by Melanie Oda (Japan) | Nov 30, 2016 | bilingualism, International, Motherhood, Parenting, Uncategorized
Like an increasing number of families in Japan, my children are being raised in a bilingual environment. We started this saga back in the days before the Internet took over the world, and I had to actually buy and read books to fill my mind with anxiety-inducing conflicting opinions. Now I can meet my anxiety quotient with a few clicks each day, much more efficient.
I found then, and now, that there is a lot of information geared towards young children and parents who still have their hair, having not yet ripped it all out in frustration when confronted by relatives or educators who don’t understand bilingualism, or worse, are prejudiced against it.
My kids are now 9 and 11, in 3rd and 6th grade at local Japanese schools. All of their education has been in Japanese. Our home life is basically in English, though the kids speak Japanese with Dad. He just isn’t around as much due to long working hours.
Some friends and I started an English school that focuses on literacy for already bilingual kids. We meet three times a month on Saturday. This is their only “formal” English training. Everything else has been left to me.
Which is every bit as hard as it sounds.
I thought I would share with you today my top tips for raising bilingual kids without losing your sanity. Please bear in mind that mine are 9 and 11 years old. I would love to hear top tips for teenagers, so please share your ideas on the comments!
1) Input input input. I have an unwritten rule that all media in the house should be in the minority language. (In our case, that’s English.) But we all know how much kids love rules…so I make sure to have a plethora of attractive English options, while keeping the Japanese options limited to network TV.
2) Encourage siblings to speak the minority language to each other. I know that this one is hard. Siblings have their own relationship with each other separate from their parents, and we don’t want to be up in there and intruding. Some things like school or homework, is just be easier to discussed in the majority language and I try not to get too worried about that.
Having games, puzzles, something they can do together that uses the minority language is one way to encourage them to use it with each other without having to get in their face about it. “Operation,” for example, is funnier in English. Mad Libs or other word puzzles are great! They keep talking about it, in the same language, for quite a while afterwards.
3)Read- We all know that reading to your children is important, but perhaps even more so for bilingual children. Even when you think your kids should be reading to themselves, keep reading to them. This will help emphasize good grammar structure (sometimes strange patterns can get kind of fossilized within a family.) Also through reading you can expose your children to situations they would ‘t normally have a chance to encounter, and all the vocabulary that comes with that.
4) Identify vocabulary holes. Bilingual people often have greater vocabulary in one language about a particular topic than the other. My children probably don’t know words like “ladle” or “whisk” in Japanese because they aren’t exposed to those terms outside of the home. Conversely, there are lots of words related to school life that they will not learn in English unless I make an effort to imagine where those holes will be and prevent them. I find often that when talking to each other, they fill that space with the Japanese word This phenomenon is called code-switching.
5)Don’t panic over code switching. According to most experts, code switching isn’t really a problem; But as a parent, it can be disconcerting! Personally, I repeat what the child has said with the correct English term, if there is one. I don’t usually make them repeat it in English or point out they have said something incorrect.
6) Use background music. I find that if the background music is in English, pretty soon everyone is speaking English!
7) Routine is your friend. Getting the children to do their English reading and writing was a huge battle in the beginning, but we built it into their morning routine. There are some days when we don’t get to it, and even more when not as much gets done as I would like, but because we have a routine in place and an expectation that it will get done, it’s easier to get back on track and stay there.
8) Keep a sense of humor. Raising kids is hard work, full stop. Adding another language to the mix adds another layer of difficulty. But it also adds another layer of cute mistakes and funny memories. Just now I asked my son to come back by a decent hour, and he exploded that he would come home an hour early. Um, that was “decent hour,” not “descent hour,” which is not even a thing.
Do you have any tips to add? Any insight into bilingual teens? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
If you ask Melanie Oda where she is from, she will answer "Georgia." (Unless you ask her in Japanese. Then she will say "America.") It sounds nice, and it's a one-word answer, which is what most people expect. The truth is more complex. She moved around several small towns in the south growing up. Such is life when your father is a Southern Baptist preacher of the hellfire and brimstone variety.
She came to Japan in 2000 as an assistant language teacher, and has never managed to leave. She currently resides in Yokohama, on the outskirts of Tokyo (but please don't tell anyone she described it that way! Citizens of Yokohama have a lot of pride). No one is more surprised to find her here, married to a Japanese man and with two bilingual children (aged four and seven), than herself. And possibly her mother.
You can read more about her misadventures in Asia on her blog, HamakkoMommy.
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by Maureen | Nov 21, 2016 | Asia and Oceania, Awareness, Indonesia, International, Motherhood
“You are an immigrant Mommy…is that mean you can’t come to America?”
