What “futoko” means

Futoko (不登校, often translated as “school refusal” or “school non-attendance”) is an official term used by Japan’s Ministry of Education (MEXT). In its annual survey, MEXT counts a child as futoko when they are absent for 30 days or more in a school year for reasons other than illness or financial hardship. The definition covers children who do not or cannot go to school because of psychological, emotional, physical or social factors.

Two points are worth knowing. First, the word describes a situation, not a diagnosis or a character flaw. Second, many children who are struggling have not yet reached 30 days. You do not need to wait for an official label before asking for help.

How common it is

According to the MEXT survey for the 2024 school year (published in October 2025), 353,970 elementary and junior high school students were futoko: 137,704 in elementary school and 216,266 in junior high. This was the 12th year in a row that the number rose, and the highest figure on record. A further 67,782 high school students were counted as futoko.

The same survey found that 135,724 of the elementary and junior high students (38.3%) had not received consultation or guidance from specialists inside or outside school. In other words, many families are handling this without specialist support. If that is your situation now, this guide and our page on where to get help are a place to start.

Early signs to watch for

School refusal rarely starts suddenly. Many parents look back and notice a period of small signals. In Japanese, reluctance to go to school is often called ikishiburi (行き渋り). This is an everyday word, not an official term, and there is no set definition. It usually describes a child who still goes, but with increasing difficulty.

Common signs include:

• Stomach aches, headaches, nausea or tiredness on school mornings, which often ease later in the day or at weekends
• Difficulty getting up, or taking a very long time to get ready
• Asking to be picked up early, or visiting the school nurse often
• Tears or anger on Sunday evenings or before a new term
• Talking less about school or friends, or avoiding certain lessons, events or people
• Changes in sleep, appetite or interest in things they used to enjoy

Physical symptoms are real, even when they are linked to stress. If they continue, see a pediatrician to check for a physical cause. You can explain to the doctor that you are also worried about school. There is more on this in the section on mornings below.

Sometimes there is a specific cause to handle on its own: see bullying in Japanese schools, or, if your child has recently come back to Japan, returnee children struggling at a Japanese school.

For a longer checklist, see our Japanese article on signs not to missJA (a browser translator works well for it).

Should you let your child rest?

This is often the hardest decision. There is no single right answer, but it helps to know how Japanese policy sees rest. The Act on Securing Educational Opportunities (教育機会確保法, in full force since February 2017) asks national and local governments to provide information and support to futoko children and their parents, taking into account each child’s need for rest. A 2019 MEXT notice also says that, for some children, a period away from school can have positive meaning, such as rest and time to reflect. It also says plainly that there are risks, such as falling behind in study and fewer options later, so rest works best when it comes with a plan to stay connected.

Some questions that may help you decide:

• Is your child exhausted, anxious or physically unwell most school mornings?
• Has pushing them to go made things better, or worse, over the past few weeks?
• Is there something specific at school (bullying, a teacher, a class, noise, a language gap) that needs to be dealt with before they can feel safe?
• Does your child talk about wanting to disappear, or about hurting themselves? If so, seek help the same day (see the safety note below).

If the answers point to exhaustion or fear, a short, agreed period of rest is often a reasonable first step. Rest does not mean giving up. It means stopping the daily battle so that you can understand what is going on. Our Japanese guide on how parents can respondJA covers this in more depth.

Three things to do this week

How to tell the school

In most Japanese schools, parents report an absence each morning, by phone, through a school app or in the contact notebook (renraku-cho / 連絡帳). Once absences continue, it usually helps to agree a simpler routine with the homeroom teacher (tannin / 担任), for example a weekly update instead of a call every morning.

You can use English, simple Japanese, or both. If you would like help, bring a Japanese-speaking friend to meetings or ask your city office about interpretation. The phrases below are short and polite, and teachers will understand them.

Some families prefer to write a short note or letter. Our English article how to tell a Japanese school your child is absent has message templates you can copy, and our Japanese article with sample messages for telling the schoolJA has more.

