Fine line between neglect and independence for Japanese kids english.kyodonews.net

The Japanese word for such children, "hochigo" (literally, left-alone child) even came into the lexicon from around 2010.
Japan is considered safe, a country where kids are allowed from a very early age to be independent.
Japanese elementary school children as early as first graders, for example, can be seen walking home from school or riding busy trains alone -- something almost unheard of in other parts of the world.
A characteristic of parents of hochigo is they have little interest in what their kids are doing after school, experts say.
What is obvious is that help must be made available to parents whose kids are being neglected, Fukaya said.