The Parenting Thread

[MayzaPrime]

I have 3 boys and 1 girl

5,4,3 and 1 in that order

[iamirondude]

i only just noticed this thread. i've got 8 kids.. 5 boys and 3 girls. the eldest is 18 and the youngest is 3.

[GoktimusPrime]

A few months ago my daughter participated in a survey at her preschool involving multilingual children from a target language group. In the pre-survey information form we were asked to fill out, one of the questions asked what generation our child is, and there were two tick boxes that said "1st Generation" and "2nd Generation." So I drew another box and wrote "3rd Generation" next to it before ticking it. Somewhat interesting that the PhD students running this survey didn't think that they would draw any multilingual kids from beyond 2nd generation.

[Megatran]

On the weekend my 5 year old niece asked if big tits (her words) was important. Not having children of our own yet and with the wife out doing the grocery shopping, I kinda didn't really know how to respond. So I said to her that it's not nice to make fun of people with big teeth ...... hoping to change the subject. But she reverted the conversation back to big tits (again her words). So I began to tell her the story (analogy) of when her younger brother, herself & I baked a chocolate cake about a month ago. We didn't have any chocolate icing on the cake but it tasted just as good. Having 'icing on the cake' does not make it better, nor does a cake without icing detract from the wonderful taste.

To all you parents out there, how would you have handled the situation?

(By the way, I did correct her on the use of the word tits).

[Bartrim]

On the weekend my 5 year old niece asked if big tits (her words) was important. Not having children of our own yet and with the wife out doing the grocery shopping, I kinda didn't really know how to respond. So I said to her that it's not nice to make fun of people with big teeth ...... hoping to change the subject. But she reverted the conversation back to big tits (again her words). So I began to tell her the story (analogy) of when her younger brother, herself & I baked a chocolate cake about a month ago. We didn't have any chocolate icing on the cake but it tasted just as good. Having 'icing on the cake' does not make it better, nor does a cake without icing detract from the wonderful taste.

To all you parents out there, how would you have handled the situation?

(By the way, I did correct her on the use of the word tits).

Don't know... I have boys. Thank God lol.

[Gofigure]

Taken back by the language.....from a 5 year old

Saddens and disappoints, even just the use of the word. The question is even more of a worry at that age.

Speechless.....but also glad to have 2 boys!

[GoktimusPrime]

I find it utterly bizarre that a 5 year old would even think about such things! You were right to correct her on the inappropriate use of that word, Megatran. I would probably answer the question with, "I don't know," and then distract her attention by moving onto another subject straight away.
e.g. "I don't know. Hey, did you know that the next Transformers movie is going to have Dinobots in it?"

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Speaking of language in an entirely different manner, since our daughter started school this year I've been increasingly meeting a whole lot of other parents of similar age children; at school and at the two community language schools that she attends. Since then I've come across a number of parents who want their children to be multilingual but:
1/ allow their children to speak to them in English instead of the target language, and/or...
2/ allow themselves to speak to the children in English instead of the target language
3/ expect community language schools to be able to teach the target language(s) without it being spoken at home

I'm not a fan of this method, because that's what my parents did with me and it utterly failed, and as a result I'm incapable to speaking their target language (such as it were), and many of my cousins are also incapable because their parents did the same thing. I mentioned this to at least one couple, and told them that IMHO sending kids to community language schools is a waste of time and money if you're not going to also speak the language at home.

I have parents come and express their concern about this, and I tell them about the une personne une langue method that my wife and I use consistently which we use to maintain our daughter's multilingualism. I've heard a myriad of various excuses as to why their child(ren) speak English at home... but honestly, it's nothing anything that my wife and I don't or haven't already faced. We just stick to our guns and remain consistent.

Excuses include:
> Being busy. Yeah, everyone's busy. I don't understand how speaking in English makes people less busy than in the target language.
> Children behaving badly when being elicited to speak in the target language. Yeah, that happens. My daughter did it too when she was about 1~2 years old. So what do you do when your child refuses to follow any other household or family rule? That's right, you enforce it. And even monolingual families have language rules, e.g. not giving a child what s/he wants unless s/he says "please" and "thank you." You do the same thing, only expanding it to using the target language(s). When my daughter was a toddler, she would demand for water in English. Cry, scream etc. I would repeatedly tell her that she'll only get the water when she asked for it in the target language. And yeah, she'd start screaming louder, and I'd just repeat the rule - over and over and over and over and over again (calmly but firmly). And eventually she would ask for water in the target language and she'd finally get a drink! Sure, it drove me absolutely mental at the time, but I stuck to my guns and it eventually worked.