Meeting the teacher: who comes, what to ask, how to record it

Once an absence goes beyond a few days, the school will usually suggest a meeting (mendan / 面談), and you can ask for one yourself. They are normally 30 to 60 minutes in a small room at school. They matter, because almost everything that follows (attendance treatment, handouts, a place inside school, referral to city services) is decided in conversations like these.

Who may be in the room

• Homeroom teacher (tannin / 担任). Your main contact, at every meeting.
• Grade head (gakunen shunin / 学年主任), head teacher (kyoto / 教頭) or the principal (kocho / 校長). The principal decides whether learning outside school counts as attendance, so it helps to have them informed.
• School counselor (sukuru kaunseraa / スクールカウンセラー), a psychology professional who visits on set days, and the school social worker (sukuru soosharu waakaa / スクールソーシャルワーカー), who knows the city’s services.
• School nurse (yogo kyoyu / 養護教諭), who often knows the child’s physical symptoms best.

Ask who will attend before agreeing a date, and ask for someone to be added if you want. Both parents, or one parent plus a friend, may come. The child does not have to be there.

Getting language help

Schools are not required to provide interpretation, and what exists differs a great deal by city. Ask early and plainly:

• The school itself, which may have an interpreter or a teacher who supports foreign children.
• The city or ward board of education (kyoiku iinkai / 教育委員会), which sometimes arranges interpreters.
• The local international association (kokusai koryu kyokai / 国際交流協会), which often has volunteer interpreters and multilingual consultation days.
• A Japanese-speaking friend. Common, and schools are used to it. Tell them in advance who is coming.

Questions you can bring

Pick four or five that match where you are now.

What the school may offer

Support differs from school to school and city to city, so treat the list below as things you can ask about, not things every school will have.

• A separate room or in-school support center (konai kyoiku shien center / 校内教育支援センター). A quieter room inside the school where a child can study without going into class. According to MEXT, 15,874 public elementary and junior high schools (58.7%) had one as of June 2025, up from 46.1% a year earlier. Time spent there generally counts as attendance.
• The school counselor (sukuru kaunseraa / スクールカウンセラー). A psychology professional who visits the school on set days and talks with children and parents. Parents can usually ask for a session on their own, without the child.
• The school nurse (yogo kyoyu / 養護教諭). Many children who find class hard can manage time in the nurse’s room first.
• Homework and handouts (purinto / プリント). Many schools will send work home, or share it through the school tablet, so your child can keep in touch with lessons at their own pace.
• Adjusted arrival. Some schools allow a child to come late, leave early, or visit after class for a short chat with the teacher.

Beyond the school, your city may run an education support center (kyoiku shien center / 教育支援センター), a free place for futoko children outside school. See our guide to education support centers.

Attendance, school records and moving up a year

The short version: in elementary and junior high school, a long absence does not normally stop a child moving up or graduating. High school works differently.

Elementary and junior high school

Japanese compulsory education is built mainly around age. A MEXT explanatory document on promotion states that although repeating a year (genkyu ryuchi / 原級留置) exists in the rules, in practice the system is operated on an age basis, and that applying strict course-completion requirements at the compulsory stage would have large negative effects on children. In everyday terms: children move up with their year group in April, and graduate from junior high with their class, even after a year of absence. What is affected is the attendance record and the detail in the school report, and those are things you can do something about.

The cumulative record and the report card

Every school keeps an official cumulative record for each child, the shido yoroku (指導要録): enrollment, attendance and academic progress. It follows the child between schools. Parents do not receive it, but you can ask what is written in it.

Two things matter. First, under the 2019 MEXT notice, time spent at a public facility such as an education support center, at an approved private facility such as a free school, or learning at home using ICT, can be recorded in the shido yoroku as attendance, if certain conditions are met. The conditions include a working relationship with the school and regular contact. The principal makes the decision. Our page on attendance and costs goes through this in detail.

Second, in August 2024 MEXT asked schools to evaluate learning that futoko children do while absent, so their effort can show in grades. The conditions: the content fits the school’s curriculum, the school and family have a working relationship, and the school follows the learning regularly, including by visits or online contact. The notice also makes clear that not every subject and observation category has to be filled in, and that a teacher can instead describe the child’s learning in the comments section. This is worth knowing, because a report card (tsuchihyo / 通知表) full of blanks upsets many children. You can ask whether comments are possible instead.

