Chapter 1 · social responsibility
A complaint is not an insult
The last of the three responsibility articles closes Chapter 1’s foundations — with two things a nursery has to handle carefully: private information, and hard feedback.
Responsibility (c)
Protect information, resolve complaints
A nursery must handle the personal information of enrolled children appropriately, and must make the effort to resolve complaints raised by parents.
But here’s the key
“Resolve” — not “survive” or “deflect”
The guidelines don’t say handle complaints politely and move on. They say work toward an actual resolution. A complaint is data about what a family needs, and treating it as an attack to be managed — rather than information to be used — misses the entire point of this article.
In real life
The parent who was upset about a photo
A parent was uncomfortable that their child appeared in a group photo shared with other families. My first instinct was to explain why it was fine. Instead I asked what specifically worried them, listened, and changed our photo-sharing process for their child. The complaint wasn’t a problem to defend against — it was a signal telling me exactly what to fix.
A common misunderstanding
“A complaint means I did something wrong.”
“If a parent complains, my job is to defend what happened and prove I wasn’t at fault.”
“My job is to understand what they need and find a real resolution — blame isn’t the point.”
Why this matters to you
Cultural norms around raising a concern vary a lot, and a Japanese parent’s indirect complaint may look nothing like what you’re used to reading as “a complaint.” Learn to hear it in whatever form it arrives, and treat it the same way: as something to actually resolve.
Your turn
Is there feedback I’ve been treating as noise instead of information?
Go back to it this week and actually resolve it.
About Bond Japan
NPO Bond Japan
Bond Japan connects international schools so they can learn from one another and deepen a shared understanding of early childhood education and care.
