Bringing up kids bilingual

[Tiwaz]

juu ihan aeto savo sitä viännettään vaek ei olla ihan yhtä vualeita kun nuapurin emäntä. Näin se muailmaa vuan kasvoo, vae mitä?

Noo, voip olla jotta sinul on pikkusen jottai korostusta. Mutta ei sitä huomoo aina ajatella ennenku näkköö nuaman ja joku napsahtaa.

Miul ol ruottissa opettaja joka ol kotosin tuolta rannikon suunnalta. En tienny sitä alussa, mutta aina ol outo tunne että tädin puheessa ol joku outo nuotti. No, myöhemmi selvis sekkii. Ei puhe ollu mitekää erikoisempoo, mutta joku iha pikkune outous siitä jäi vaivoomaan.

Ja puhelimes taitaa olla vikana se, että se kummasti tahtoo latistoo puhetta että iha pikkune korostus jiäp kuulemata.

[ajdias]

A question for those of you who are separated from the other parent: have you had trouble convincing him or her in allowing the children to attend the second language classes provided by the school system? Have you heard of any objection to this that you'd qualify as reasonable?

In my case the kids were not allowed to attend "because" the elder had a bad experience two years ago with a native teacher from south America and, at the time of the classes (2h every Tuesday), they are not with me, so supposedly "there's nothing I can do" (sic).
However, this year, classes are with a (qualified) Finnish teacher and the class group is much smaller. In October I talked the elder into giving it a try for a few weeks but the mother didn't allow it, for some unspecified reason.
I will try to convince the mother again this week, any feedback would be very much welcome.

[littlefrank]

Had a problem a few months back about my daughter taking English has a second language at school, ex wanted her to learn Swedish, I argued that it would boost her confidence at school being in a class where she had an advantage of prior knowledge, whereas her knowledge of Swedish is zilch. However I did not make an issue of it, especially in front of our daughter. But I did mention it at our parent/teacher meeting and to the family councillor they both expressed surprise, so I had one final talk with my ex and now my daughter is going to learn English has a second language.

I did not make an issue of it because our daughter is fairly fluent in English, she is now taking an interest in learning to read but I do not force her, it is different if you see your child every day, but I see my daughter a few days a month so I think it's better that she goes at her own pace while she's with me, I do not want our brief visits to turn into a second school session. If my ex had not agreed in the end, I would not have been too concerned, Eili would have learned to read and write in English eventually and she would have learnt another language to.

[ajdias]

Good that you sorted it out. In my case me, a close friend and friends I visit with them are the only language sources they have. I have at times problem getting them to answer back because of their problem expressing themselves, nevertheless I stick to my language with them. I don't expect the two hour a week to make a miracle but it would probably be helpfull the shared experience with other kids that have similar backgrounds.

[elisahelsinki]

Personally, I was brought up in a bilingual environment (both of my parents native Americans who speak, write, and read in the English language fluently) However, my mother was brought up in a Spanish speaking home so she spoke both English & Spanish to me at home, I found it did become a bit difficult to keep up with my Spanish as in school all we studied and heard all day was English, now that I am older it is a bit harder to go back and learn more than just conversational Spanish as languages tend to be easier to learn as a child. However, I do remember my conversational Spanish and thats usually enough for me to get by in different parts of the world where Spanish is spoken. Either way, I do think it is good practice to at least try and keep up with speaking the different languages (especially because in the world English is a highly valuable language to know not that other languages aren't highly valuable but English is spoken & understood in a lot of parts of the world where other languages aren't). Also, I have plenty of friends who are raising their children in a bilingual atmosphere & they are taking to it just fine. It's better to continue trying than to pull the plug on the teaching at such an age where it is easier to retain information when it comes to spoken words.

[RA]

Ajdias, don't know what sort of an arrangement you have with your ex, but if you're also a custodian doesn't your position on the language issue also hold weight? It just seems a shame to deny the kids the gift of a second language and culture Anyhow, I'd just stick to the language at the times you meet the kids. Hope all goes well with convincing their mother.

[ajdias]

That's what I heard from social workers, RA. Yes, I am a custodian too and these and other things should be agreed by the parents.
I just can not conceive why would someone refuse her kids the extra education other than the personal matters (that exist but should not get on the way), and that's why I asked. The kids must travel 2 km by tram but they already do similar traveling and I've offered to take them.

[magenta22]

I want my children to be able to speak both Finnish and English.

I can study with them

[brossitos]

what about trilingual toddlers???

My son has spanish (I am Argentinian) & German (father is German) at home and Finnish in day care... none of us speaks Finnish and we will leave finland in 2 years.

How to help him develop his languages?? he is clearly behind and I am afraid we are not doing any good with 3 languages at a time... but he loves being with kids and I do some freelance work so he needs to go to Kindergarten. We live near Hyvinkää so it is not possible to attend the spanish kinder in Helsinki.

Any suggestions? do I need to seek professional help? if so, which specialty?

Thanks!

[Shinlan2]

Usually it is suggested that each parent only speaks its own language to the kids. It is normal that bi/trilingual kids start speaking later, there is nothing to worry about that. I think real problems may start to arise when they go to school and they might not understand perfectly the teaching language. Then you might need professional help. If you are leaving Finland in 2 years your baby wont remember Finnish at all if he is under about 6 years. It is absolutely not harmful to grow up in bi/trilingual environment, actually it will just make learning foreign languages easier later on.

[zlingen]

As with most here, we do as you describe. I speak english, my wife finnish, english between us. Language development also has depended strongly on the child in question. You'd be hard pressed to hear an accent from my 14 yo daughter, but she's always been gifted with languages and reads voraciously in both languages. My 9 yo son, on the other hand, makes tons of mistakes that I have given up on correcting consistently anymore. I'm counting on school English starting this year to help a bit. I made him start reading in English this summer and he's actually liked that pretty well. Of course, he pretty much only reads Aku Ankka, so getting him to read a real book was a success in and of itself!

I would never let them speak Finnish to me, or let's say that they could speak it if they liked, but I refused to understand (unless it was some sort of emergency). As my Finnish has improved over the years, it could be that their belief in my lack of understanding has affected the necessity of their learning English to speak to me. So that might contribute to my son's poorer English. We just had another boy a year ago, so I'm curious to see how it goes with him.

It's also worth noting that it doesn't pay to get too uptight about it all. The more I pushed my son to fix his grammar, the more worried he became about speaking to me. My daughter responded much better to grammatical correction. Again, different kids require different "methods". It's ok to help your kids to speak, but probably not ok to push too hard. It will come with time! As my wife says (paraphrased), it's better that they like you so much that they really want to talk to you.

Peter, Lieto.