How I Learned to Be Me

Prof Bill Belew has told us on several occasions about his experience with his adorable daughter called Mia and how he is raising his daughter in bilingual and bi-cultural environment and he wrote a very interesting article about  raising kids bi-culturally, which is very useful and insightful for the parents who have the same situation of raising kids in a bi-cultural household.

With the development of globalization, increasingly families are facing this issue. Admittedly kids are naturally more able to learn a language, but it is also never easy to create the necessary condition for nurturing the kids to fit well in a bilingually, bi-cultural environment.

Does it sound familiar to you?  That even after hard-working, the kid  figured out that English was  the easier language,  the the kid found that most of the people around are speaking English, not the other language, then the kid started to speak English more often than the other language and gradually they just abandoned the other language, especially when it comes to difficult languages like Chinese.

It’s never a piece of cake to raise kids bilingually, bi-culturally but here are a few ideas of mine.

Engage the kids in activities from both cultures.

We can help to create the environment of culture and language to encourage the kids to learn by providing more activities.  TVs, Cartoons, little reading books, children songs etc  in both languages would be helpful; maybe spare relatively more time for the one that is not dominantly  for the speaking environments.  This could help foster interest and instill familiarity with the language for the kids. When the kids get older, more depth material could be provided to kids.

Treat both cultures with  equal importance.

It’s very true that sometimes one of the cultures might be devalued compared to the dominant one from the mainstream media. It’s never good to have such an impression. Family members should instill the ideas for the kids to respect and value their family identity, heritage, culture and language. The kids should be guided to know about the inspiring  virtues and history of  the culture of their origin. If possible, family can take the kids for trips to the original country giving the kids the opportunity to be exposed to the language and cultural environment.

Encouraging attitude with the kids

It’s important to let the kids understand the circumstance that they are living in, to help them to understand their situation and why they are living in bilingual and bi-cultural environment and how the two languages and cultures are different but of equal importance to them. The attitude for the family members should be encouraging, for example, praising them when the kids are making effort, every progress they are making and trying to be tolerant and  patient with the kids, listening to their needs instead of pushing  them to learn, pointing out their mistakes and avoiding being “tiger parents” . It might be moments of frustration, but  never underestimate the learning ability of your little ones.

Raising bilingual children is never easy and it requires more time, energy and money, but I believe the  rewards  of the efforts are also absolutely priceless. Dual languages, dual culture could generate double joy. It’s really wonderful for kids to learn and strive with the benefits of bilingual and bi-cultural environment, which are actually great assets that would be beneficial for the kids for a life time.

The author of the article, Yu, is an enthusiast in exploring multi-lauguges and cultures. She owns a blog called Geek Cubics, introducing all the fun gadgets, gift ideas and goodies all over the world, check more of her posts at her blog.

Raising a bi-lingual child

As a child, when I saw the movie East is East I couldn’t fully understand very well why George, the Pakistani immigrant father in England couldn’t understand his British-born children.  The family looked hopelessly dysfunctional.  The children were lost somewhere between the modern world and traditional roots, unsure of their identities and where they belong to.   Little did I know that one day I would be dealing with language and cultural issues with the arrival of my nephew.

Born in the U.S., my nephew is a pint-sized kid with open liveliness for new ideas and a curious mind.  He has endless questions and very opinionated.  Both his parents are born and brought up in India before they moved to the U.S. fifteen years ago for academic perusal   Down the years, they planned to settle in Chicago and since then they call the Windy City ‘home city’.  Even though they both speak in Hindi at home, my nephew chose to speak with them in English, ALWAYS, even as a kid!

English might be your child’s first preferred language. Don’t make a fuss over it.

Their conversation is always sprinkled with several Hindi words but I seldom see him using any of those words.  Though I knew he understood the language too well I couldn’t figure out why he hesitated.  He refused to reply back in Hindi, if spoken to.   However, things changed after his third trip to India.  There, amongst his cousins, he was confidently speaking in Hindi, replied to all questions in Hindi (to my surprise as well as my mother’s, who had heard about this issue and made an effort to speak just in English).

Tucking him in the bed few nights later, I asked him why he never spoke to me or his parents in Hindi.  In soft voice, he said, “Masi, I think I find it lot cooler to speak the language when everyone expect me to speak in English.”  I couldn’t believe my ears but things got lot more interesting when before coming back to the U.S., he took his grandparents to buy him Bollywood movies and music.

Today, he is a tween who speaks four languages – English, Hindi, Spanish & little bit of French.  He switches from one to another language in a matter of seconds.  His telephonic conversation with my mother is something I look forward to because just listening to him (taking the effort to sound very authentic and correct) brings a smile to my face.  I’ve also realized raising a bilingual child means being patient with them.  Each child is different and unique.  Some pick up the native language of their parents quickly while others get confused or feel shy speaking a language they don’t get much exposure to at home, or outside home.  Some children might not be willing to try it while others may be very proud of the fact they are multilingual or bilingual.  Whatever the case may be, the parents should never force the child to speak the language he or she are not comfortable conversing in.  It’s matter of time and level of comfort that can help them speak the language.

This is an interesting topic to post about, bi-cultural kids!

Today more and more kids are born into a bi-cultural environment with their parents being of different ethnicity or culture or kids being raised in other parts of the world.

My cousins are true examples of kids raised with 2 different cultures. Their parents, my uncle and aunt are from North India but moved to United States right after they got married. Both my cousins were born and are being raised in United states. They are now 19- and 17-year old girls.

I can certainly say that my Uncle and Aunt have done a good job in raising them bi-culturally and proving them the best of both worlds.

Providing your kids best of both worlds!

10 reasons why I think so-

1. They go to temple every weekend and practice the religion and values given by their parents.
2. They love sports, Indian girls are not into sports (except cricket if at all)
3. They love ‘Paneer tikka masala’ and ‘mac and cheese’
4. They listen to A.R Rehman, Rahat fateh Ali khan as well as Selena Gomez and J.Lo music
5. They love to visit family back home in India but only for short visits.
6. They wear bikinis and love wearing ‘salwar kameez’ also
7. They speak Hindi and English both fluently.
8. They are huge fan of James bond but love watching cheesy, romantic saga(s) of Sharukh Khan as well
9. They believe in ‘arrange’ marriages
10. They can speak English in ‘Indian accent’
11. They haven’t moved out of their parents house and won’t (they are 19 and 17 year old) until they get married.

By reading all the above you must have understood that they are a complete mix of both cultures. It’s not about which culture is better than the other. It is about teaching your kids the best of both worlds. Teaching them about their roots, so when they visit other families back home, they can mingle with them and don’t feel isolated.

Also giving them right values of the environment or the culture they are being raised in. Teaching  them the right thing will help them understand their background, genes, roots  and will also give them sense of adaptability. Teaching all the values but still giving your kids all the rights to choose the culture they want to adapt is the right thing to do.

Bi-cultural kids tend to get lost in different cultures and get confused to what they want to choose. But they will do what they see their parents doing. If the parents are firm believers in a Culture, kids will most likely follow that. If the parents speak two or three languages, kids will follow that as well. So dear parents, practice what you want your kids to learn. Your kids will follow you.