Photographs, trips and the graduation ceremony

These turn out not to be small things. A child who has not been to school for a year may still want to be in the class photo, or may dread it. Schools have more room to adapt than parents expect, but only if asked in advance. Families commonly arrange:

• An individual photograph taken on another day for the album (sotsugyo arubamu / 卒業アルバム), or a decision not to appear.
• Joining the school trip (shugaku ryoko / 修学旅行) for part of it, with a parent nearby, or not joining.
• Attending the graduation ceremony in a separate room, coming in afterwards for the certificate, or receiving it at home.

There is no national rule on any of this. Ask the homeroom teacher two or three months ahead, and ask what the school has done before.

When mornings are the problem: the medical side

Many parents describe the same picture: the child cannot get out of bed before ten, looks pale, says their head hurts, then becomes noticeably better in the afternoon. This is often read as staying up late or not trying. Sometimes it is a physical condition.

The one most often involved is orthostatic dysregulation (kiritsusei chosetsu shogai / 起立性調節障害, often abbreviated OD). It is a disorder of the body’s circulatory control on standing, most common around puberty. The Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Pediatrics lists dizziness on standing, faintness, headache, fatigue, poor appetite and difficulty getting up, typically stronger in the morning and easing in the afternoon. The society states that around 10% of junior high school students are affected, and that OD is present in roughly 30 to 40% of futoko cases. A doctor may also want to rule out anemia, thyroid problems, sleep disorders and the effects of anxiety or low mood.

Where to go, roughly in order:

• Pediatrician (shonika / 小児科). The normal first stop. Ask for a morning appointment if possible, so the doctor sees the child at their worst.
• Pediatric psychosomatic medicine (shoni shinshin / 小児心身医療) or an adolescent clinic (shishunki gairai / 思春期外来), which look at the physical and emotional sides together. Often needs a referral.
• Child and adolescent psychiatry (jido seishinka / 児童精神科). Waiting times of several months are common, so ask early.
• The city public health center (hoken center / 保健センター) or the school nurse, if you are not sure where to start.

If your child may also be autistic, ADHD, dyslexic or otherwise neurodivergent, the assessment route is different again. See neurodivergent children in Japanese schools.

Where your child can be right now

Once resting has stopped being a crisis and become a situation, the next question is where your child spends their days. There are more options than most families realize, and they are not a ladder: a child can use two at once, or move backwards.

Each has its own page: education support centers, free schools, online schools and homeschooling in Japan. If you are not sure where to look first, the learning place finder asks eight questions and suggests a starting point.

Schools for diverse learning (manabi no tayoka gakko)

One option is little known outside Japan. Manabi no tayoka gakko (学びの多様化学校) are regular schools in the legal sense, but MEXT permits them to run a special curriculum for futoko children: fewer lesson hours, more experiential and project learning, later start times at some. They were previously called futoko tokureiko (不登校特例校) and were renamed in 2023.

MEXT’s official list contains 84 schools nationwide as of April 2026, when 25 new ones opened. Most are junior high schools; there are also elementary and high schools, public and private. They exist as full schools, branch schools, classrooms attached to an existing school, and designated courses within a school.

Two honest limits. There is not one in every prefecture, so for many families this is not a real option without moving. And public ones usually admit from a defined area, with an application and an interview, so a place is not guaranteed. Our Japanese page on schools for diverse learningJA lists all of them by prefecture and works well with a browser translator.

What recovery often looks like

Every child is different, and recovery rarely moves in a straight line. Still, many parents and professionals describe a rough pattern. It is not an official framework, but it can help you see where your child is and what they may need.

For more detail on the later stages, read our Japanese article on the recovery periodJA.

What changes between elementary and junior high

A large share of futoko begins in the first year of junior high, and the reason is not mysterious: almost everything about the school day changes at once, usually alongside puberty. If your child is in grade 5 or 6, it is worth knowing what is coming.

