3.5yo daughter “doesn’t like” Spanish—advice?

[drobe008]

@daemon Yes! I got a few proper translations from our library or from youtube videos of people reading the books. Others I translated or my husband helped. The rhyming ones I mostly haven't bothered with unless there's a rhyming translation.

Anyway if you're interested in the transparent sticky notes, this is what we used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09HC5T6DR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I would have written directly in the books, but husband didn't like the idea (and I would have been much more nervous to make mistakes!)

 

[mcpugh]

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[daemon]

@drobe008 Thanks for this. I would have done this had I known. And I have made mistakes. I was able to "erase" some of them with an eraser and somewhat fix them. Sticky notes will be much nicer!
I agree that rhyming books (like dr.Seuss) are too difficult to translate and not worth the effort.

So neat to hear other families are doing the same

 

[drobe008]

@daemon actually most Dr. Seuss books have been translated into other languages! The quality varies but I own a bunch in Spanish and Mandarin, and Green Eggs and Ham in about 6 languages.

 

[jadiencf]

@deaconbling Agreed!

 

[ativyl]

@alearose My kid went through the same thing at the same age (he's almost 15 now). We put him in a preschool that used some of the second language. Not exclusively, just songs and a few vocabulary words. It helped, I think, but I also think it's a normal phase. I think finding a setting where there will be kids like her will help.

 

[relle25]

@alearose I totally get that this is frustrating, but I'd chalk a lot of it up to normal 3-year-old behavior: I used to work in a bilingual preschool and every so often we'd have a kid go through a similar phase. I think that's the key way to try and mentally frame it, like so many other things in parenting: a phase.

I agree about the playdate ideas, or if there's some super exciting stuff for Spanish speakers going on in your community like some cool party (cake always is a winner, ha!) or puppet show that could be great.

ETA: since you're not the native Spanish speaker, that's likely why she is also resisting speaking to you in Spanish, especially as you're mentioning you've recently been starting to reinforce it by switching to Spanish with her. If you're doing OPOL I would try to stick to that especially in this scenario and go back to English only with her. My own kids will also not want to speak my husband's native language with me either (I'm not fluent in it and I sound really bad when trying to speak it).

 

[alearose]

@relle25 Thanks. She has a bit of a stubborn temperament in general (which she gets from both of her parents ), so I think that’s definitely part of it as well.

 

[danielrobertson]

@alearose Same age, living in a Spanish speaking country, my kiddo resisted so hard. I would speak to him in spanish (terribly) and he would tell me, “no, mama! You don’t speak spanish!”

Definitely a phase, and like others have said, the key was getting him around spanish speaking kids (particularly those that didn’t speak English, and didn’t understand him).

When he realized that he needed to speak Spanish to play with all the kids, not just English speaking ones, he started asking to practice and play.

Additionally, I would suggest switching all TV into Spanish if possible. You might even go as far as only reading Spanish books until this phase is over—she gets English exposure at school and she’s young.

The more enjoyable things you can associate with Spanish, the easier it becomes.

 

[777hamie]

@alearose I agree with finding other ways to increase her exposure to Spanish. Friends, after school activities, something to excite her. Most importantly thought, keep speaking to her in Spanish and only in Spanish and reading books / watching movies together in Spanish. She doesn't have to reply in Spanish (don't force her) but you can still speak in Spanish. You're the parent, you decide.

 

[angelbo737]

@alearose I haven’t been through this yet (my daughter is 14 months) but you could try children’s media about being bilingual and the benefits. There’s a book called “Spanish is my Superpower”, but also less obvious ones like “Do you speak fish?”, and others you can find. I haven’t read any of these though so I can’t recommend specific ones. Or even in general things about cross cultural communication and exchange. When I was little we recorded Big Bird Goes to China on VHS and I watched it over and over - I thought it was so cool there was a little girl who teaches you a few words in Mandarin with a song.

I think it’s normal. My sister and I were raised bilingual in Spanish with sequential bilingualism - my family spoke to us only in Spanish at first and switched to English when we were going to start kindergarten. My sister had a phase where she didn’t want to speak Spanish but she got over it. We always needed Spanish to speak to our grandma who took care of us after school.

 

[alearose]

@angelbo737 Thanks for the recommendations—I will look into those books.

 

[littlefeather]

@alearose It’s very possible she just doesn’t want to seem different tbh. It would be good to get to the bottom of why she doesn’t like it. There has to be a thought behind it for such a drastic change to occur

 

[alearose]

@littlefeather Yeah, I think being different could be part of it, and also I think English just comes more easily and quickly for her now so she doesn’t want the difficulty of switching to Spanish.

 

[littlefeather]

@alearose I might seem mean. But a easy way to go about it is to do what she does. Ignore her is she speaks English and only speak Spanish. Doesn’t matter if she throws a temper tantrum, doesn’t matter what she needs (within limits of course). Just stonewall the English

 

[ptashman]

@alearose let the kid choose what language they want to speak. forcing them to watch more spanish cartoons will only alienate them further from speaking spanish. She already has spanish speaking capacity, she will not loose that as long as she keeps hearing some. Keep speaking spanish at home among yourselves and let her choose which language she wants to speak. Between us two and our two kids, we speak 5 languages, the elder kid chooses to speak in English and sometimes Urdu. younger one has shown no interest in speaking any language other then English at all. She outright refused to speak in Italian at school. Fine with us. Although she wants to learn Polish as one of her friends speaks it.

 

[alearose]

@ptashman I agree about not forcing her and making it negative. We try to let her choose which is part of the reason she is getting less Spanish with things because she prefers English right now. It’s been difficult trying to balance maximizing exposure and practice with giving her autonomy. Thanks for your input.

 

[worshiper32]

@alearose From some of the ways she's telling you she doesn't want to speak or hear Spanish, I wonder if she's hearing this from her teachers. Maybe they're discouraging Spanish at school.

 

[alearose]

@worshiper32 She goes to two half-day preschools; the one on M/W is Chinese (partial) immersion. I don’t think Spanish is discouraged by any of her teachers, but maybe she is adapting some language her teacher uses regarding switching between English and Chinese. At the time I enrolled her, her Spanish was solid, so I wasn’t worried about reinforcing it. We also have a Chinese (Mandarin) dual immersion public elementary school nearby with lottery enrollment, and we were hoping she would get into that and this preschool would be a boost for it. Now we are thinking maybe we need to do Spanish immersion elementary instead which is also an option in our area. However if she just needs a little more boost for Spanish, I’m hesitant about losing the opportunity to introduce a whole new way of thinking with Mandarin. So that’s another aspect to the current dilemma.