Rock and a Hard Place
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Rock and a Hard Place
| Thu, 11-20-2003 - 10:45am |
There's something on this board that has been bothering me, and I hope I can articulate it.
| Thu, 11-20-2003 - 10:45am |
There's something on this board that has been bothering me, and I hope I can articulate it.
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You know, bad things happen to good parents.
PumpkinAngel
I know a lot of bi and tri-lingual families and the pattern is pretty clear: children who have at least a couple of years at home with complete exposure to the home language are more likely to continue to speak that language on an active basis later on. Every family I know of whose child started ft dc between age 0 and 2 have ended with passive bilinguals, the only exceptions I know of are people who hired nannies who spoke the home language (not a possibility for many considering the language restrictions put on aupairs in many countries). Many many children, even with that complete exposure, tend to get more passive as they spend more time in a local language dc or school. The longer the child is mainly exposed to the home languages the more likely it is that that child will be an active and balanced bilingual later on in the school years. The fact that dh has never been a ft SAHP with the kids has directly impacted the children's language abilities: English is by far the strongest of the home languages, German is much weaker (though they understand very well) and they usually mix in a lot of English or Swedish with German. We now schedule 2-3 weeks every year where dh is home with the kids ft and I work. Those weeks of nearly exclusive exposure to German help a lot, but it doesn't make up for the differences completely.
Being at home ft with the kids in the very early years meant that they had a chance to really focus on their English skills, it also meant that ds and dd spent 2.5 years speaking exclusively English with each other (had they been in dc together they would have ended up speaking Swedish with each other exclusively, I have seen no exceptions to this trend). They still speak exclusively English with each other because of the pattern set for them early one. It also gave me the time I needed to get involved in the English-speaking and German-speaking (I am fluent in German) communities and help foster friendships with other children who speak English or German. To this day, the children have friends from the German-speaking community with whom they still speak German, even though all the children are now fluent in Swedish. The end result is that both of the kids are basically actively fluent in all three languages and ds can read above grade level in all three languages as well. Just for the purpose of maintaining family ties, this time at home was worth more than any money I could have made during those years. But being actively trilingual will be, imo, an educational asset for them as well that more than makes up for a somewhat lower SES in those early years. If SES is about parental education levels and the educational opportunities a parent can provide as well as pure money, then any parent who can provide some kind of unusual or different education at home may be well making the best choice by SAH for some time.
Whew! That got way too long and probably doesn't make any sense at all...sorry about that!
Laura
I found an Australian study that supports this observation (please note the table at the bottom): http://www.aifs.org.au/institute/pubs/fm1/fm36eg.html
I agree with you about the reading issue, but one point I need to make about your post.
eileen
eileen
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