What Japanese Parents Know About Raising Independent Kids - Lisa Katayama

0:00Hunter Clarke-Fields:Hi, it's Hunter Clarke-Fields, author of Raising Good Humans. If you've ever thought, I wish I could help other parents the way I've been helped, this is for you. The Mindful Parenting Teacher Certification Program is now open for enrollment. You'll deepen your mindfulness, learn to lead powerful parenting groups, and join a supportive, heart-centered community. Are you ready to make a difference? I only take a very limited number of people into this program, so apply now. Visit mindfulparentingcourse.com slash teach. You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast, episode number 604. Today, we're talking about what Japanese parents know about raising independent kids with Lisa Katayama.

0:41Hunter Clarke-Fields:Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here, it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clark-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course and teacher training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, Raising Good Humans, Raising Good Humans Every Day, and the Raising Good Humans Guided Journal.

1:19Hunter Clarke-Fields:Hi, welcome back to the Mindful Mama podcast, and of course, a exciting welcome welcome. If you are new, this is a great episode to join in. I'm going to be talking to Lisa Katayama, a working mom and writer born and raised in Tokyo and author of The Japanese Way of Parenting. She's a former tech and culture journalist for Wired Fast Company and the New York Times Magazine, and she was named one of Forbes Japan's top women to watch in 2018. She lives in Northern California with her family. This is a fascinating episode because in an age of over-parenting, which I kind of think we're in, we're going to be talking about independence, and we're going to be talking about interdependence before independence, and how the Japanese culture raises independent independent children who can emotionally regulate and respect others.

2:15Hunter Clarke-Fields:This is, it's really fascinating to explore some of the differences between Japanese culture and the United States when it comes to raising children. And you're going to learn what things we can adopt from Japanese parenting without losing our warmth or individuality. So join me at the table as I talk to Lisa Katayama.

2:39Hunter Clarke-Fields:well Lisa thanks for coming on the mindful mama podcast thank you for having me happy to be here glad you're here I'm I'm really enjoying your book the Japanese way of parenting you and your hubby are from really different cultural backgrounds you're American you're multicultural. What inspired you to really explore Japanese parenting after becoming a mother? Yeah, it really wasn't until I started thinking about where she's gonna go to daycare. And in the beginning, we were just at home. My first kid was born during the pandemic. So it was just, we were just home. And yeah, there wasn't, you know, much thought to what culture we were bringing into her life.

3:28It was, she was just the culture of our home. Every home has a different culture, right? But yeah, when it came time to put her in school, that's when we started touring daycare centers and we live in a very diverse area where there are a lot of different cultural backgrounds. And so we realized, oh, wow, we can pick this place and she could end up, you know, being surrounded by, you know, this language, this kind of food, people from a certain community, or she could end up in this other place, which is totally different kind of background. And at the end of the day, she's going to be who she is.

4:07But it really kind of made us think. And for me, when I visited this Japanese daycare where she ended up going, and I don't know if it was because we were in pandemic times and I hadn't you know been back to Japan in a while and I missed my family but something about the place was so familiar and I was like oh these kids are um you know they had they all kind of came when we came to visit went to visit the school they came close to us they were all wearing their masks the right way and they all sat in like the social distance circle around the new baby and they were just so sweet and I was like oh this reminds me so much of home and um it really started there and then once she started to go to that school um you know she learned how to take off her shoes when she goes in the house or instead of a classroom they would wear different indoor shoes in the classroom there.

5:06Or she would, you know, take her plate and take it to the kitchen after she was done and say, which means thank you for this meal. And I was like, oh, that's sweet. And so then I started thinking, oh, there's so many like lovely things about Japanese culture that I kind of want to keep it in my kid's life for as long as I can.