There’s a concern in his tone. A frown showed up as he tries to make sense of his new elected president.
“Well…technically I am no longer an immigrant, Alex. I once was when we were still living there until you were 2 years old.”
He searched my face for more answer.
“But right now, for the time being, we will not be living in America. We are living here in Indonesia. Of course, one day if we want to, we may come there for a visit to see your Grandparents, your Uncle Greg, and his family also your brothers.”
“But Trump won’t let you come because you are not American!”
“I’m sure it will all be alright when the time comes. Let’s not worry until then ok? With the right paper works, of course, I can still come with you. I will need a visa first.”
“What’s a visa, Mommy? How come you don’t have one?”
“A visa is like a permit to visit a country. Every country has different rules when it comes to visa. I don’t have one after my conditional resident permit ended.”
Then I went on to explain what a green card is, how I got one in the first place many years ago while I was still married to his father. Of how I returned the card post-divorce.
My almost 10 year old boy was worried that his mother, a non-US citizen may not be able to go to America with him one day. He overheard the news while I watched the whole campaign and how Trump has been voted in as president of the United States.
“Why is he so angry all the time?” was his first question when he asked who Trump is.
Being a mother to a dual citizenship child, I have been following the whole election period. Why? Because my son is an American citizen. Whoever won the election will have a lasting impact on his future in one way or another.
Yes, we are living thousands of miles away from America but trust me, being a third world country citizen what happens in America will greatly impact everyone. I still vividly remember how scary it was post the September 11 tragedy. I was working in a hotel in Jakarta and an emergency plan was set in place because a hardline Muslim group was sweeping hotels looking for American citizens after the attack.
Being of the minority religion in Indonesia (I am a Christian) any time there’s a religious uproar going on in my country, we are living in danger to say the least. So Trump’s anti-Muslim propaganda will greatly impact everyone. With Indonesia being the most Muslim populated country, declaring war on my Muslim friends will cause scary consequences.
Not all Muslim are terrorists so it is truly unfair how Trump is making his blanket statements. I have Muslim friends living in America who have received discriminations ever since he ran his campaign and I fear for their safety too.
There’s little that I could do other than telling my son that hatred will not help anyone, that what the world desperately needs at the moment is more love, more compassion towards one another regardless of race, the color of peoples’ skin, religious beliefs and sexual orientations. I can only pray that my son will grow up with great respect and kindness to the many differences we all have as human beings.
How do you explain the American election result to your children?
by Martine de Luna (Philippines) | Nov 9, 2016 | 2016, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
This year in the Philippines, we have been amidst an election year for a new president. Honestly, I wasn’t too pleased with the options nor the results. In the last six months since the elections, things are looking quite bleak for our nation, with a clear divide between the people. I’ve never seen a more shameful public parade of opinions than in the last year since the campaign period began.
Compounded with the U.S. electoral campaign, my Facebook feed has become almost intolerable. Where there used to be updates about motherhood and the joys of parenting, I now find daily helpings of judgment and strife.
I can’t say more than this. You all know what I mean. We all know what’s being said and hurled around social media.
Everyday, I just get to thinking; What is this world coming to? Were we always this spiteful, this hurtful? Did social media make us more bold to spew out hate from behind our screens, or did it make us more cowardly than ever?
The biggest question of all; How does a mother in this day and age raise a child amidst such horrors? In my own country, things appear status quo on the surface, but we live in constant fear of extrajudicial killings, unsolved murders and deep corruption in the government.
How do you protect your child from what is evil, immoral and debase?
How do you explain to them that the world is still good, despite daily heralds that it is terribly, horribly twisted?
As a mother, all I can do is set an example for my children. Because what I do — whether or not my children see me in action — will reflect in how they turn out. I cannot play with their lives if I am not vigilant with my own character, my values and beliefs. Because like it or not, their perception of me will shape their future.
For my son, I hope that my husband and I can show him how to be a man for others. He is a kind soul, an old soul I feel sometimes. He watches out for his little sister, and has started ninja/martial arts lessons (after his obsession with TMNT), so that he “can protect her.” I want him to grow up to see the good in people, to be a giver at heart. Maybe he can use his talent for drawing in some good way for others; I don’t know. His future is full of possibilities.
For my baby girl, I hope that this world will still be full of wonder for her, as she is still such a baby. (She’s one and a half.) I have yet to find out what she will be like, but I hope to bring her up with a mindset of positivity and bravery, of gratitude and hope. She has such a full life ahead of her, that is why I am adamant to make her world a happy place.
Sigh. I remain hopeful. Maybe I just need to tune out of the news for a while and be with my kids more, so that I can constantly be reminded that we are all inherently good inside. Who’s with me?
