with my daughter, who is a first-year high school student.

Even when my daughter says, "Ugh, why don't you just go by yourself?", I don't back down. "My back hurts, so I need you to carry the bags. Let's go together!" When I tell her that, she reluctantly gets up, leaves her pajamas behind, and starts changing into a T-shirt and jeans.

We don't have a car at home. So, we ride our bicycles to the supermarket. My daughter has a red bicycle. I have a khaki one. We each chose the colors we like. As we ride side-by-side, she says things like, "What is this? This is so easy to pedal. It just glides forward." My daughter had been riding with a flat tire for a long time. Seeing that, I had secretly taken it in for repairs.

When we arrive at the supermarket, we put a shopping basket in the cart and choose what to eat. Today, horse mackerel is cheap. Dinner will be horse mackerel kabayaki bowls, miso soup, and a tuna and onion salad. We put the ingredients in the basket and line up at the self-checkout. My daughter scans the barcodes, and I handle the bagging. Once we finish paying, the shopping is done.

There was a time when my daughter couldn't go outside for a while. The habit of going to the supermarket together was something I forced upon her. My daughter isn't very good at socializing. Once, when a friend invited her to "go to the restroom together," she said, "I don't want to go right now, so you go by yourself." It was inevitable that friction would occur. My daughter stopped being able to go to school. (Of course, that wasn't the only reason, but still.)

In this world, there are people who are good at socializing and those who are not. If anything, my daughter is the type who is not good at it.

Because she stopped attending school, her studies fell behind, she grew distant from friends she had known since elementary school, and she lost her self-esteem. When she was little, she was so full of energy—obsessed with playing in the park, fishing for crayfish, catching water striders in the river, panning for gold, watching cicadas emerge on summer nights, and waking up at 4 a.m. to catch beetles.

She loved playing outside and was the type people would call "tomboyish." That is precisely why, as she grew up, she struggled with how to interact with other girls. Girls gather and act in groups. If you fall out of that, you lose your place.

How can I create a place for my daughter to belong once more? When she stopped going to school, I wanted to find an alternative place for her. The place I found was an adaptive guidance classroom. As she kept attending, she naturally made new friends.

She currently attends a high school in the city center.

What I hoped for was to help my daughter, who had lost her confidence, believe once again that she has value. I thought this because I knew it takes courage to jump into a new environment and make new friends. So, how can I help her believe that she has value?

Isn't it when you can contribute to someone and they say "thank you" to you? I always say "thank you" to my daughter. Thank you for coming on a walk with me. Thank you for cleaning the bathroom before my friends came over. Thank you for coming shopping with me, just like today. We live together, just the two of us. So, I am the only one in the family who says "thank you" to her.

In life, there are moments when you inevitably get disliked by others. When you stand your ground. When you can't conform to someone else. When you are disliked, I want you to remember this: you are a person who is told "thank you" many times, and at the very least, to me, you are one of a kind. That is why I say "thank you" to my daughter again today.

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