5:25Hunter Clarke-Fields:That's so cool. And were you raised with all that when you were little? I think so. I don't have, it's weird. I don't really remember my own childhood with that level of detail. Yeah, yeah, sure. But yeah, I'm pretty sure, because I grew up in Tokyo, and you definitely take off your shoes when you go into your house, and those are just kind of these customary things that everybody does. and I talk about this a lot in the book but in Japan there are many things that people do that everybody does. Everybody takes off their shoes when they go into somebody's home whereas in America there are some homes that are shoes off there are some homes that are shoes optional there are some homes that are only shoes on when you're having people over because you don't want people to have to walk around in their socks.

6:25And in Japan, everybody takes off their shoes, even if you're wearing really beautiful heels and you're going to a dinner party. If it's in somebody's home, the expectation is that you would take off your shoes and they'll give you slippers. So yeah, I do things. I grew up with a lot of these things, and it was just part of my background. But here, it was. And then I moved here, right? And then for most of my adult life, I just did whatever people were doing. And so it was only when my kid was born and started going to school that I was like, oh, she's going to be doing these things that I did many, many miles away, many, many years ago.

7:04Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, and it's interesting. I mean, I wonder, were you also seeing kids, kind of more American kids in other circumstances, maybe at the playground and things like that, and thinking like, hmm, I don't know if I don't want that. Like, was some of that coming up for you in this decision? I think, you know, I don't know if this is true for you, too, but until I had my own kids, I didn't pay attention to what other parents were doing or other kids were doing. So it was really only when I found myself in this situation that I was, like, you know, compelled to think about how are other parents being like or how are other kids being like.

7:46And so I took my kids to Japan for the first time when I think they were like almost three, maybe three. And so that was the first time I saw the difference between a Japanese playground and an American playground. And it is quite different, or at least what I saw in Japanese playgrounds. Like the parents stand in the corner and they just kind of like hang out. and then the kids are on the playground and they're playing and there's kind of specific rules of play. Like, you know, they're like going up the stairs and going down the slide. I mean, it's the same here. But then here you see a lot of parents are also on the playground equipment or they're hovering around their kid or they're telling the kids how to play or they're playing with the kids.

8:31And so that's one of those things that's pretty different. And I, at first, because I mostly went to playgrounds here, I would be also like on the equipment. and talking to my kid a lot. But then when I went to Japan, I saw the parents are just chilling, like they're like sipping coffee and hanging out. I was like, that's better. Like I'd rather be doing that, you know? And also it just showed a sense. Yeah, exactly. And it showed a level of, they had a level of trust that their kid would be fine playing on the playground. And so I was like, that's nice. So I'm going to try to like adopt that idea a little bit more.

9:08So it was really like piece by piece. Yeah. Or, yeah, go ahead.

9:43Hunter Clarke-Fields:We have trouble with the idea of interdependence, that our actions are affecting each other, our moods are affecting each other, the way we speak, you know, it really has a profound effect on each other. And it seems like that is very powerful in Japan, but also alongside with the idea of independence. And independence is really shrinking. It's really getting eroded and eaten away here in the United States, especially for kids. how do Japanese parents teach that interdependence I mean imagine a lot of it is just kind of cultural but how do they they teach that from a young age yeah I think the fun like underpinning philosophies of independence are just so different in Japan and America so in America independence is about like who am I and who do I want to become and what are what am I good at and be yourself yeah be yourself and um and that's great it's so important uh i think we all have to have that because we're all different people um in japan that comes very much paired with like what is around you being mindful of what you know who's around you what's around you what kind of situation are you in that kind of situational awareness um is brought into kids lives very very early and very uh very persistently uh i it's my kid um my older kid has this uh it's kind of like an android tablet that teaches you japanese so it has different modules of lessons that she can take to keep her japanese up now that she goes to an american school um but some Some of the modules are like math and language.

11:26And some of them are like how to dust the floor using a broom and a dustpan. And then or like how to mop a floor, how to wring out a rag. It shows this, you know, picture of like, here's how you do it. Like you take to both sides and you squeeze it into a bucket and then you throw away the bucket water. But so those kinds of things are ingrained in these kids' lives as something that's just as important as like knowing you're, you know, out the alphabet or knowing how to do addition or subtraction. So I think that's pretty different. And the underpinning philosophy of that is that you should know how to clean up the spaces that you've occupied from when you're a little kid, right?

