Tiny Habits for Our Multilingual Journey in 2016
It's almost that time of the year again...you know, the time to make New Year's resolutions. No matter how you feel about resolutions, chances are most of us are looking to kick off 2016 on a good note. And I love the clean slate of a brand new year. Whatever multilingual parenting blunders I made over the last twelve months (from getting lazy about speaking Cantonese to feeling like giving up), that was then and this is NOW!
Looking back, I feel that I may have set my multilingual parenting goals a bit too high and hence I sometimes lost motivation and became frustrated. As I am a working mom and also the only parent who speaks two minority languages to my kids, it has been proved very challenging to keep up with the expected 30% exposure time in order to ensure my kids' competency in both languages. I must admit, I started to lose my motivation somewhere after summer. And speaking Cantonese to the kids started to feel like a real chore. I was not having fun.
As I said, that was then and this is now. So my multilingual parenting goals for 2016 are going to be realistic, and more importantly, fun! I'll replace the 30% exposure with consistent exposure time. I will be overjoyed if my kids can speak all three languages but will be equally proud if they can only understand the minority languages. It's better to focus on what I can achieve, and enjoy and achieve that, than to push too hard and fail, right?
So in 2016, I want to...enjoy sharing the Cantonese language and Chinese culture with my family.
In order to achieve this goal, here are a few tiny habits that I'll focus on. They are small pieces of the big goal, but they are easier to stick with and get done. Here's to a fun, happy and successful New Year!
1. Read one Chinese story book with my kids every day.
2. Sing one Cantonese nursery rhyme with my kids every day.
3. Teach my family (yes, including daddy this year!) one new word every week.
4. Have a family play time in Cantonese every month.
5. Organize one Cantonese play date every month.
6. Praise my kids whenever they use the language.
Do you have any resolutions or tiny habits for other parents raising bilingual/multilingual kids? ScheduleSchedule