The school report worries many parents, so be plain about it. Junior high results and attendance feed into the report (chosasho / 調査書, commonly called naishin) sent to public high schools. How much weight it carries, and how absence is treated, is set by each prefecture, not nationally. Many prefectures have admission routes intended for students who have been absent. Ask the junior high or the prefectural board of education what applies where you live, in the second year rather than the third. Our page on how Japanese schools work covers the structure in full, and correspondence high schools explains the route many futoko students take next.

Returning to school is not the only goal

In October 2019, MEXT sent a notice to schools across Japan on how to support futoko children. It states that support should not aim only at the result of the child going back to school. The aim is for children to find their own path and become independent members of society.

The notice also sets out conditions under which learning outside school, for example at a free school or through ICT-based study at home, can be counted as attendance at the school where the child is enrolled. The principal makes that decision. Our page on attendance and costs explains how this works in practice.

For many families this is a relief. Your child may go back to their school, move to another school, or learn somewhere else for a while. All of these are valid.

The rest of the family: siblings, parents and work

Almost every page about futoko is about the child. In practice a long absence reshapes the whole household, and the parts that go unattended are usually the siblings and the parents.

Brothers and sisters

Siblings react in a few common ways, and none of them are bad behavior. Some feel it is unfair that one child stays home. Some become extremely well behaved and hide their own difficulties, because the family has enough to deal with. Some are asked about it at school and do not know what to say. Younger ones are often quietly frightened. What tends to help:

• Explain plainly, in age-appropriate words: your brother is finding school very hard just now, and we are working on it with the school. Not a secret, not a tragedy.
• Agree together what they can say to friends, so they are not caught out.
• Protect some one-to-one time with each sibling that has nothing to do with the situation.
• Watch the well-behaved one. A child who stops asking for anything is not necessarily fine, and their own teacher should know if it is affecting them.

Parents

Parental exhaustion is normal and under-discussed: guilt, the sense that other families are managing, disagreement between two parents about how firm to be, the strain of being on call every morning. Foreign-national parents often carry an extra layer, doing all of this in a second language, with no family nearby and relatives abroad who do not know what futoko is. What is actually available:

• The school counselor, for you. A parent can normally book a session alone, usually free, without the child agreeing.
• Parent groups (oya no kai / 親の会). Informal meetings of parents in the same situation, run by municipalities, support centers or non-profits. Ask the city what exists locally. Most run in Japanese, but some cities hold multilingual consultation days.
• The city’s child and family consultation desk, and the child guidance center (jido sodanjo / 児童相談所) for broader family concerns. The nationwide dial 189 is toll-free.

Work

The practical crunch is the morning: a child at home means an adult at home. For school-age children, Japan’s national provisions are thinner than many parents expect. Here is what can be checked against the law.

Two honest points. School refusal is not itself among the listed reasons for child nursing-care leave, so whether it can be used depends on the circumstances and on your employer. And above grade 3 of elementary school there is no dedicated national leave, which is exactly where futoko is most common. In practice families use annual paid leave, flexible hours, remote work, a grandparent, or one parent reducing hours. Ask what your employer’s own work rules (shugyo kisoku / 就業規則) allow, since many go beyond the legal minimum.

More Japanese you can use

These go further than the basics above: asking for a meeting, for adjustments, and for language help. Polite plain forms, usable by phone, in the contact notebook or by email.

There are more templates, including full messages you can send, on our page of Japanese phrases for talking to school. If a Japanese term on a school letter is unfamiliar, try the glossary of school and education terms.

Your next steps

Here is a simple map of where to go from here, depending on what you need.

• Someone to talk to: Where to get help lists school staff, city services, doctors, parent groups and English-language phone lines.
• Your child may be neurodivergent: see neurodivergent children in Japanese schools.
• A free place to go during the day: education support centers.
• Other places to learn: free schools, online schools, homeschooling in Japan and international schools.
• High school age: correspondence high schools.
• Not sure where to start: try the learning place finder.

Frequently asked questions

Sources