12:11It's not something that is somebody else's job. It's your job. It's everybody's job to take care of their surroundings. And so that is both independence, but it's also interdependence because we all depend on each other to keep our shared spaces clean.

12:33Hunter Clarke-Fields:Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcast right after this break. we know that chronic mouth breathing is bad in kids it can be associated with restless sleep daytime moodiness behavior challenges health concerns we want ourselves and our kids to be breathing through our noses at night we're thinking about food we're thinking about movement outdoor time screen time bedtime routines this is an important part of thinking about our health is thinking about what's happening when we're sleeping. And a lot of parents don't realize that their kids are sleeping with their mouths open. There's a simple low-tech answer for this for families who care about healthy rhythms and nasal breathing and just being more intentional about your sleep habit.

13:19Hunter Clarke-Fields:Muzzle sleep tape is sleep tape that helps keep your mouth closed at night so you'll breathe through your nose. And unlike many solid strip mouth tapes that fully cover the lips, Muzzle has this patented breathe safe center opening. So it's designed to be just gently stretched over the mouth. And there's this large center opening. And it can, it's more, I find it more approachable for us as parents because it doesn't completely seal the mouth and it still allows room to talk and cough and sneeze and drink water. So if you want to support nasal breathing, you want to be more intentional about sleep.

13:52Hunter Clarke-Fields:If you want a simple tool for both parents and kids, Muzzle sleep tape is perfect for you. When kids sleep poorly, the whole family can feel it the next day. Muzzle Sleep Tape is a simple answer. Go to muzzlesleep.com and use the code MindfulMama for 10 % off. That's muzzlesleep.com, promo code MindfulMama. That's great. That's very Montessori, too. That's true. My kids are very in a Montessori school, and I'm a big proponent. And yeah, and the whole, like, the kids are cleaning up at age two. They're cleaning their little spaces up. Yeah, there's a lot of commonalities for sure. Yeah, Matsuri in Japanese.

14:37Yeah.

14:38Hunter Clarke-Fields:So I don't know how to pronounce this. I'm totally going to mess it up, so you've got to help me. But there's this concept of mei waku. Am I saying that right? Yeah, you did it. You said it. You did it. Okay. All right. So this is a very powerful concept. I thought this was neat. How can parents introduce this idea? I'm kind of coming from this idea of interdependence, but how can they introduce the idea without creating like shame or people pleasing? Yeah. So meiwaku means causing trouble for others. And basically, if you're a good Japanese kid, you don't do it. You don't cause trouble for others.

15:15You don't cause meiwaku, right? Or you're...

15:18Hunter Clarke-Fields:This seems like a handy concept for adults to instill in kids. just so you know like this is true so good yeah i mean i took my kids out to dinner this you know earlier this week and my younger kid was like screaming because she wanted to sit on a tall stool and i wasn't letting her and i was like oh this is so mewaku i need to remove her from this situation right because there's this you know there's a couple next sitting next to us and they're just having a chat and like surely and this is in america but even then you can cause surely they don't want to be next to a screaming child. And so I picked her up and I took her out of the restaurant.

15:58And I was like, hey, you know, we're only going to go back in if you promise not to scream. And she screamed for about a minute and then she was like, okay. And then we went back in. And so that's me trying to make sure we're not causing mewaku in this restaurant. To kind of oversimplify this concept of mewaku, at least in Japanese context, there are like three things that you would not do if you're trying not to cause trouble to others. And one is you don't make a mess. Two, you don't make loud noises. And three, you're not late. So yeah, I mean, if you kind of want to start somewhere, those are three good places to start.

16:42Hunter Clarke-Fields:I guess so. I think that might be hard for many American adults to follow this. Yeah, for sure. It is. And yes, it's true. I don't follow them either. And certainly like in certain contexts, it's okay to be late, right? And I think that, so you asked about also, how do you do this without creating shame or people? I think that there is a risk of that. So you do have to be careful, right? That you're not like, oh my God, you're so loud and you should be ashamed. Like, you know, you never want to go there. But I think if you could be like, okay, like, you know, there are other people enjoying their time here.

