Sending child back to home country?

Hello,

I'm having trouble finding any information on this. My wife and I have been living in Japan for 8 years and have two children, aged 8 and 2. My wife is Japanese, so my children have both USA and Japanese passports. My daughter is 8 and in second grade. She has always gone to regular local Japanese schools (3 years of kindergarten and now elementary school).

My daughter has expressed a serious interest in going to school for a year in America, my home country. My wife and I had discussed this years ago, and have always considered the possibility. Now we want to make it happen because my daughter really wants to go.

Basically, she'll stay with my parents, her grandparents. They are very happy and want this to happen also. They are both retired and have the time and energy to commit to helping her for a year. I'd like her to stay with them from Sept until next June, so basically 1 year of school. Then she'll come back here to Japan and resume going to Japanese elementary school.

Most of my questions are regarding what needs to happen to set this up. Ideally, I want to take my daughter back in August, and stay for around a month with my family while she adjusts to everything there (she has already spent time at my parent's house for vacations, just not school). Then I'd leave her in the care of my parents while I come back to Japan to continue working. I'll go back to the USA next June to get her and bring her back to Japan.

Does anyone know if there are legal issues with this? Has anyone done anything like this before and can explain about it? We basically just want her to attend a year of elementary school in America, and stay with my parents while doing that. I'd love to stay with her the entire time, but that would require me giving up my job, and having no income for that year (or going through a lot of trouble to find a job just for 9 months while back home) and such.

So I'd like to hear from anyone who has done this. Is this possible without a lot of trouble? Am I unknowingly going to be committing some kind of crime if I do this?
My thinking was I would just bring her home, register her for school at the local elementary school near my parent's house, sign her up for health insurance and the other necessary things, and there shouldn't be any problems? I don't want to have to make my parents "guardians" or any other legal status if I don't have to. All of us (my wife and I, my daughter, and my parents) really just want her to have a nice year of schooling in the USA and spend a year with her grandparents.

I've tried searching around on the internet for info on this, but all of my searches bring up material that doesn't really match my situation.

Thank you for any advice!

I guess that will be fine. I would suggest both your wife and you show up at the elementary school to explain to the teacher what you intend to do, and also (possibly) find beforehand any Saturday school for Japanese kids in your parents' city in the States she can go to to keep up her Japanese so that she will be able to fit back in to her Japanese school once that one year is over.

I am not sure what you are concerned about, when you say crimes and things? I guess you might have to tell the school in the US that your parents have the full responsibility over your child during that one year's stay, though.

I am a bit surprised with your query, what illegal things are you worried about? Your daughter is American citizen and she has the right to attend school in US
If I was you what I would be worried about is
1. How will she adjust coming out of full Japanese school to American school
2. What is the rating of school assigned to where your parents live, I would talk to them how they would help your daughter adjust to it

I would make sure she has plenty of support system to adjust to this new environment

Pappyrus,

I understand what you mean by "legal issues" and I also understand your concerns which are very appropriate.

Perhaps you might want to discuss your question with the American Embassy or Jetro. They are supposed to be the people who can guide you to the right organizations/groups if any.

By the way, I am a Japanese woman who started living in the U.S. when I was 7, although I lived with my parents and I didn't come home to Japan for nearly 5 years. Long story short, I wouldn't be so concerned about your daughter. I might be more concerned about your parents, because when I started living with my Japanese grandparents without my parents at age 18, the grannies were the ones who suffered great culture shock! Lucky you that you have Skype nowadays.

Hello,

Thanks for the input everyone!
I guess I was just over-concerned. Regarding what crimes I was thinking about: I don't know. That's why I asked if anyone else knew. I couldn't find anything online, and I wanted to see what other people thought. These days, it seems like everything is a crime. I just wanted to see if anyone knew of any possible obscure laws I would be breaking.

