There are two public dual language immersion elementary schools in my county, and there’s one school that offers everyday foreign language lessons, though it’s not an immersive setting. We applied for two of the three total options for next school year, when my son starts kindergarten, and just received word that he was not selected for either. We could choose to stay on the waiting list and wait for several months to have an official answer about that, but that doesn’t make it too easy to plan where we will send my stepdaughters to school (they are also at the mercy of magnet program decisions and the location of their siblings’ schools).
Of late, I have admitted to feeling that I’m slacking in the bilingual parenting arena because my son gets most of his Spanish input at his father’s house. I was hoping to at least be able to provide more support for his bilingualism by sending him to a school that emphasizes its importance, but it looks like he will have the standard school experience, at least for now.
Honestly, I’m perfectly fine with that, and even a little relieved. The more I step back from my attachment to my son, I see him as a boy that will grow into a capable man who, like all other adults, will ultimately choose if or how he wants Spanish to factor into his life. There is not necessarily a cause-effect relationship between going to a dual language school, or living in a bilingual family for that matter, and becoming a truly bilingual adult. Sure, there is a correlation, but none of us knows if our decisions directly make our kids into who they are.
I look at all my friends who were raised by parents that adamantly focused on one value or endeavor, such as a religion or a culturally derived belief. Those are the same friends who have deviated the most from the way they were raised. The more fanatical the parents were, the more curious the kids became about other ways to live. Granted, I haven’t done any formal experiments, but I have a hunch that this association is not imagined.
While I believe in bilingualism as one of the greatest gifts we can give our children, I think this same relationship may apply. We can promote the second language, model cultural acceptance, and fill their bookshelves with Spanish libros, but we certainly cannot guarantee the outcome. Some of us will be excited to see our kids gladly using Spanish every day in the future, while others may be a bit disappointed if they choose to steer away from it. Our efforts are not in vain, but those efforts need to have limits. For me, the limit is the waiting list.
There is a clear difference between exposing our kids to the things that are important to us and completely hooking our identity to their achievements. As hard as it is, I’m going to give up the fight for now and see where this random school decision will take our family. I need to follow my own instincts and not try to force Spanish into my son’s school life if it will create more stress for everyone. I’d rather stick to our regular goofing off in Spanish and letting his stepsisters read him Spanish stories for now. I never want to lose sight of my favorite parts of bilingualism – like being able to find humor in flawed translations. Little treasures like that are more valuable than any Spanish homework will ever be.
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I think you’re right, Chelsea.
I work with and among a lot of bilingual/trilingual/multilingual people, and even generations of the same families. In our industry it is quite normal that people have two passports (even three sometimes!). Some people have developed their skills in their secondary language, as teenagers and beyond, to the point of eventually as adults going to live in their parents’ home country and nobody there figuring out they weren’t natives unless they were told. Others honestly seem to avoid using their parents’ language even when they could help out a person on the other end of a phone call struggling to use English. There can be a large variation even between siblings quite close in age. So you have to figure their personality and their own personal motivations as adults are very important.
I say the parents’ ATTITUDE toward bilingualism is the central most important factor in holding onto that minority language. It’s so, so, so much easier for a person to develop a language their parents have given them. The older the kids can get to while keeping some hold on this language, the better. I also get to know many people who are children of immigrants and mostly understand their parents’ language but really speak only English, and when I ask them they all have told me their parents just didn’t put up much of a fight at all about allowing more and more English-speaking in the home, or even pushed English-only. How can the child avoid understanding that to mean the parents’ language wasn’t valuable? The earlier the age when the parents gave up on it, the harder it is for the kids to ever catch up on that language later. No, never say never, because you can become fluent in a language starting from zero, if you want, and I’m living proof. But It’s so, so much harder…
You have really hit the nail on the head by understanding that if the second language becomes a source of stress and bad feelings for the child, that pushes them away from it. All the more reason to make sure we don’t get take all the fun out of it for them.
The only possibilites are to a.) figure out how to eliminate the stressfulness of it, or b.) let the language go. I’m quite sure there isn’t any one-size-fits-all right way of doing it and it doesn’t sound to me that you’re just letting it go AT ALL! As you say we all have limits. Don’t forget how precious a gift to the child your attitude is. You’re trying and I promise that is what he will understand.
Thanks, Beth. Attitude is certainly key, and when I feel myself getting frustrated and feeling inadequate about Spanish in our house, the kids start to feel the same. Luckily, we live in a community in which the Spanish language seems to be in the air we breathe…we don’t even have to eavesdrop to hear it every single day in public. Sometimes I forget that I’m not the only one responsible for his absorption of Spanish!
Just stay positive like you are doing!