17:23So we're going to try to be quiet or, you know, we're meeting our grandparents at five o 'clock. So let's try to be there, you know, five o 'clock or, you know, like let's clean up after ourselves. I think those are just kind of baseline standards that you can establish if you want to. And so as long as you're not kind of being too strict about it, it doesn't have to be about shame or people pleasing. It's just about how you carry yourself within the context of a community. At least I think that is why, yeah, that's why Japanese people do it.

17:59Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. I mean, it's just like being aware and mindful of how your actions affect others. I mean, that's what it seems to me. I mean, actually, it reminds me of, you know, so I teach this mindful parenting teacher training. And one of the things that we teach is we teach about iMessages. And, you know, we teach that, you know, we know that like shaming and blaming language is not very helpful. um what is helpful to help kids stop behaviors that are problematic you know like let them know how their behaviors are affecting you and you know maybe negatively or maybe even positively but like let them know how their behaviors are affecting you and how they're making you feel and then if they when when they're intrinsically motivated to say oh i'm this is affecting you in a negative way, I didn't realize it, you know, then they are much more likely to change their behavior than if you're saying, you're a bad person for doing this thing, or, you know, then it kind of, then they're either, you know, admitting that or they're submitting to that, like it causes this fight.

19:09Hunter Clarke-Fields:But if you can just say, hey, when you do this, I can't read my book, or I have trouble, like, I can't enjoy my meal, and you're like, jumping up and down and screaming like that it makes it hard for me either oh okay and you can realize how your behavior affects others that it turns out to be much more effective than other means but it to me it sounds like that's what mewaku is yeah i think and the way that you know parents would ideally talk about it is exactly the way you just described you would say that you know when you make loud noises other people can't hear their conversations um and there is a lot of also emphasis on you know empathy and understanding what you might be going through.

19:52So like if a kid is having a hard time, like you might be like, yeah, okay, you're having a hard time with this. Like it's because of this. So it's not like, oh, you should not do that because those are the rules. And there usually is a good reason and it should be explained by the parent or the caregiver.

20:10Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, sounds like nice, gentle boundaries. Okay, so let's talk about old enough because I love this. Dear listener, if you haven't seen old enough on netflix just go find it it's amazing it's this a japanese tv show and the very first one this kid is barely two years old and he just is like going on an errand with his little flag to go get i forget what he's going to get but i mean so we've seen a lot of people have seen this show and we've seen this uh this you know that japanese children in japan can be remarkably capable. So what are some of these ways that parents can foster some of that independence, maybe outside of a community where all the adults are kind of looking out for a tiny child crossing the street with a flag?

21:02Right. You can't exactly do that here. I mean, yeah. But you can give your kid a shopping list when you're in the store. It's something I tried with my kid. I took her, I walked with her to the store in a stroller and then I gave her a, you know, mental list. She couldn't read at the time. And I was like, we're going to get these three things. And, you know, it gives them a sense of pride to have a task to do. So she walked around the store and she ended up picking up a lot of things that she didn't need. But, but it's really, We all do. It's true. We all do. But it also was a good, and yeah, so I was there with her, but I also saw it as a good teaching moment where I could be like, okay, remember, we're not getting five kinds of cheese today.

21:54Yeah. And then, you know, the next time we did it, she did a little better. And so I think of these as practice rounds. I think in old enough, it's also a practice round. The kids don't always get it right. the shopping or sometimes they have to go back I don't know if you I think in some episodes three times for one kid yeah yeah but the parents keep trying right they're like okay but you forgot this you can go back and then they go back and you know and every time they feel sometimes you can see the kids are having a heart and they forgot what they're supposed to get what was it right and they're like I forgot and then they run back home like I forgot and then they go back and so it's it is kind of like this training that they're doing um in old enough and so yeah i think we can do that here too and then um there are things you can do in the home right like you can encourage your kids to prep their own meals like maybe like sometimes i'll pre-chop like little vegetables and you know maybe have pizza crust or something be like okay now you make your own pizza and it's so simple, but it gives them a sense of autonomy.

