I have to admit that I tend to plan for everything. My friends tease me saying that I even have a back-up plan for my plans, and truthfully, I do. A couple months ago one of my posts included the current plan that I have in place for raising bilingual children. For me having different approaches and strategies are essential for success, and giving my children the gift of bilingualism is an important goal.
Recently I have been thinking about how I will respond if, and maybe I should say when, my children start responding to me in English. I have been very lucky so far. At three and almost five years old, my boys still exclusively use Spanish with me, and each other. I love listening to them play together in Spanish, and I am thrilled that they still seem to use Spanish so effortlessly with me. I must admit that I dread the day when this linguistic paradise comes to an end, but I do have a plan for how to deal with the situation when that day comes.
I have always planned to teach my kids about personal finance. Beyond just giving my sons an allowance, I plan to teach them some real world lessons about money too. I will teach my children about purchasing stock by using companies familiar to them such as McDonald’s or the toymaker Mattel. They will actually choose and purchase stocks with their money. I will also educate them on the importance of saving and the value of donating to charity. The secret to successfully teach children about money comes from using terms that young ones can understand, and children can comprehend far more than we give them credit for.
In the adult world, speaking another language often has financial rewards. Many times higher salaries go to bilingual individuals and this is a skill that is becoming ever more valuable in the workforce. When teaching my own children about money, the concept of the higher salary for a bilingual employee can easily be likened to a higher allowance for the use of bilingual abilities.
Fire engines and firemen, police officers and the police currently fascinate my young boys. By explaining to them that those officers and the firemen are paid extra if they speak Spanish should impress them. This real world example of the benefits of bilingualism will help my sons understand why they too will receive a higher allowance for continuing to use Spanish with mom. Higher salaries for bilingual adults and higher allowances for bilingual children and teenagers will be the real world connection.
Will this method work? I don’t know, but I can tell you, I have another plan should this strategy fail.
What do you think? Can kids be motivated to speak Spanish if they know they will be compensated for doing so?
{photo via Howard County Library System }
I believe it will work . We give our children $100 if every grade on their report card is 90 or better. Having an incentive makes them work harder towards their goal.
Interesting to see this article this morning, as this subject came up recently with our 7 year old. Although she is far from fluent, she is learning quickly and speaking exclusively in Spanish at school per her teacher. I think this is an excellent idea! You are correct that many jobs get paid extra (I get 3% more for speaking Spanish, even though I am only an intermediate level speaker at best)
I am going to use your incentive program with my daughter. I am always looking for ways to “bribe” her to practice her Spanish, and this is a great idea. Muchas gracias!
I don´t want to sound all preachy because I have definitely used candy, extra recess, and movies as a motivator in my classroom, but ideally the kids would be intrinsically motivated. I wouldn´t use this as my first choice motivation technique., but all kids are different and never say never when it comes to parenting.
I attended a character education training recently and one of the big principles was self motivation. The presenter started talking badly about motivating kids with prizes and rewards instead of teaching self motivation. I got all offended because ahem… I do have a behavior system in my class where they are moved up or down based on their behavior. If they end the day on Outstanding, then they get a sticker, and if they get ten stickers they can pick a prize (candy, coupons, stickers). I´ve really liked this behavior system because I focus a lot more on the positive and kids have the ability to fix it if they make a bad choice. Anyway I just talked to the kids about why they want to move their clips up – and told them that there weren´t going to be any prizes for getting 10 stickers anymore!! Yes we would have treats in the class, but they are not directly related to their behavior. So far….. I have not seen any changes in their behavior (they are still getting stickers for being on outstanding). So… I am hoping to focus more on intrinsic motivation.
I think in practice the allowance thing might be hard to keep up. It might be better to figure out each individual childs reasoning for maybe not responding in Spanish and work with that. It is possible that allowance might not be enough of a motivator eventually and then you would have to increase it or find something else.
Again Im not trying to be all preachy and judging!!
My son is going to a bilingual montessori preschool and that has been something that has been stressed from the beginning, that the kids don’t need motivators, that they want to do good work and perform at their potential. I personally like giving my son treats for doing well, but I’ve been working really hard to not undo what his teachers are doing at school. It is hard to decide the best methods our kids, but it is great to have a community of like-minded parents to bounce ideas around with!
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