(Text/Liu Lin)
According to the survey report released by japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on the 13th, the number of suicide children in Japan exceeded 400 in 2020, and the number of "non-boarding" students who refused to go to school among primary and secondary school students also exceeded 190,000, both of which hit a record high. Among the suicides, there were 7 primary school students, 103 junior high school students and 305 high school students, an increase of nearly 100 over the previous year. The number of "non-on-campus" students also increased significantly, nearly 15,000 more than in the previous year, showing an eight-year continuous growth trend.
According to the survey, among all the children who committed suicide, as many as 218 people were unexplained, accounting for more than half, and many children could be said to have died inexplicably. Other causes of suicide account for a relatively high proportion of "family relationship discord", "suffering from mental illness such as depression", "worrying about academic prospects", "being blamed by parents" and so on.
Yangtze River Kou Yuki, a child student class in Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, said: "Judging from the survey results, the changes in the school and family environment caused by the epidemic may have a huge impact on children. Children who feel like they have no place at home will see school as a haven for respite, but the lockdown caused by the pandemic has left them with no last hope. In particular, the increase in the number of suicides is extremely worrying. ”
The pandemic is the same for adults, but it can have had a significant impact on children. It is the sentimental age, but forced to live in a gloomy world, only hoping that the future can make the children's normal life suffer less.
The Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK) quoted Tomomi Takahashi, a visiting researcher at the Institute of Human Sciences at Chuo University in Japan, as pointing out that an important cause of child suicide - family discord and scolding from parents , has intensified in the home isolation and remote work environment caused by the epidemic. At the same time, the practice of relieving stress by meeting with friends cannot be achieved, and the interaction between the two has led to a rapid increase in suicide cases.
In Japan, "no school" has a clear demarcation standard, that is, the number of days of absenteeism per year exceeds 30 days, but does not include the failure to attend school due to illness, family economic reasons and epidemic prevention measures. In this survey, the first reason for "not going to school" is "no motivation and feeling uneasy", accounting for 47%, followed by "the rhythm of life is disrupted" and so on.
The spread of the new crown epidemic has led to the closure of Japanese schools since March last year, many schools have not resumed offline teaching until May last year, and the summer vacation has been forced to be reduced, and school trips and sports events have been cancelled, and school life has been very different from previous years. Japanese experts point out that some children have lost more interest in going to school after staying at home for a long time. Some NGO facilities for "no-school" children have also been closed due to the pandemic, allowing these children, who have been given a little respite, to retreat into closed, oppressive environments.
"With the spread of the Internet, the place of bullying has changed to social media. Schools as frontline educators have limited capacity to reduce cyberbullying. The social development of 'non-school' students must be addressed by raising the level of regional welfare. The top priority in hardware is to expand the budget, form a joint support with social education and family education, and hope to plan how to use the budget. ”
In this survey, another high-profile "school bullying" problem has shown a statistical improvement for the first time in 7 years. Confirmed bullying in primary and secondary schools and special support schools dropped to 517163, a decrease of 15.6 per cent. Among them, 514 cases were included in the "major events", a decrease of 28.9%.
However, Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology believes that the decrease in bullying incidents is mainly due to the reduction of physical contact caused by the epidemic, and school leave has led to lower teaching time than in previous years, not that the bullying problem itself has eased. But a new change to watch is the significant increase in "social media (SNS) bullying", with a total of 18,870 reported throughout the year, not only breaking records, but also doubling in the last 5 years.
"My family has two daughters, and they have more and more children who are 'not in school'. My child is a test taker, and the pressure is high, so the number of days for her to rest at home or be late is also increasing, which is really worrying. It's adolescence again, no longer the age when you can talk to your mother, and when you are a mother, you are also sad. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and start crying, but I have a job myself and I don't have time to listen patiently to my children. Is there any good way to do anything other than keep staring, please. ”
Suicide, "not going to school" and school bullying are not only the troubles of minors growing up, but also the lingering diseases of Japanese society. A large number of Japanese literature, film and television drama works also tell the cruel story of adolescence and the helpless struggle in despair over and over again.
For the problem of "not going to school", the Japanese government has also introduced a number of measures to gather the strength of schools and families, but the results are not obvious. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and other institutions have set up 24-hour helplines to facilitate students with problems to call at any time for help. The Japan Education Commission plays an overall role in helping "non-school" students, creating a reassuring learning environment at the school level, improving teaching methods, and enabling students to do their best to increase their attractiveness to students. At the same time, we will increase the governance of problems such as bullying of students on campus and corporal punishment by teachers, reduce the number of "no-boards", and make all students feel at ease at school.
However, it is not difficult to see from the comments of netizens that whether it is the efforts of the Japanese government or the social environment, even adults are often exhausted and powerless in the face of the plight of teenagers. Netizens are in different identities, the perspective is naturally different, and it is not difficult to see that the entire Japanese society is both painful and unsolvable for the mental health of minors.
According to Hiroyuki Nishino, director of the non-profit organization Free Space Gathering Place, children also have to take into account the feelings of their parents and teachers in life, and they are physically and mentally exhausted, and need to find a third place to stay outside of school and family.
Source: Reference News Network