starting a new language at 2 with childminder

[mwah79]

I heard recently that you should only talk to children in a language that you connect with.
I have a nine month old and a two year old who are about to start with a childminder, who is a portugese speaker.
She is happy to speak to the children in either language but speaks portugese to her husband and son.
I am not so worried about my nine month old being spoken to in portugese, in fact it would be great. However I am worried about my two year old as he already understands so much English but is still having quite a hard time being understood by anyone apart from me and my DH. He is currently under the care of ENT department at St Thomas' for glue ear and enlarged tonsils and adenoids. We will have a hearing test early in the autumn for this but he will already be in childcare by then. Would people advise that we ask the childminder to speak in her home language? Thanks in advance.

There are absolutely no rules about who should speak to whom in what language. The so-called rules are just anecdotes from ordinary families who relate something that has worked for them. It doesn't mean nothing else can work.

If I had understood this right, you have a Portuguese childminder who would be speaking to your dc in English but may address the odd word to her husband in Portuguese. That sounds absolutely fine to me.

Your only worries might be that your ds picks up a slightly foreign accent. I wouldn't worry about that: his childminder is unlikely to have a lasting influence on his language development.

You could ask the childminder to speak in Portuguese if you particularly wanted your dc to learn Portuguese and intended to go on supporting their Portuguese in later life, but otherwise I see no point. And even then, it might not fit in with her other mindees.

But if your concern is that children may come to some subtle linguistic or emotional harm from being spoken to by someone who is not speaking their mother tongue- no, I don't think that is anything to worry about. I have spoken plenty of English (not my native tongue) to my dc and they are fine.

Thanks for this. Her son (3 years old) will be around as well and so she will alternate between languages I guess. I'm not really phased by that. I think it would be cool for them both to develop the nueral pathways that come with speaking more than one language. I think my main question is: should we be putting my two year old through a process where he is subjected to a new language by submersing him in it or should we ask her to speak only English, or a bit of the two? I want my sons and their carer to form a relationship but if we ask her to speak portuguese to them both my two year old may just end up getting really frustrated.
I'm not worried about accents at all as my DH and I are from either ends of Ireland, we live in London and our last childminder was Jamaican. He's already got a bizzare thing going on, which is cool I think. It tells the story of his life to date.

Will the childminder be at home with just your children, her son and her husband? Or will there be other children there? How many hours a week will your children be at the childminders? If your children are going to be 20+ hours a week in a home with just Portuguese speakers, then personally I'd be happier with the childminder speaking only Portuguese, to everyone. If your children are going to be there a minimal amount of time and in addition if there are other English first language children in the home and English spoken, then perhaps it wouldn't be enough hours or enough Portuguese for it to be a good environment to immerse your children in Portuguese. It does work much better if one person speaks one language.

Thanks for your reply.
Her son is at nursery some of the time but will also be home some of the time. I suspect her husband will be there for at least a few hours each day.
I know she has experience of the situation we are in as her son was only speaking Portugese by the time he went to nursery, 6 months ago, which is when he began speaking English.
My boys will be there on a Tuesday and Thursday and will spend 10 hours each day at the minders. However my eldest will start nursery next March at the latest.
I have every confidence in her, whatever decision we take. I just wonder about the frustration it will cause my two year old.

If you think your child is going to be happy with this childminder and the childminder speaks Portuguese to any other children or if she's done it in the past with other anglophones, I'd say go for it, tell her to speak exclusively (ok almost exclusively Portuguese, the odd bit of English won't hurt) in Portuguese. There is no harm in being exposed to another language. Your children will only manage to retain the Portuguese in years to come, if they've spent 3 or 4 years with the childminder, but it is unlikely to do any harm, even if they do eventually lose the Portuguese they gain.

thanks so much for your help - how exciting for them. I'm well jel. I am useless with languages!