Autonomy and Entitlement

Kenzo got a hand-delivered letter from his friend Ibuki-kun that said, "Kenzo-kun, I like you. From Ibuki." In hiragana of course.

So he decided he wanted to write a letter back.

As I was finishing up my work and starting to get dinner ready, Kenzo was doing his best to write his letter. Eri put a poster up on the wall of the hiragana characters, so Kenzo was consulting it and asking me from across the living room which characters matched certain sounds so he could put the words together. He knows how to say what he wants. Writing it out is something he is just starting to learn.

He gets frustrated easily when he can't do something he really has his mind set on doing, like writing a letter to his friend stating that he also, indeed, likes him back.

Kenzo got the first part down all by himself. He was able to write his name and Ibuki-kun's name in hiragana on his own, probably by copying utilizing his understanding of the characters he can already recognize but not quite produce himself from memory. He just needed me to help him with the "to" and "from" terms as well as the main message itself.

So I took a quick break from preparing dinner. It's mostly just microwaving anyway. I used a separate piece of paper and wrote へ on it and said put this after Ibuki-kun's name because this means "To". He copied it perfectly. Then I wrote より and told Kenzo to write this after your name because this means "From". He got a little frustrated because his よ looked like a ま though and almost gave up.

I told him it was fine and that Ibuki-kun would understand what it says. Then I wrote だいすきだよ (I like you) for Kenzo to copy into his letter and he succeeded brilliantly. 

Then he wanted one of the nice decorative letter bags that Eri has tucked somewhere but I don't know where they are and Kenzo got upset because he's six years old, impatient, and irrational. Eri set him up grandly when she got back.

Earlier Kenzo came up to my office and made his daily request for a coloring sheet. This time, to my surprise, he didn't want Cars. He wanted his favorite character from Monsters, Inc. 

I printed it out for him and he hopped back downstairs and got to work.

A little while later he came back up and said he needed tape so he could add his new coloring sheet work of art to his bunk bed gallery. I was in a meeting so I muted Zoom and told Kenzo, "Awesome possum buddy, here's the tape, off you go."

Kenzo seems to see writing in English as some sort of puzzle. With Japanese it's actually sort of easier; each character has a sound. English blending and segmenting of words is a totally different skill, and Kenzo loves it.

The thing I love the most is that he's not afraid to be wrong. 

He wrote by himself, using his rudimentary phonemic awareness, the name of his favorite character after he colored him. Mike Wazowski. He also doodled some random hiragana.

Kenzo seems to have the autonomy and entitlement to get things done in spite of adversity, which is something I have to foster. I worry about his mental resilience sometimes.