It was as I feared it would be with Jun and her departure from Japan. To her credit, it took longer than I expected. She has finally asked, “When are we going to go home?”
Before we left, I had posted that she has only known Japan as home. She was born there and I was not prepared for how attached she was to her birthplace. She has even described herself as Japanese. She will argue with the suggestion that she is actually American. Who would think an almost five year old child would be so sure of it?
I had to explore exactly what she meant by “home.” As I expected, home was Japan. She missed her friends, her room, and especially Sobo.
My answer did not go over well with her. Her belief that Japan was home and she wanted to return there was insistent. At this point I realized my answer should have been a little less back and white. Where was the parenting coach when I needed one?
It took considerable time to undo the trauma I had caused before we could speak more of it. It is not easy to speak “five year old.” It gets no easier when trying to re-explain after forgetting the first time that you were speaking to a child. Jared was required to do some damage control.
After much comforting and explaining, which would not have been required had I just spoke more carefully the first time, Jun seems to accept the notion that we may not return to live there but there is the possibility we could visit Japan. Though she was not satisfied with that answer, she is accepting it... mostly. Her parting word to end the discussion were shouted as to make her point clear. “I AM STILL JAPANESE!”
We will see how it goes as she ages.
No comments:
Post a Comment