My stepson is in the dual-language school this year now, along with my littlest one, but my stepson was not fortunate as his mom chose to use broken/limited English with him instead of Spanish. So his Spanish is getting stronger now, but it’s slow going as he’s already 9. It is impossible to stay in Spanish with him at home as he doesn’t even really understand a lot. His spoken English is another challenge, but he understands it mostly so if I want something done I repeat twice in Spanish and then again in English — excrutiating. A 9-year-old boy maybe isn’t particularly interested in how a vacuum cleaner upholstery attachment works in the first place.
Then my littlest one, after starting real school fir the first time and speaking a lot of Spanish at school, seemed to suddenly develop a very strong emotional need for me to be Mommy and not Mami at times. He’s always protested me using Spanish toward him because I only started doing it a LOT when he was already almost 2, and I’ve always held firm, but now this is on a whole other level. He’s a totally mellow kid and this was suddenly giving him conniptions. So I indulge him a bit because I can see this is just a thing right now, wrapped up in getting big so fast / going to real school.
And I’m trying to help them with their homework. He’s coming from another school that was way behind the level where the new school is working at, so he doesn’t get the homework. My 4th-grade math is rusty, and I never learned it in Spanish. I often go into another room, translate for myself into English, get the answer and write it down, then go back in to translate it back & explain how to do it. Even the little one in pre-K has words on his homework I have no idea about and aren’t in my dictionaries.
Meanwhile I am in Houston traffic an extra 90+ minutes every day in order to transport my stepson as his dad cannot due to his work schedule.
So dual-language schooling isn’t the magic bullet. In fact it brings its own challenges. It’s the right choice for us but we’re lucky to have the option 5 minutes from our house (even though it’s not that close to my stepkids’ mom’s house, at least we can make a pit stop at our house on the way) & we would advocate for this being more of an option for more free public schools everywhere all over in every town — the research is very clear how this is more cost-effective for the school district and especially has wonderful outcomes for at-risk students, not just academically but socially too. But it’s not the right choice for family or every situation at every time, particularly when you have to balance all the siblings and parents who cannot wrinkle their nose and be transported like a tv witch!
Chelsea, I SO admire your outlook on this and also agree with you. There’s actually only so much we can control in our children’s lives, and this turns out to be one of them. That’s why we advocate so much for parents giving kids as much input as possible in the target language the first years of their lives. Not only because their brain is absorbing it all at that time, but also because it’s just “easier.” It’s really up to us and they can’t refuse it.
I will cross my fingers for your waiting list (it DOES happen), but also know that whatever happens is the best for you and our family and the love for the language will take him far.
Thanks for the support, Ana. Everything we’ve talked about and all the expert advice from SpanglishBaby has really proven to be true, since I can see that at the very least, Isaías has a beautiful native accent (one that I can never hope to produce in my own speech). Exposure to the sounds of the language, the culture, the food, and the music will surely factor into his life somehow no matter what language his schooling happens to be in.
Chelsea, I am sorry to hear your son didn’t make it to the immersion programs. Hang in there with with the waiting list, I suggest you keep checking in and calling the schools because spaces DO open. For instance in my son’s class there have been MANY kids who have left the program from one reason or another. It is very possible that you can get in! Mucha suerte
Xochitl
I wouldn’t lose hope. I was in the same situation when my son was going to start Kindergarten. I got the dreaded “no” from both dual immersion schools near my home. Fortunately, I had another option which was a significant distance and not the ideal situation. This experience solidified my determination to get my son into a dual immersion program. He did get into one of the best “lottery only” schools in the area but no dual immersion program. I decided that it was worth the drive and the extra hassle and enrolled him in the only other dual immersion program around. This was in March prior to the start of Kindergarten. We were called off of the waiting list about two months later to our school of choice. My son is now in the third grade and he is reading and writing above grade level in both English and Spanish. My husband and I don’t speak Spanish (although nearly four years of helping with homework has given me quite a vocabulary). I wouldn’t quit looking for options and I wouldn’t quit hounding the two schools about their wait lists and your number on the list. Sometimes it seems that the parents who keep calling and showing up end up in the school eventually. They may tell you that it doesn’t work this way but I have my doubts. They want supportive parents. At the dual immersion schools near me, it becomes more and more difficult to replace kids who move as the kids get older because those who come in really have to have some Spanish speaking ability in order to adapt to a very challenging environment. I have seen kids enter the school up to third grade but those are the kids like your son, they already speak Spanish. If it comes down to transferring after starting at another school, do it. Don’t get emotional about the ties to the current school. Get your kid in to a dual immersion school, don’t give up! I see my Spanish speaking friends who have chosen to place their kids in English only schools, attempting literacy in the second language is so difficult without support daily from the school. It is the best thing I have ever done for my kid. Best of luck.
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