4-4-2016. My Dream Come True!

Hello Friends:  My Dream Come True!

Picture, if you can, a large room in a Buddhist temple. There is a TV, and two women are sitting on tatami in front of it, equipped with books, paper and pens. One of the women is the Japanese wife of the priest of the temple, and the other is an American woman who is excited over the new parenting program she has just found on a recent visit to the U.S.

That is me and my friend, Mrs. M. I had told her about AP.  A line in my diary for September 4, 1985: “Met with Mrs. M. from 10:00 to 5:30.” We would listen to a bit of the English AP tape and then she would write down the Japanese that we decided on.

As you might guess, my legs were not very happy with the tatami, and later Mrs. Matsuo   was not happy with the content of AP. She believed that the AP principles would make children too “soft” and they would not be able to meet the strict demands of the public schools. On the other hand I believed that children need a place in their Family where they feel loved and accepted in order to meet the demands of the outside world. That, sadly, ended my first effort to get AP translated—but it was not the last. . . .

In September I called some friends to make up the first group. I wrote in my diary on 9/17/85:  “Felt so happy and excited about it all that I could hardly go to sleep.” The first AP group started on 9/28/85 with eight people, mostly couples or people in intercultural marriages. AP was great for showing them a parenting model they could share. AP spread by word of mouth, and I enjoyed testing AP out with people of several nationalities during the next several months.

In one of the early groups a lovely young woman named Toshiko Nonaka came and it seemed that she and AP were a perfect fit!  You know how that turned out—she has been a perfect fit as the AP director for many years now, and with you, has helped make this dream—that many Japanese Families would find encouragement from the AP parenting skills—come true.

I am looking forward to visiting Japan soon. On May 12 some of us will get together to share and talk some more about AP’s early beginnings in Japan. It will be great to see many of you again.  Until then . . . .

     – June Seat ( APJapan Founder and Friend)