How I Learned to Be Me

Bilingual situations are increasing in our society these days.

The good part is that the genes of your kids will be better than people getting married from the same culture.

Another reason for this increasing day by day is people are becoming more and more broad-minded and parents from different countries having different mother languages are a key reason for having bilingual kids.

There are many problems that the parents face in raising such kids.

However I believe there are more problems if you look at the scenario from the kid’s point of view.

Here Jinie is giving her view points to understand the situation from their POV and then we can focus on how to overcome them.

Issues with Bilingual Kids

This post is specially for those parents who understand such problems and are willing to help their kids out:

1. The confusion due to mixing of languages: There is a saying in old school books of “Jack of all trades and master of none”.
3. Well that perfectly suites this scenario of bilingual kids. They never learn 1 language perfectly. This affects the way they talk and communicate. They try to use whatever words they find is easy and can remember easily to complete their statements and this results in speech which is not worth a penny.
5. Parents should try to  focus on 1 common third language which helps not only the situation but also helps the kids to avoid more confusion.

Passive attitude: Kids start feeling discriminated by the society. Especially in the situation when mom and dad both are trying to make their kid learn their first language best. They feel they are not up to the mark. At times when they know how to read but not to write it makes them feel more inferior.

Issues with Grammar: This is one of the common problems with bilingual kids. They don’t know the exact grammar for that language. So they can never be perfect. They lack in this matter as well. Parents should try to help them and give them extra classes if needed to overcome this barrier which they are facing.

Rejection: There can be times when they become so frustrated that they give up on both languages at home and start following the language which is more common in society where they find their comfort zone. In such scenarios parents should honor them by accepting that language even at home and try to encourage them in the direction they want to proceed.

Learning and Writing: This is the biggest issue which bilingual kids will face. As we discussed above, they won’t be perfect in any language since they are learning both at the same time. So these kids might find difficulty when they have to communicate by reading or writing in that language.  For example: if they have to write a post in that language it becomes difficult for them. Some common slang language jokes which family reads out at homes, they might not understand. So parents should also help kids in such situations and try to overcome that.

Bi-cultural

I want to talk about growing up bi-culturally.

We know that everyone in this beautiful world has some perspective or some bi-cultural experience. So, today we are going to learn what it means to be bi-cultural, bilingual and mixed up in other cultures and traditions. Then we are going to discuss something about raising kids bilingually, bi-culturally, and the experiences that we have firsthand with being bi-cultural.

It is quite common these days that we are accepting all cultures and their traditions. It doesn’t matter if it is belonging to the Eastern or Western culture. I know very well that it is quite difficult to start living in a different country.

This happens because we don’t know anything about the culture and traditions which help us to understand their languages and practices. But after we start learning about their languages and the practices little by little, life improves.

It is more difficult when it comes to children who are born and brought up in a country other than their parent’s original country.

They are totally different from their parents because they only know one side of life.

But it is their parent’s duty to teach them their own original language and culture to make their life easier in the future.

If their kids are having difficulties to understand two cultures then they might need our assistance to explore both cultures and traditions. It will definitely help them in the future to get more enhancements in the practices in their own country and other countries.

American Indian culture

It is a hot requirement for us to have the experiences of living with more than one language because nowadays it is more useful to sustain a job in different countries for the growth of the companies and organization.

In USA most every single company prefers people from different regions and with a multi-culture background and who are multi-lingual.

It will help them to understand the need of people from different areas or communities.

Let’s have the example of the Hispanic people in California. These people are working in all the big multinational and multi-billion dollar companies.

It will make it easy to serve the Hispanic community and all other peoples just because they know Spanish and English as well.

The Family That Flies Together, Stays Together

This is a guest post from a graduate student in Mia’s father Bill’s weekend Marketing with Social Media class at International Technological University.

When I was young, the pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Church, Monsignor Mac had a favorite slogan: “The family that prays together, stays together.”

I thought of that slogan when I visited Mia’s blog called “How I Learned to Be Me: Growing up and parenting bi-cultural children. For her and for her Dad, I would rephrase that slogan as “The family that blogs together, stays together.”

So, I am impressed that a young woman is blogging with her Dad, and vice versa. That from a young age, she can consider that, as far as a future vocation, she could be open to any profession that he has done in the past.

So I am going to adapt Bill’s advice about parenting bilingual children, to my ideas of how to raise children whose worlds are not narrowed by their genders. Think of it as being a cousin of the book, “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.” Except my position is that both men and women should know about how Mars AND Venus operate.

1. Expose your children to both the cultures of men and of women.  A son should learn how to sew and a daughter should learn how to change a tire. Both are practical skills.

2. Make it fun for your child to learn about the cultures of men and of women. Don’t make the teachable moment in the window of opportunity seem like a boring lecture. Make it an adventure, and enjoy the journey yourself.

3. Let your children play with toys that are considered characteristic of being either “boy’s” or “girl’s” toys. Children don’t know the difference, unless they are told, and can adapt to any flavor of gift. So boys can get dolls and girls can get dump trucks.

4. Take your children to the workplace where the cultures of the other gender predominate. This meant that my son volunteered for 100 hours at the VA Hospital where I worked. My daughter went to work with my husband one day every year.

5. Mom and dad need to be informed about the cultures of men and of women, and not get caught up in the differences. I have been to parties and picnics where you would think there is a yellow “police” tape separating the men from the women. Take the lead and infiltrate the “other side.” Even if research data shows that men not only make more money than women, but they also have better health-related quality of life.

Not fair!