Are you DC embarrassed to speak their other language in front of their peers?

[ViveLesVacances]

I'm living in France with my French DH and our DC: DS1 (11), DS2 (7), DS3 (5) and baby DD. The DC were all born in France and have lived here their whole lives.

DS1 started secondary school in September, and since then I've noticed that he is becoming increasingly reluctant to speak to me in English in front of his friends. He'll shrug, grunt, avoid eye contact, etc. When his friends ask what we're saying, he'll just shrug and say he doesn't know.

Is it just the age?? He speaks normally when it's just amongst family, but as I'm the only English speaking influence on a day to day basis, he needs to keep it up with me in order to maintain it!

DD is 12 and absolutely not embarrassed to speak English to me in front of her French friends.

I had a friend at school whose mum was Spanish and she was ALWAYS embarrassed to speak Spanish to her mum when we were around. Used to almost whisper!

Don't know why

Ds went the other way at this age: he suddenly became very embarrassed about my speaking the majority language to him when out and about. I felt a bit hurt and asked if it was my accent (really very slight). "No", he explained, "but if you speak English, people will understand what you say "

Parents are embarrassing. Anything a parent says is likely to be embarrassing. Being reminded that you have parents is embarrassing. Anything to do with parents is embarrassing. This, too, shall pass.

cory sorry, that did make me grin! DS is just getting to that stage, but happily the others haven't outgrown mummy yet!

Interesting to hear the range of experiences. Does anyone have any experience of if/when it changes?

Haha funny because my DS1 (14) also used to be very shy if speaking our home
Language in front of his friends, he used to ignore me or say "speak in English"!
This wAs a couple of years ago but now he is more relaxed .
I think he was shy of let people know he was from another country