HELP: Moving to Japan and need to prepare my 8-year-old!

I am confident that we are acting in the best interests of both kids, even in spite of the inherent challenges.

I usually just lurk but I'll bite, that's exactly what concerns me the most. How confident you are that you are right that you won't consider the fairly big obvious issues your plan has. You'll probably be too confident to see the problems forming as they arise as well.

There are definitely challenges, but we think the positives of having an international & cross cultural experience outweigh the negatives.

See the issue I have with this statement is you aren't really in a good position to know what the positives and negatives are having never lived in Japan before. You're going in not blind per say but you can't really make this judgement now at this time.

So many factors need to be considered but I'm going to go ahead and give you the advice that while Japanese public schools are nowhere near as bad as a lot of westerners make them out to be, they are absolutely not equipped to deal with foreign immigrants who speak a second language that isn't Japanese. Usually they'll just stick the foreign kid in with the retarded kids (which they are also poorly equipped to deal with) and it's very likely that environment won't be good for your kids educational development, though it does depend on the kid, some can pick up the language fast, some don't, but coming from near zero Japanese it's going to be hell for your kid until they hit their stride, assuming they last that long.

There is no way in hell your kid will have a Japanese level to manage 3rd grade in 6 months. There's no way in hell you'll be good enough at Japanese in that time frame to deal with general life stuff like, discussing your child's educational needs with the school, either.

This is kinda like signing up for a trip to Mt. Everest knowing nothIng about mountaineering and figuring out you'll just read about it on the plane.

If you want your kid to get to that high level they'll need a professional tutor or Japanese academy yesterday. Even then it's probably far to fast for most. I second the international school. Your kid won't be losing out on anything by going to one, they will be losing out on about a year of education by going to a public school since all their energy will need to be devoted to learning Japanese ASAP.

Some kids might do well in that environment and anecdotally I'd say you can judge the level of success based on the kids personality but as a parent, you aren't in a good position to make that judgement (we are all biased towards our own kids).

I just want to make it very clear that the general level of English proficiency in Japan is extremely low, and Japanese public schools are absolutely not equipped to handle students that deviate from the norm well, and not speaking Japanese is a huge deviation that from an educational standpoint might as well be considered akin to being deaf and dumb.

There are schools for the deaf so they can learn and not be subjected to being sidelined in regular schools. International schools are not much different when you think about it.

I seriously suggest you re-consider international school for the eldest.

As others have said the youngest will get along fine. The eldest is going to be in a precarious position. Especially since you as a parent are also unable to communicate with the school easily.

/r/LearnJapanese Thread Parent