I thought taking junior high school entrance exams was a “good thing,” but…A father’s response when his 6th grade son said “I want to quit taking entrance exams” Why is parenting becoming “suffocating” | PRESIDENT Online online)

How can we overcome the “suffocation of raising children”? Taku Nishimura, president of Sou Experience and author of “So Call Out and Talk” (TOYOKAN BOOKS), says, “I feel like we should question the word “parenting.” We asked Mr. Nishimura, a father of three, why he thinks so. (Interviewer/Composition = Writer Hikari Ichioka)

Two events that made me feel suffocated in raising children

—It seems that your book “So Call Out and Talk” was written for “parents who are feeling deprived of oxygen due to too much stress on their shoulders.” Mr. Nishimura, at what times do you feel the suffocation of raising children?

[Mr. Nishimura]I felt the suffocation of parenting when my eldest son was in sixth grade, when he was preparing for middle school entrance exams. I myself have had the experience of taking junior high school entrance exams, but I don’t remember it being that difficult.

That’s why when I tried to move forward as a parent, the gap was bigger than I imagined. The schedule has moved forward several years since then, and I felt that the sense of a packaged version of “by when will I be able to finish my studies up to this point” is increasing.

I think that’s something that can’t be helped as long as you’re participating in a competition. However, in the junior high school entrance exams, students will be competing against top-level students. I was also worried about whether my eldest son would be able to handle it.

I myself was accepted into the Keio Junior High School that I wanted to be in, and I understand the merits of taking entrance exams for junior high schools, but I also felt conflicted about sacrificing my eldest son’s impressionable years.

Also, my second son’s birthday is March 31st, so he was born early. So I’ve had people say to me several times, “You’re at a disadvantage when it comes to studies and sports.”

You can’t control when a child is born, but can that even be used as a subject of comparison? This incident is also an example of feeling suffocated.

I stopped taking the junior high school entrance exam midway through.

—The sense of competition may be higher than ever.

[Mr. Nishimura]I agree. However, I think it is good for junior high school entrance exams. If you can install a variety of ways of thinking in 5th or 6th grade, wouldn’t it change the way you look at the world? You can train your thinking and planning skills, and you may even learn how to win.

I think having many interests is directly connected to the richness of your life, and being able to read and understand sentences and draw supplementary lines in arithmetic also leads to training your thinking skills.

That’s fine, but I think there may be another way. In the case of my eldest son, he was preparing for his entrance exams until before the summer vacation of his 6th year, but he found the option of N Junior High School (a free school run by Kadokawa Dwango Gakuen) on his own.