22:59Like they're, they're making their own meal, they can bust their plates. Yeah. Things as age appropriate things. There's always something you can have your kid do that you can start delegating early.

23:11Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. Yeah. I think that's such an important lesson and it's so much better than, you know, if you're going to the grocery store and here's a device for you to watch and be distracted and not be to take yourself out of this environment, but to instead give you a job what a great idea give them a job and obviously it's going to take you you took you longer in that grocery store maybe than usual but that's a whole outing that's a whole event you don't have to go to like i don't know you know you don't have to go to a special amusement park or amusement you know you can go to the grocery store and give them a job to get some things and then maybe go you know if you have more time you can go home and make a thing i mean I think that's really cool.

23:56Hunter Clarke-Fields:What do you think American parents misunderstand about independence when we try to cultivate it? In the Japanese way of parenting, independence is a catalyst for communities. It helps you connect with others, not separate from them. And so I think this is a kind of framework shift that might be helpful. sometimes we fear our kids becoming independent because it's like, oh, they're going to get further away from us or they're going to do things that we don't want them to do. But if in a Japanese child's life, independence is something that helps you become a better contributor to your family. So then you can coexist more pleasantly and more cohesively.

24:49And of course, again, this is age appropriate, But so it starts with like old enough, you see two year olds starting to try to go shopping. But then and I talk about a few like examples quickly in my book, but they're by the time kids are, you know, five or six, they can start walking to school by themselves. And by the time they're like eight or nine, maybe they're able to bike to their after school programs on their own. And, you know, maybe they have like a little you have a friend who has her kid has like a little cell phone that she can only call three people and she can't do anything like surf the web.

25:21but she can call people and they can track where she is. There's some kids who take the train to schools that are very far away. Like my nephew started going places by himself when he was in the single digits and that allowed his parents to do whatever they needed to do. And so it's independence, but it's an independence that is supported by community and creates community. of course the context is different depending on where you live even in america is such a big country there's so many different kinds of communities right there's somewhere you maybe you could have your kid walk to school by themselves in the single digits and maybe somewhere you can't you need to drive or never but um there are always things i think you can think about maybe what all the things that you do for your kid in a day and think about like what what are some things other things that i do for my kid that they could do by themselves that would help us feel more like we're a unit that's working in concert.

26:19Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, there's so many things. If you have a pet, you know, I walked to school when I was in first and second grade, which is like six and seven. But I walked to school with like, there were five neighborhood kids who all walked up, you know, to school. So it was a community thing. That's great. But yeah, it's I think a lot of parents would be afraid of that at this point and also afraid of being arrested you know right now because there's such a big safetyism thing that if you send a 10 year old to the playground you can be arrested it's in some places which is crazy drives me crazy yeah it is unfortunate um but yeah yeah there's there's some movement around that like i think uh i i talk about this all the time but i love the let grow.org movement where you can get something going in like your whole school or neighborhood where maybe everybody has, you know, here, let's do something that gives kids a little more autonomy and independence and you get a whole list and kids are going to be, and maybe even, you know, let the teachers know, okay, kids are going to be trying to go to the, or go into the playground on their own.

27:34Hunter Clarke-Fields:And, you know, maybe let the shopkeepers know like, hey, kids are going to be coming. I don't know. It sounds funny that we'd have to do that, but yeah, I think that would be cool. Yeah. Okay, so what are some of the favorite things that you have incorporated into your household that are sort of taken from this Japanese way of parenting? Yeah, definitely the taking off the shoes when you get home. and um it's hard in japanese houses you have this designated area that's like a level down from the rest of the house it's like a little you have to take off your shoes and you step up into the house so the dirt from the shoes doesn't get into the house um we don't have that here um so i have a little like doormat or and um that shows where you should take off your shoes um so When my kids get home, they take off their shoes.