Embracing Bilingualism: Our Toddler's Unexpected Journey

Hey fellow parents!

I thought I'd share a little story from my own life, which I'm sure many of you can relate to in this increasingly globalized world. So, my 2-year-old son has recently started to talk more, and it's been such an exciting phase for us as parents. At home, we speak our native language, Afrikaans, and his school is also Afrikaans. However, during his screen time, he watches songs and videos in English. Interestingly, he says 90% of his words in English! It seems that screen time isn't all bad, huh? But that's a discussion for another day.

Now, my husband and I find ourselves in a bit of a pickle. Initially, when our son would name objects in English, we would praise him and repeat it back. We then thought about encouraging him to speak more Afrikaans, so we tried a couple of strategies.

Our first attempt was to continue with our current setup, where our son learns Afrikaans from us and at school, and English through screen time, but making an extra effort to repeat words back to him in Afrikaans. We then considered the Opal method, where one parent speaks only one language and the other parent speaks the other. My husband volunteered to speak English, but this didn't quite work for us. As native Afrikaans speakers, we felt that it changed the dynamic and intimacy of their relationship.

We also realized that constantly correcting our son when he says a word correctly in English, instead of encouraging him, didn't seem like the right approach. So here we are, back to square one.

After some research, we've found that it's actually quite beneficial for children to be exposed to multiple languages from a young age. It can lead to cognitive advantages, improved problem-solving skills, and a greater appreciation for cultural diversity. So, we've decided to embrace this bilingual journey and continue exposing our son to both languages in a more organic way.

We're now trying a new strategy where we focus on praising and reinforcing his language skills in both English and Afrikaans, without pushing too hard in either direction. We'll also look into incorporating more Afrikaans content during his screen time to balance out the language exposure.

Of course, we're always open to new ideas and suggestions, so I wanted to reach out to all of you amazing parents out there! What strategies have worked best for you when raising bilingual children? We'd love to hear your experiences and tips.

Let's embrace this incredible journey together and watch our little ones thrive in a multilingual world!

All the best,

Miss Linky