Martine is a work-at-home Mom and passionate blogger. A former expat kid, she has a soft spot for international efforts, like WMB. While she's not blogging, she's busy making words awesome for her clients, who avail of her marketing writing, website writing, and blog consulting services. Martine now resides in busy, sunny Manila, the Philippines, with her husband, Ton, and toddler son, Vito Sebastian. You can find her blogging at DaintyMom.com.
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by Marie Kléber | Oct 31, 2016 | Europe, France, Life Balance, Motherhood, Womanhood
As far back as I can remember I always had a clear idea of what a strong woman is and how she should behave. A strong woman would do whatever she could to have all situations under control, would not need help and would not ask for it either, would manage on her own and would succeed alone.
This was before. Before what?
Before I had no other choice than say “I need help”. I need help to go through the day. I need help to wake up, stand up and live. I need help to overcome my fears, doubts. I need help to love my child. I need help to face past memories. I need help to rebuild my life. I need help to forgive. I need help to love myself.
And my idea of what a strong woman is changed.
We often think that asking for help is a proof of our inability to face life and its challenges.
If you ask mums, friends, people around you, I bet that the answer you’ll hear most of the time will be something like this “I don’t want to ask for help. I’m fine. I’ll deal with it like a big girl”.
Why can’t “being a big girl” and “asking for help” go together? Why do we, women, mums, think that if we ask for help, people will consider us failures?
I took the step of asking for help, feeling lost and guilty at first. But what I received out of it was worth the try. People who were there, at any time of the day (and night) reassured me – this was the first step towards a better life for me and my child. There was no judgement on their side, only kindness and the assurance that I had made the right choice by reaching out to them.
As women and mums, we have a lot to deal with. Our kids count on us. People count on us, from our partner to our boss, our parents to our friends. And we do make it an important part of the deal that we are the ones in charge. But when something gets in the way, would we rather keep going until we fall or ask somebody to take our turn for a while?
Nowadays, I believe that a strong woman is a woman who knows her limits, who can acknowledge her weaknesses and still feel proud of who she is and who could ask for help knowing that this is the best for her and her family at any given time. A strong woman knows when she can’t take it anymore and feel like her duty to take care of herself, in order to take good care of the ones she loves afterwards.
Your turn, world moms, how do you feel about asking for help? Are you good at it? Or are you finding it hard to do?
This is an original post for World Moms Network written by Marie in France.
Marie is from France and is living near Paris, after spending 6 years in Irlande. She is a single mum of one, sharing her time between work, family life and writing, her passion. She already wrote 6 books in her native langage.
She loves reading, photography, meeting friends and sharing life experiences. She blogs about domestic abuse, parenting and poetry @https://mahshiandmarshmallow.wordpress.com
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by Mirjam | Oct 24, 2016 | 2016, Being Thankful, Europe, Health, Life, Mental Health, Motherhood, Netherlands
My mother used to say the same thing whenever I was sick: “Well, your hands are not sick.”
She expected me to do my chores and not to make a big deal about being sick. It was a motto she lived by. When I think of her in those days, I cannot picture her sitting down or lying in bed. She was always busy taking care of us and taking care of the house. I can almost imagine her feeling sick in the morning and saying to herself: “Well your hands are not sick,” and getting on with business as usual. I have tried to live up to this motto as long as I can remember.
This image of a mother that takes care of her family regardless the circumstances, was printed in the core of my being.
When I got diagnosed with depression, I was deeply conflicted within myself. Every moment that I needed for myself, every day that I couldn’t go on as usual, troubled me. I judged myself. There is always something the matter with you. Are you sick again? I felt like a sad excuse for a mother. I pitied my children and husband for having to live with me. Being sick has always been a powerful trigger for me to sink deep into depression.
In 2011 I got diagnosed with depression, which led to a long struggle with dealing with my depression and undergoing extensive therapy. Just as I started to feel a little bit better in 2013, I broke my right shoulder and as it started to heal, I had to have my gallbladder removed. After that, a long period of feeling sick and dealing with throat problems, led to a tonsillectomy in 2015. In 2016 my doctor referred me to a rheumatologist. The word rheumatoid arthritis was mentioned. I’m still in the process of finding a diagnosis and proper treatment.
But I am doing fine. In a sense, I am grateful. It is easy to find joy when you’re healthy and pain free. When you’re walking in the sunshine it isn’t as hard to be hopeful. I have learned to enjoy every single ray of light when walking in the shadows. I do have my occasional pity parties, and I indulge in them, because I allow myself to feel, to grieve, to be sad when I need to. But my pity parties end and when they end, I pick up positivity and make the most of what I have.
