Faza : From not wanting to go to school to often misses school

In the beginning, when my husband and I decided that Faza would go to school at 3 years old, we promised ourselves not to force Faza so much considering his age was actually too young to enter academic stage. Moreover, we live as a minority and people do not speak our mother tongue language. If one day Faza seemed to face so much difficulty adapting to his school, we might even take a break and tried to understand Faza’s situation first.

Honestly, there were many times I asked myself whether it was a good decision or not. Especially during first days of school. Faza would cry his eyes out and whenever I asked him “Is your sensei nice?” He would say “No, she is not nice.” In the third day, he did not want to go to school but I tried to persuade him by saying that his father and I went to school as well but we went to different school. And he was like “Really?” and finally he wanted to go to school. The next day, he wanted to go to school but on the way to the school, he was quiet. It felt like he prepared himself to face different language, stricter rules, and many other kids at school.

After one week adapting to his new environment, our family went to Indonesia for Ied Fitr and Faza was absent from school for one month. And when we went back to Japan, the process of Faza adapting to his school was the same as the first one. However, after three days, he started to enjoyed his school. Even currently, he really like school, he will ask me every day whether he will go to school today.

The process to make Faza enjoying his school was quite challenging but there were some things I did during those time

1. Be a good listener, do not judge. I would ask him about how his day was after school. I tried to show my empathy as well as my curiosity. I think the best time to have this conversation was before sleeping when we did our small talk.

2. Give reward for his effort to adapt at school. I would offer Faza to eat ice cream or other snacks that he liked after school. I felt that it was a good strategy in which Faza would relate school with something excited for him. After he enjoyed school, he did not need this reward.

3. Ask Faza to teach me his school song. Faza really liked to sing and dance, so singing his school sing together would bring out his good mood.

4. Pack a bento with my whole heart so he would be happy and proud when he opened his bento box.

However, I think every child might have different needs and likes, so these strategies might or might not succeed to other children. And do not forget to ask Allah to ease our effort and make our children happy at school.


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