Shamed by HV for not exposing DD to a second language

[Skedaddledaway]

I had DDs 12 months appointment yesterday. This time was better than previous times as she only managed to say something vaguely offensive 3 times during the 10 minute appointment.

However, there was one comment she made that filled me up with 'mum guilt' about not exposing DD to a second language. I live in a very multicultural area where most children are being brought learning 2 or 3 languages so seeing a child just speaking English is probably less common.

I speak good french (lived and worked in France for several years) but haven't used french for at least 4 years so am rusty! Speaking french with DD didn't feel natural compared to using my mother tongue. Now I am questioning whether that was a poor decision.

As a single mum I have a lot on my plate but I am thinking of starting to expose DD to some french.
My thoughts were:

• Turning her doll into a francophone so when ever we play with it use french.
• incorporating some simple everyday phrases into our daily routine
• reading books in french in the morning during breakfast
• listening to some nursery rhymes in french

Does this approach sound reasonable?

Are parents obliged to expose themselves to this nonsense by having outsiders check up on their child? As an evil boomer, my memory is of a quick drop in from SSAFA, the military equivalent, when I came home then the weighing at the clinic visits as and when I wanted. It seems that there are a lot of people butting into families' lives these days!

I don't know what you are talking about. There are loads of languages spoken here. It's a really diverse area?

No, no, no. Sure you can expose her to languages, but do not do it at the expense of her mother tongue. This is especially the case if you do not speak the other language at a native level (you may be good but you're rusty). Your HV needs to bugger off and not give such stupid advice.

French teacher here, I teach kids from preschool age upwards. My French is much better now than when my kids were tiny and it would've been hard work to talk French to them consistently so I didn't. They did learn French from a young age though and are better at it than most teens their age. But definitely not fluent or bilingual.

Sometimes I wish I'd done more when they were tiny and I'd always encourage any parents with a different mother tongue to use it. Kids will learn English just by being in an English speaking environment (nursery/school) even if it's never spoken at home.

OP, introducing French songs, nursery rhymes etc and using some vocab at home will still be beneficial to your little one. Thise who say wait til they're at school know nothing about language acquisition. Or how poor the primary school MFL offer is.

You are making yourself look silly now...

Ah Tower Hamlets. Do not follow the advice of HVs from Tower Hamlets. Just do your own thing, and what you feel is right. I'd also advise you move out of TH as soon as you can. All essential services are poor and you cannot raise a well functioning child in such a borough. After all, the strapline of the borough is: The worst of London in one borough.

OP never suggested not using English at all. And even if she did it would still not do any harm. Kids who start nursery or Reception with no English pick it up at lightning speed, you'd be surprised. My daughter has a friend who knew only the word 'toilet' when she started Reception. Now you would have no idea from speaking to her that English wasn't her first language.

OK but that's not how you phrased this question at all.

Your post gave the impression that a HV had made you feel inadequate and guilty and now you felt forced into trying to make your child bilingual and the response, rightly, was that it's none of the HV's business.

This comment gives the impression that you want to introduce French to your child and are asking for advice on that.

It's not surprising that you got the response you did when you asked the first question and not the second.

I think it's true that there is a lot more 'surveillance' than there ever used to be. I was quite taken aback by it and overall found the degree of monitoring more stressful than helpful. On the other hand, if one child living in difficult conditions can be discovered and helped, maybe it's a necessary thing?

Tell your HV to piss off.

In French.

But I quoted my OP, that was my point. The HV did make me feel guilty and that is the context for my question??

This is bizarre. OP, did you tell the HV that you spoke fluent french. Was she under the impression that it was your mother tongue and that you were of french heritage? It would be extremely unusual for anyone to advise, let alone shame, a parent into raising a bilingual child if the parent wasn't a native speaker or part of that heritage. I mean, lots of people speak another language to some degree but it would be rare to bring a child up speaking it if it wasn't part of their heritage or their family's mother tongue or if they didn't live in that country. It really isn't a thing.

No I didn't say I was fluent in french. She asked if I spoke another language and I said "I know some french" or words to that effect. Downplayed it more than anything because I'm embarrassed by how rusty my french is!

oh I’d be interested in how this conversation actually played out. Involving this HV saying what you claim she supposedly said in response to you supposedly saying “I know some French”….

Damn you feel some guilt? We are a trilingual household, I did very good for the first one, she is almost completely trilingual, DS? Every time he use a fancy English word I am very proud😂😂, French teacher told him his pronunciation was crappy, I am still laughing about it, 2 months to GCSE and I am desperately trying to fix that, he doesn't like that AT ALL, as for the third language DH completely gave up.

How far would you go though?

Monitoring and surveillance of how many parents because of risks to a child? It's a slippery slope all the way to Stasi.

I know. It's difficult to get the balance right. Personally I would have preferred less monitoring.

is French a family language? If so then the native speaker should speak it to your child.

I think that by not trusting the parents, by monitoring and prescribing every little thing all we will achieve is a nanny state where everybody lacks common sense because it's been monitored and regulated out of them.

OP there are a lot of people on here saying that you can't/ shouldn't teach a child your non - native language so I wanted to reassure you that you can absolutely raise a bilingual child with your second language. My second language is Spanish and my child (3.5) is fluent in both English and Spanish. This is how we have done it:

• Some of our toys only speak and understand Spanish (your doll idea is spot on)

• We have certain places/ times where we only speak Spanish (for us in the car...). Just lead by example and they will follow without even thinking. This will also help you feel more natural in speaking again - and remember it totally doesn't matter if you make some mistakes. With enough language input she'll filter out what's right and what's wrong. People make grammar mistakes all the time when speaking their native language... The fact you use your French every day means it's far better than 'rusty'.

• To help my kid feel confident in both languages, I tend to reply in whichever language she has started the conversation in - we frequently switch back and forth.

• We are lucky enough to live close to a Spanish speaking nursery where she gets input from native speakers all the time. We are also fortunate enough to be in the catchment area for a bilingual state school. I appreciate this is rare but if you live in a city then it's likely there will be opportunities to link with other people/ kids speaking your target language.

• Reading stories (both Spanish and English) and most screen time is in Spanish

• My partner doesn't speak Spanish so our family time is mainly in English. In scenarios where we are with English speaking friends, my daughter will switch to Spanish if she feels uncertain of something and she wants to communicate something to me without telling everybody (it's been especially useful when potty training!). It's our 'secret' language and it gives us a very special bond.

• Be prepared for the criticism! Especially from people with monolingual backgrounds. Personally, I received a lot of comments from the older members of my family. Especially when my child was unaware of which language she was speaking and would mix them. 'Doesn't she know how to speak proper English?' etc... Pull through it! Now my child very rarely mixes words and the people who previously criticised me think she's amazing and has acquired a brilliant skill.

Good luck!!

Thank you. A really interesting and helpful post 🙌

My thoughts were:

• Turning her doll into a francophone so when ever we play with it use french.
• incorporating some simple everyday phrases into our daily routine
• reading books in french in the morning during breakfast
• listening to some nursery rhymes in french

Does this approach sound reasonable?

None of this sounds remotely reasonable; it sounds insane. Just speak to your daughter in English.