Raising Kids Bilingual-Trouble with Grandparents

I spend a lot of time in my DH country. Whilst we speak their language with them, when DS and I are conversing privately amongst ourselves, even if they're there, we speak English. General conversation for everyone to hear, obviously we switch to their language. Private conversation where the family don't need to know .... because, sometimes, my teen wants to talk without the whole family hearing, English.

Your parents are being ridiculous. As long as your kids talk to them in English, I can't see the problem.

Oh my goodness, no you are doing a wonderful thing for your children, with the language and appreciation for ‘their’ culture which is partly yours and partly your husbands. They will never lose it even if they don’t use it much as they grow older.
My husband was brought up in Scandinavia until he started school and although his parents moved here, he became an English child because he wanted to fit in with his friends. His sister very much maintained her love of her home country and as she got older used the language regularly and passed it into her children. My children obviously didn’t benefit because my husband doesn’t feel the need to maintain or use it but that was very much his choice even though his parents tried to encourage it through his childhood.
My brother married a Spanish speaker and she taught both her sons the language as young children, although now as teenagers they also show no interest.
But that knowledge hasn’t disappeared and never will even if it isn’t actively used. I would of loved to have been able to speak and understand another language from birth and was always a bit jealous that although my mum as well was brought up in another country (USA), she spoke English!!!! However, I benefited very much from her other culture and visits to the States and celebrations there and feel this helped me to appreciate that we aren’t all born White British (as currently seems to be an issue) and come from lots of different places in the world and identify as British.
Carry on as you are and explain to your parents that your children are the product of two cultures and this is something that you will promote because that is what you owe them as their parents. Not something to be ashamed of.

The majority of people in the world apeak in more than one language. There is evidence to show it's better for the brain and for learning to be multi lingual. That said, native English speakers tend to be monoglots of they can!
As PPs have said, I womder if it's a prejudice against Spanish per se, would they feel the say of your children were spealing French or German? Or some regreat over not having 'all American" grandchildren.

You say they are insecure and can be controlling, I think this is qnother example to be honest.

I would say raising children as bilingual is excellent, but would also say that speaking one language in front of someone who doesn’t speak the same language can be rude. Obviously if your Dc are very little they’re getting to grips with the different languages, but your DH, as an adult who knows your DPs don’t speak Spanish, is being rude when he speaks Spanish in front of them - albeit on a video call.

Fuck em, they should have started learning Spanish when OP and her DH got married.

Your parents are being completely unreasonable IMO. My children grew up bilingual and in the beginning were always mixing things up. Both sets of grandparents were fluent in basic kid - ‘again’, ‘climb’ ‘drink’ ‘playground’ etc etc before they turned 2 and used those words in the other language with them too if they slipped up and used the wrong one in a sentence. It was cute. This is your parents’ insecurities coming out. Eventually as you say they code switch to the person. At that point we simply responded in the common language if others were present - they get what is going on then. Then when a little older, they will learn to politely use the common language when in company even when speaking to another native person.
Personally I’d tell your parents if it bothers them that much they should take classes and learn it! My child grew up and married a partner whose native language I didn’t speak. I am learning it for the sake of my grandson and to be able to communicate with those members of his family who don’t speak English. Im not saying they ‘should’ do this but no way would I accept my kids feeling guilty for using one of their languages, like there was something shameful about it. If your parents don’t like it, they can fix themselves.

Can you point out tot your parents that, of necessity, it's going to be a fairly short-lived problem? As the children get older they will naturally change their language according to who they're dealing with, and as time goes on they're less likely to be playing in the background when you video call your parents.

In the meantime, surely it wouldn't hurt for your parents to learn Spanish - practising it with their grandchildren could be a fun thing they do together. Duolingo is quite a good free starting point, though it is angled more towards South American Spanish.

I can understand your parents perspective, they see their GCs rarely in person and when they see them on video calls they sometimes can't understand what they are saying. It must be frustrating for them.

As you say it's impossible to control which language the toddler uses, but you could make sure your DH knows when you are on a call to your parents, 'Just calling mum and dad', so he knows to speak English if he comes in. This phase won't last long so all you can do is translate, explain toddler doesn't know which language is which yet so there is nothing you can do about what they say. I'm not up with the technology, but are there automatic translation devices they could use?

I should add with AND in front of!

@justasking111 , I don't think it is bad manners. I don't speak English to someone I normally speak with in Welsh, unless non-Welsh speakers are actively part of the conversation.

What is bad manners is when the words spoken in one language are used deliberately to exclude someone.

My kids are bilingual and I insist they speak the language of the people who need to understand the conversation. It is rude to not have them speak English with their grandparents.
Code switching correctly comes eventually but they must learn. I researched and wrote about code switching in children for my Post graduate studies. They should also in my view be speaking your mother tongue with you. It is reasonable to have two (or more!) languages spoken in the home. It actually facilitates code switching development when they associate a certain language with a certain person. Additionally unless your language is native level you’ll inadvertently add in idiomatic phrases which may not be correct.

