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In my previous Guatemala blog, I wrote about the question of whether to learn Spanish (or your child’s native language) prior to completing his or her adoption. This blog is an offshoot of that topic; should you raise your adopted child to be fluently bilingual?
If you have at least one bi- or multi-lingual member of your immediate family, this decision might be an easy one to say the least. But what if your family looks something like mine: we speak English exclusively. We both know a bit of Spanish, but not enough to carry a full conversation at a normal pace. And sure, Dora the Explorer (coincidentally, Beauty’s very favorite show) has helped me brush up my skills a bit. But even so, we are nowhere near a bilingual status in our home.
When we started the Early Intervention evaluation process to assess Beauty’s delays, we were asked time and time again, “does she speak Spanish?” Well, no, she doesn’t. But at the time she didn’t speak anything. She was fairly delayed in language so smoothing out her command of the English language was (and sometimes, still is) a bit challenging. That said, no, we did not and currently are not pursuing a dual education of language. Beauty’s speech therapist believes that due to the nature of her delays, working on one language exclusively is enough on her plate for right now. And I agree.
This doesn’t mean I don’t want her to learn Spanish; on the contrary, I would like very much for both kids to get into formal Spanish education within a few years. However, it does come down to knowing what’s best for your child at a given time and his or her realm of capability.
I firmly believe the more in touch Beauty remains with her birth country’s culture, the stronger it will grow and materialize over time. One of my major concerns when adopting internationally was how we would facilitate a strong cultural- and self-identity for our daughter. We are very proud of our daughter’s Guatemalan heritage, and we want to raise her to be equally as proud, preferably more so (if that’s possible). Implementing cultural events and traditional celebrations in our family festivities is one way to bridge the gap between Guatemala and los Estados Unidos, but I don’t feel it’s necessarily enough. I don’t believe a child is ever “too young” to reap the benefits from learning absolutely everything and anything about his or her birth country or culture. Starting small with age-appropriate learning opportunities is one way to build an interest as your child grows. As Beauty develops her command of the English language, I find myself more and more excited about the possibility of introducing the Spanish language into her life. Perhaps she’ll be the one translating for us on our heritage trip to Guatemala in ten years or so. Time will tell.
