Bilingual Children

TrulyBlessed22

Hola! So, we have our 15 month visit coming up and I always have a list of questions/concerns prepped for those visits.  As we get into the post 1 year old visits I know that speaking is a hot topic so one of my questions is about teaching our DD Spanish.  DH and I are both fluent and we are trying to incorporate Spanish at home as much as possible - though it's been difficult, but we are trying.   

Anyway, she hears Spanish all day for 3 days out of the week at the in-laws and with us it's whenever we remember to make the transition to speaking Spanish - so a lot of basic words but not actual conversations.  My question to the Ped is - are we hurting her by doing this?  Should we stick to one language for now or is the going back and forth at home a problem and just let her get solely Spanish at her Grandparents? I know that the best time to teach them is starting now but I'm worried about it potentially causing a delay in speech for school.  I don't have speech concerns now as she currently has 8 easily understood words that she speaks - two of them being Spanish and she understands even more than that it Spanish and English but my big concern is when it comes time for school.  

As far as I know I have always spoken both very easily with no issues but if I'm being honest growing up my 1st language was Spanish and the English I picked up from my siblings and TV.  Maybe that's my answer? lol 

I guess I just wanted to know what everyone else is doing or has done that is bilingual.  Are you doing both together, if so - how?  Or do you have bilingual children already and how did that work?

I should note that we have several books in Spanish and we have Spanish DVD's for her that we play too.

flyliceandcoffee

no personal experience here either insomuch that i'm not bilingual by any means, but growing up, my parents did use words here and there in japanese and sometimes chinese and i never had a problem switching between languages for different words if i knew what they meant in both languages. Also, a lot of daycares do teach Spanish words and I don't think they really would be doing that if they didn't think it was harming them?

TradeMama

I was born in Mexico City to a Mexican dad and American mom. We spoke both English and Spanish at home-- I also studied both in my preschool. I was more comfortable with Spanish but could understand English fairly well if it was spoken clearly and slowly.

THEN I moved to the US (at age 6 or 7) when my parents divorced and my mom's idea to get me to speak better English was to stop speaking Spanish cold turkey. Since nobody spoke Spanish to me, I dropped it and replaced it with English. It's sad that I can't speak both fluently when that is my background.

So my advice to you is to speak both at home... your LO will speak English fine. You are doing your LO a great service by teaching him/her a second language!

TrulyBlessed22

Thank you all so much for sharing what experiences you have or have witnessed, I really appreciate it.
It's important to me that she's bilingual because so many of my friends that are have not passed that onto their children (I know it's hard being in an English speaking country) and then when those kids are older they say how they wish their parents had taught them.

@sct728‌ - glad to read your comment knowing that you work with speech :-)

LaxMOM44

I held off on speaking French because I was worried it would delay speech. c wasn't saying anything so I started speaking to her in French. h still speaks to her in English. She still isn't saying anything so I doubt the bilingual thing had anything to do with it.

TrulyBlessed22

@beaubecca‌ I hear you, I was born in 1980 and it was definitely a thing but I guess lucky for me, both my Parents mostly knew Spanish and so that's what it was at home. My Mom always says she reserves her English for people who don't know Spanish so that she doesn't "waste" what little she knows lmao.
The transition is seamless for me as well...I am fluent in speaking, reading and writing both...I can only hope our children will be the same. Thankfully now a days it's encouraged and not frowned upon.

NDarya

I'm from Russia and my H is American. So, most of the time I speak Russian to LO. If we are out and about I speak English. I've read a lot of books about raising bilingual kids and most of them say to focus on the minority language primarily because there will be no problems with the majority language. There are several methods: one parent - one language, minority language at home, etc. We chose one parent - one language, although my H can speak Russian (kinda). 

On the other note, LO understands directions in both languages but he still only says a couple words. 

caden1206

Personally, I think you should keep introducing both to her now. I thought I had learned that the best time to introduce languaged is at a young age and that they can definitely handle more than one. They apparently pick it up easier and as they develop they learn when to use it appropriately faster. I think is great so many of these babies are getting exposure to different languages. They will.have such valuable skills for the future.

I am am not big on preschool, but there is a spanish school house that does preschool.close by that I am strongly considering for Natalie. I would love for her to get such great exposure at a young age. Living in Texas it would be a great skill to have.

TrulyBlessed22

Thank you @sct728‌, great reads :-)