Off topic but we are sending my daughter to a Christian kindergarten here in Japan. The whole preschool education is different and many kids don’t actually start school until 1st grade. It’s free to enroll but schools and space is limited. Our first choice (10 minutes drive) only allowed for 5 kids to enroll. In Japan, kids as young as 3 can enroll but only after they turn 3. So my daughter would be starting two months later as she has a September birthday (we started schools in June as opposed to the usual April). Sadly, those 5 spots were taken. Our second choice originally had 10 opening but those were taken. So our third and last choice was the Christian kindergarten that’s connected to a church. It’s a Christian school but only in name and in mission. That is to spread peace and love around the world. Kids do pray before lunch but there’s no reading from the Bible, singing church songs, etc. they do have Easter and Thanksgiving parties which most schools don’t.
I’m very much against organized religion as is my wife. She is very much anti-Christian thanks to ... well...unfortunate situations when she studied abroad in Australia and America as a high school and University exchange student. Still, we would rather our daughter have social experience and connections with other kids so we decided to just go ahead and enroll here. All my daughter talks about is wanting to play with friends since she’s extremely social. She had a ten minute conversation today with an adult (our neighbor) while we went on a walk today. I don’t see many kids her age doing that but she’s totally fine just going up to people to talk to them or to try and play with any kids that are there. For example, there was one girl (2 years old) who was crying at the park. My daughter kept telling her it’s ok, that we can play and don’t cry. The reason the kid was crying because she wanted to play with her dad and not my daughter. My daughter didn’t pick up on that and kept trying to comfort this girl despite the fact the girl was crying because she didn’t want to be near my daughter. And of course she gets sad when she tries to play with other kids, join in activities, and run around with them but they shove her or push her away because she isn’t apart of their group. Sad thing is that a lot of parents act the same way. It’s strange. I personally love seeing my daughter play with other kids but some parents want thier kids playing with only with them or with their kid’s own friends.
Sorry for the long post but just felt like sharing this.
