My family and I really try to live up to the title of our business. We are bilingual and we love to have fun. But I do have to say, the life with young children and running a business definitely takes a toll on our ' fun' factor. I have learned a few things about being a stay at home mom/work at home mom/entreprenuer. It is hard work!!! I have also learned that sometimes while in these roles, you don't often have spontaneous, exciting, opportunities. Well, luck fell in my lap last week in the form of Good Morning America's Take Control of your Life Tour!
GMA made a stop in our hometown and Tory Johnson did her usual motivating segment about finding and sustaining work in today's society. I met inspiring women and had the opportunity to share my story with many interested parents. I got up way before dawn, drove throuth the dark city and joined an exciting group of people for a live TV segment. It was a huge pick me up from my day to day grind. Additionally I had the fantastic opportunity to be interviewed so that I could share my passion about The Bilingual Fun Company and why I think it is so important to expose young children to languages. Here is the video clip if you want to take a peek. Click here.
So, now that my 3 minutes of TV interview is over, I am back to having fun with my bilingual children and students. I am such an advocate for teaching our society's children to speak multiple languages, and I am so excited and motivated when I get parent feedback about their interest and drive as well. Even if it is for a very short time, exposure and repetition help tremendously for the young learner.
3 comments:
Hi--
I am a new mom trying to raise a trilingual baby. I speak to our son in Spanish and my husband speaks to him in German, and we speak to each other in English. I have had a lot of people telling me that our son will start to answer us in English even if we speak to him in Spanish or German. How do you motivate your kids to actually use the language? Our baby is only 4 months, so it will be awhile before we have this challenge.
Susan
This is a common problem for multilingual children. Some families have certain rules for languages spoken inside the house vs. out in the public. For example in our family, my children did not experience this until about age 3 and we had to start to be very insistent. Now at age 6, my daughter has a sticker chart for various things and Speaking Spanish is one of them. We have our meals in Spanish, so that means she has to answer us and continue the conversation during the entire meal time in Spanish. The rewards that we give for the sticker chart are very small, but it seems to give my daughter some motivation. Also with certain family members or friends, we have told our kids that they HAVE to speak Spanish with them. No exceptions. They do a great job and don't complain at all. I have also ensured that these Spanish speaking friends and family only address our children in Spanish, so that helps too. Your son has such a wonderful opportunity to be trilingual, and I hope that you continue expose him to your languages. It is hard sometimes when we are surrounded by English, but if parents are consistent, the language will stay alive. Buena Suerte!
Hi there! I am a 2nd generation mexican american (and first on the other side!) who is a bit lacking in the spanish department. Kinda like Selena, I can sing it, love to hear it, but trip up on things here and there.
I would love to raise my 10-month old bilingually, and am interested in talking to you...can you email me?
pm.lupercio@gmail.com.
thanks!
by the way, i am a new Mom Blog member and was browsing the MI boards.
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