My daughter was born in the USA, and we moved to Japan when she was one. She has visited her grandparents numerous times, as I try to go back home every year. She also Skypes with them once in awhile. Everyone gets along fine. My parents really want to set this up. Even my wife is on board, as this was her idea in the first place. My daughter is also the one who is really asking for this. She constantly asks me all the time "when are we going back to visit America again".

I've sat down with her a few times and even though she's young, I think she'll be able to handle the situation. Her English is near-native level even though she goes to Japanese school, because I teach her, and she seems to prefer watching cartoons/movies and such in English (she watches both, but seems to prefer English). I'm sure she'll have some catching up to do as far as interacting with the other kids, and she may need to learn a few other things, but hey, that was the point of doing this in the first place.

So, I'm confident about my parents taking care of her well, and confident that she'll have fun and adjust with relative ease. My biggest worry was about any legal issues. I plan to register her myself, and as mentioned, stay for about a month while she first adjusts.

I am from a very small city of around 30-35,000 people. There definitely won't be Japanese weekend schooling available. I'm sure she'll be talking to us on Skype every night or nearly every night. Is 9 months or so abroad enough to damage her Japanese ability (she's a native Japanese speaker, not second language)?

As for notifying the teachers here in Japan: well, of course we plan to do that. I was actually hoping they could advise me on what she'll need to know so that when she comes back in a year, she can just slip right back into class. She's already doing well with kanji, I suppose she can just study them everyday in America, with a bit of help from my parents and my wife (via Skype).

So, if we're not violating any laws, that I'm going to let my daughter do this. Thank you Uco, I will check with the consulate here in Japan if they have any advice.

Thanks again!

I really see no issue with this. Having traveled between both locations many times and speaking both languages. I fail to see any regular hiccups. Most doing something similar don't have the luxury of knowing the language/city/family that they are going to.

The normal home sickness and missing mum/dad etc might kick in. But being a 8yo (or likely 9yo) by the time this happens.

I doubt her Japanese language skills will take a hit for the worse. Her English skills aren't poor being in a non-English country. And it is only a year away. I'm sure she could skye and keep her Japanese language skills updated with you back home each week etc.

The only thing as a parent I would worry about is her maturity and ability to handle this. Yes she says her wants to do this. But young kids cannot think 48 hours in advance. There could potentially be a huge emotional toll placed on her that she does not see being so young. If it was me and my kids, I'd wait until teenage years. But at worst if said situation arises, it is not difficult to get her on a airplane back home etc.

Pappyrus,

Is 9 months or so abroad enough to damage her Japanese ability (she's a native Japanese speaker, not second language)?

Well, according to my experience of looking back at myself as well as others in similar situations, it's not that easy to be "exactly" bilingual. People usually lack ability of one language as they become fluent on another, and when they start lacking ability of that other language they regain ability of the former. I also should warn you that the Japanese 3-nensei is when studies suddenly get complicated. But young kids tend to catch up especially when they have confidence which is more often seen in a girl as opposed to a boy. I'm just telling you that things don't happen the way you plan, just so that you won't be surprised later.

Since you mentioned the lack of Japanese weekend school, I'd like to tell you that when we moved to the U.S. (in 1969 when there were no Japanese weekend school buses and no Japanese kids in our school district), we brought along official Japanese school textbooks for the future years, took tsuushin-kyouiku, and my mother taught me using them.

Although there were no Japaneses kids at school, it was a time when a great number of immigrant children started coming in, and the school put us in a separate classroom only during Reading classes, and we simply read Reading textbooks out loud one by one, which was great for learning proper basic level written English. I also had an experienced Japanese-speaking tutor come to our home on a weekly basis, who was able to focus on specific English problems that I may have had.

It's also very important that the homeroom teacher as well as the school principal understands your daughter's situation. So make sure an adult from your family talks to them before she starts school.

I'm sure you're aware that it's not rare at all for children in Japan to move to the (even rural) U.S. and back, so the consulate and Jetro can really help you on that. It's just that I don't know anyone as young as her to have lived away from her parents for that long, and I assume that that's the information you're searching about.