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?

My friend spoke in her native language to their child while at home .However they never spoke a word ! I would not worry .Tell HV you dont feel able to do this ATM and leave it like that

Actually it's the opposite. It's one of the most deprived areas in London.

She's talking absolute 💩

Where do you live? I'm all for children learning a second/third language but it would have to be of some benefit - there's little point in them learning French if their friends or community are speaking Polish or Urdu or Mandarin!
It was a bizarre thing for the health visitor to say without them giving some context. As someone else said, just nod and smile!

I had a couple of awful visits from health visitors and looking back I should have asked to leave.

I also know a girl who is a health visitor and she is as mad as a box of frogs. She is very outspoken, and loud and I would hate to meet her as a health visitor. I would take zero notice of anything she said

If you live in a multicultural area then there will be children who don't speak English at all and she is telling them the same thing - to learn another language namely English. This is so she can be seen as treating all children and families equally.

@Skedaddledaway im bilingual as in French is my mother tongue. I spoke French the dcs and it was hard work. Teaching a child another language isn’t easy. And even though I’m not questioning your grammar etc.. I’m pretty sure your accent will show you’re British first. Which imo defeats the object.

Now I’d love to know. Are you in Britain?
Because if you are, then the ‘dint worry you’ll go to nursery soon’ is just …. Bonkers. They’re not going to teach your dc to speak another language there!

That's crazy.

Unless at least one parent speaks the second language, there's no point.

Absolutely, health professionals do carry a level of power as most people listen to them. It's their fault for giving you the wrong info, not your fault for listening.

That's why it's do important to give accurate information, and check it's been understood in the way it was meant. In my early days as a health professional I just assumed that because I understood what i was saying, then my patients would. But people hear things in different ways, so now I always try to check understanding to avoid confusion

That’s completely different.
Those children will learn the language of the country Theyre living in. Not a random language they have no connexion with!

Your health visitor is being utterly ridiculous. In a single language speaking home there is absolutely no need to be making sure your one year old is exposed to a second language. They will learn some in school and if they have a special interest they can take it forward later on in secondary school and further education.

How odd, you'd think she'd have other things to keep her busy! I would either request a different HV or not bother continuing to go

D be reporting her for both of those comments. She sounds absolutely batshit.

I had severe PND, if I had met a health professional like her who had shamed me in such a way, I would probably have followed through on my self hating, suicidal thoughts at that time. She could do serious harm to someone struggling .

Gosh! I’m not surprised that anxiety so high among us women if we deal with this from the very beginning. It’s absolutely weird advice and so wrong. I think you have to think carefully about all advices she gave to you as she doesn’t sound competent and professional.
Could you decline these meetings? I would follow an easy route- just say you are busy, rather then complaining, start a Mother and baby group and focus on that.

WTAF. That’s ridiculous. While you’re at it you should also be exposing the baby to classical music played by yourself on several instruments, reading aloud to her from Dostoevsky and Baudelaire and making sure she’s eating foods from all around the world cooked painstakingly from scratch. I’m sure the health visitor did all of that with her own children. Silly woman can get in the sea.

Absolute nonsense, I'd probably be complaining about your HV tbh. She sounds like she's massively overstepping with her opinons.
There's no benefit to a child learning a language that they have no use for, even if now is the easiest time for them to learn it.
FWIW its actually incredibly difficult to teach a child to be bilingual even if you have a native speaker at home because they are surrounded by English so will default to that often. We are trying to raise my daughter bilingual but she's at nursery and our family speak English to her, so she only gets a fraction of her time being spoken to in my husbands native language. She understands but trying to get her to speak back in that language is almost impossible because she knows that we understand english too and its more natural for her.

Report this horrible woman. What a dreadful thing to say.

Learn the French for the old mumsnet saying ‘fuck the fuck off and when you get there, fuck off some more’ and say it to the HV.

I have a linguistics degree.

It is true that babies/ young children absorb languages quickly and more easily than adults.

However, there is absolutely no point in trying to teach a language 'just because', if the child is never going to use that language in their day to day life, or has no reason to learn it.

I honestly think your HV is a bit nuts to guilt you over this if you have no particular connection to another country/ reason to teach another language. It would be different if the child had relatives in France. But trying to teach a baby French for the sake of it is pointless. Especially when you are not particularly qualified to teach it. You don't speak it yourself. Why would your child?

By the time they are 10, 15, 18 - they will be speaking the language(s) which are relevant to their life, not a random language their mum tried to teach them when they were a baby.

Ignore your HV on this one.

Wtf? You should report her.

It is a shame when kids don't get to learn their parents first language. But expecting parents to just randomly talking their kids in another language that is not anybodys first language/home language is weird af.

Gosh, I once spoke pretty fluent French but haven't used it in a long while, and fairly passable Spanish which I've used/ taught more recently.

Honestly it never occurred to me to speak to my daughter in anything other than our native language and the one that comes more naturally to us in our home. I do play nursery rhymes and songs in Spanish occasionally, the ones I used when I was teaching, and we have a few books in Spanish too. Maybe I'm letting her down too, but I think it's more likely that your HV is weird and you should largely ignore her!

@Bushmillsbabe that's another one that deserved to be reported.

Honestly most HV's I've heard of seem to be either bitter, nasty, batshit crazy or heartless.

A good one is like unicorn shit.

Just read your post that you’re in London! What other languages is this HV referring to? BTW they need reporting as others have said.

What a tolerant person you are OP. I would have introduced your HV to the effective second language that I employ to deal with grossly offensive people who overstep the bounds of their employment.

I don't get the part where she says to your daughter not to worry as she'll soon be in nursery, I would have asked her to clarify just what she was implying there. The only nurseries and schools I know of that teach a second language, unless you are putting your child in a private bilingual nursery/school, are nurseries and schools in Wales. Even then we have our 'regular' schools where they are taught just a basic introduction to Welsh or full Welsh speaking schools. Learning a language (typically French or German) then becomes compulsory in comprehensive schools.