Depression always lurks in the shadows. But it is more a kind of melancholy that accompanies me, reminding me of its existence. It doesn’t bother me as much, nor does it scare me the way it used to.
I feel fine, I feel happy. We’re almost in the 11th month of 2016 and I have had approximately two days this year without physical pain. The other days have fluctuated between noticeable pain, manageable pain and excruciating pain. All things considered I still feel blessed. It could have been so much worse. I still feel privileged and grateful.
I have reshaped my image of what a mother is supposed to look like. No longer is she shaped like a rock, a bulldozer, a mechanical machine. She is covered in flesh, imperfect, she bleeds, she falls, she lifts, she cries, she smiles. She is shaped like a human.
How has your concept of motherhood changed since you had children?
This is an original post for World Moms Network written by Mirjam in the Netherlands.
Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands.
She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life.
Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home.
She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera.
Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it.
She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways.
But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself.
You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.
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by Ibtisam Alwardi | Sep 15, 2016 | 2016, Africa and Middle East, Awareness, Babies, Caring, Domesticity, Gender, Ibtisam Alwardi, Middle East, Motherhood, Oman, Parenting, Post Partum Depression, Pregnancy, Pregnancy, Traditions, World Moms Blog
The moment I saw the title of the book, I knew what the author meant. It was as if it was written for me. Black Milk by Elif Shafak, renowned novelist from Turkey, is a memoir described as ‘a thoughtful and incisive meditation on literature, motherhood, and spiritual well-being.’
Although I enjoy reading, I am not good at writing book reviews. As a lover of books, I can talk about what I read with friends, who, like me, are still amazed by the creativity of authors. I find it easy to talk about my favorite books, and the stories that stick with me, ones that I will never forget. However, writing an objective book review is something I find very challenging. Yet with Black Milk, I believe I owe mothers out there. I owe them sharing what I gleaned from reading this groundbreaking book.
Shafak wrote about herself – but it could have been about me. Me, a mother who experienced postpartum depression; a new mother who felt at a loss, and who thought that she should not feel this way; a woman who stopped doing things for herself and thought that motherhood should be more than enough; a mother who experienced fluctuations in her feelings 100 times a day; a woman who did not really understand what was going on.
Black Milk describes those ups and downs encountered by many new mothers, especially those experiencing anxiety about the huge change they’ve embarked upon – those mothers who overthink things and believe that they should be able to control the world, and not stop and ‘relax’ for a moment and ‘blend’ with the world.
In the book, Shafak has many inner conversations with her ‘Thumbelinas,’ who each represent aspect of herself. These tiny ladies are constantly fighting, trying to overcome one another to be the dominant part of her personality. Shafak is very objective in writing about them, and instead of hating them, you feel the opposite. In writing about the competing characteristics within, she seeks to find some kind of unifying identity for herself.
Shafak writes about western female writers as well, including Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and Alice Walker. She explores their lives, the way they found balance between being writers and mothers, or the way some of them chose one role over the other. In these women’s lives, Shafak seeks balance between her life as an artist, and her new life as a mother.
Being a mother and a writer means seeking some sense of self, besides the role of motherhood. The same applies to any personal career or decision a mother takes. Such a choice was not common in the West until recently, and it is still not acceptable in many eastern societies to this day. Thus this subject, though some might consider it a personal issue, is more of a political one that is affected by patriarchal societies. Elif Shafak does not make judgements, and why should she – this is a subject that has no right or wrong to it. The ability to choose and be respected for whatever choices you make should be totally acceptable.
Shafek’s book touched me, as a mother, a writer, and a woman. I really identified with her struggle, her experience with postpartum depression, and her personal crisis as she adapted to motherhood.
How do you find balance between your own personal well-being and the demands of motherhood? What books have inspired you on your journey?
This is an original post for World Moms Network by Ibtisam Alwardi of Oman.
Photo courtesy of Raúl Hernández González / Flickr.
Ibtisam (at Ibtisam's musings) is an Omani Mom of three, living in the capital city of Oman ,Muscat.
After working for ten years as a speech and language therapist in a public hospital, she finally had the courage to resign and start her own business. She had a dream of owning a place where she can integrate fun, play and 'books', thus the iPlay Smart centre (@iplaysmart) was born.
Currently she is focusing on raising awareness through social media about parenting, childhood, language acquisition. She started raising awareness on (the importance of reading) and (sexual harassment) targeting school-aged children.
Ibtisam enjoys writing, both in Arabic and English, reading and working closely with children.
She plans to write children books (in Arabic) one day.
Contact Ibtisam at ibtisamblogging(at)gmail.com.
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