My question is whether it causes any communication issue with their English speaking grandparents. If the child is still young and started to speak then it's understandable that they may speak one language, but if they're old enough to communicate they'll naturally pick up English too. So my question was how old the youngest was.

What you are doing is fantastic and I've read if you have more than one language from young , it's easier to learn another .

Surely you know what bilingual means? It means speaking two languages. OP's children are being brought up to be fluent in English and Spanish. This is normally achieved by the OPOL system (One Parent One Language) where each parent speaks to their children in their own language until they are completely fluent in both languages.

How old is your youngest? Can they only speak Spanish? Surely they'll be able to speak English.

Your parents are being ridiculous - be firm with them. Monolingual Americans and Brits often have a ridiculously narrow-minded and weirdly paranoid attitude to anyone daring to speak a different language in their presence. As if it's rude, or something. It's not rude, it's just... speaking your own language. Briefly addressing someone in that language when you are specifically talking to them is not rude or excluding to others.

In other countries in Europe it's normal to be surrounded by people speaking other languages to each other and nobody bats an eyelid. I suppose we are a small island and therefore insular. Americans don't really have that excuse though.

I strongly disagree. It’s extremely rude. I’ve lived abroad with other native English speakers and wouldn’t have dreamed have speaking English to them in front of our local friends, even at the start when our foreign language still quite stilted.

Speaking a foreign language in front of non speakers is the same as whispering in front of them - just rude.

I also had a friend who spoke a foreign language at home, and her sister would often come out with us and they would speak together exclusively in their native language. They were also native level English speakers as they’ve lived here all their lives. We stopped hanging around with them as it was just awkward listening to them talk and not being able to join in, even if they were talking about boring admin stuff it was just rude and uncomfortable.

I think for the smaller kids it’s fine because you need to keep reinforcing the language, but once they learn to code switch part of the manners is that they speak English in front of English family.

I think your parents are being unreasonable and massively over-reacting.
You need to shut this down in some of the ways suggested on here.
I personally find video calls quite intrusive as they tend to end up affecting or involving everyone in the house, unlike a 1:1 phone call. But if I were your husband and being expected to switch from my native mother-tongue in this way in my own home (for a call I wasn’t even part of), I’d be pretty pissed off.

I agree with this. Also, in 10, 20 years time you will wonder why you worried about this.

I would say raising children as bilingual is excellent, but would also say that speaking one language in front of someone who doesn’t speak the same language can be rude. Obviously if your Dc are very little they’re getting to grips with the different languages, but your DH, as an adult who knows your DPs don’t speak Spanish, is being rude when he speaks Spanish in front of them - albeit on a video call. Your parents will have limited time to speak to their grandchildren as they live abroad - they may well be wondering what your DH is saying to the kids whilst on the call. Your DPs could see it as he’s potentially talking about them rudely whilst on the call. I don’t think I’d like it.
For context, I teach in a school where most of the children are bilingual and many parents don’t speak English. We do have many staff who are also bilingual and it’s hilarious when these staff call out a child or parent for something inappropriate they have said in their home language about another child or member of staff. For that reason, children are expected to speak English in school - it’s amazing how quickly a 5 yer old Punjabi speaker soon learns English when they’re immersed in the language!

Raising children bilingual gives them something valuable for life. I am bilingual and raised in an English speaking country. One thing my parents did teach me though is that it is rude to speak in a different language in front of people who don't understand it. I do agree with that as I know how it feels when people shut you out this way (intentionally or not).

If your parents mind so much, tell them to learn some Spanish :)

I met a German lady on holiday who’s never met her grandkids, who were born and live in South America. It was clearly a real source of pain for her, though she was stoic about it. She’s learnt Spanish to talk to them on Skype, as they don’t speak German or English. She was a wonderful woman.

You are giving your children a great opportunity. Your parents are being very self centred and instead of supporting learning in their grandchildren are focussing on their own feelings.

Just let them feel how they feel and don’t fix it for them. Some people really struggle to see outside of their own emotions and experiences, we all have them in our lives and have difficulty managing them but they do have to be managed.

You’ve identified the issue, I.e. your parents are insecure and controlling, so they won’t support anything they feel they can’t be part of, even if it’s beneficial for the children. Of course they could be part of it by asking the children to repeat what they said and learning a few words to encourage them, but that’s not going to happen so perhaps you can take control of the situation by raising the matter yourself when your children aren’t around to let your parents know they will continue to hear Spanish as it’s a family language and that’s how it is. There’s little point in trying to tell them you’re not intentionally leaving them out, in fact, it’s probably best to steer away from the gaslighting conversation.

On a more positive note, your children will thank you for what you’re doing!

I think your parents are completely unreasonable. My sister is in a similar situation to you - her husband is Argentinian and she speaks fluent Spanish so their 4yo daughter is growing up bilingual. We see them a lot and occasionally they will speak Spanish between themselves because it is the language of their house. My niece finds it funny when I don’t understand something she does and then she teaches me a bit - I think that’s great!

I think you can engage with arguing and confrontation or you can ignore as much as possible. The gps are unlikely to change so it just has to be worked around. When they start complaining, end the call.