Is it rude to speak a second language with children

[Anonymous]

It depends. A full on conversation? We speak English. Something small like "it's bed time, go brush your teeth." I will say in my language and then tell whoever else is there "oh I just told DS it's time for bed and he need to brush his teeth".

Dh speaks my language pretty well but ds or I will fill in the gaps for him if needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the pp above that simply said "yes"

BUT

then I noticed you said in front of your Dh...
So your DH can not understand your native language and you will speak to your child in front of him, knowing he can't understand?
That is truly horrible.

How else will the child learn to speak the second language? My DH speaks German and I don’t. I am happy for him to speak it to our kid.

+1. OP, just ignore drama-llama "horrible" PP and all her dum-dum brethren on this thread. I don't speak my DH's native language but we made sure to get an au pair that does and I want them both speaking it as much as possible so our kids will be bilingual. It's such a huge benefit for kids to be fluent in more than one language and I think it's also really important to maintain that connection to their heritage. Normal people with a brain get this; it has nothing to do with etiquette. And if people in public think it's rude, well... let's just say they're the kind of people that deserve rudeness anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the pp above that simply said "yes"

BUT

then I noticed you said in front of your Dh...
So your DH can not understand your native language and you will speak to your child in front of him, knowing he can't understand?
That is truly horrible.

How else will the child learn to speak the second language? My DH speaks German and I don’t. I am happy for him to speak it to our kid.

Are you always there with them? They never spend one on one time?
My nieces are fluent in their mother’s native language, even though she has never been rude and spoken in front of other people who can’t understand.

ops kids are refusing to speak her language. Your response is up there with people getting on a thread by a mom whose kid is struggling with reading and telling how your nieces just picked up reading with no problems.

Where did OP say that her kids were refusing?

In the OP! Her kids are only replying to her in english. If she could get them to reply in her language she wouldn't have made a thread about it.

It does not say they are "refusing" to speak the language.

[Anonymous]

I don't know about the other parents. But we have friends where one or both of the parents (and sometimes the kids) are native speakers of another language. I never think twice about it if the parents and kids speak to each other in their native tongue. However, they only do it when the kid is asking the parent a question, or the parent is telling the kids to do something.

Some of you are really uptight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:when you are in the presence of English speakers? I speak my native language with my children when we are alone, but I find it awkward and impolite to speak it in the presence of my DH, friends, playground, etc. because we all also speak English. However, this has become a problem in raising bilingual children because they always respond in English to me. Would you find it rude if someone spoke a different language around you though everyone present speaks English?

I worked for a Danish family growing up. They spoke English in front of anybody who didn't understand Danish. They (parents) considered it rude to speak Danish around anyone who didn't understand.

The situation of both parents being native speakers and speaking the language at home us very different than just having one parent who is speaking the language. In methodologies for raising kids, what your family in your post did is sometimes called minority language at home or home vs community. OP's is called One Parent One Language. She does not have her child's other parent or even other adults like grandparents or nannies I'm the home speaking her language. It is a different situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the pp above that simply said "yes"

BUT

then I noticed you said in front of your Dh...
So your DH can not understand your native language and you will speak to your child in front of him, knowing he can't understand?
That is truly horrible.

How else will the child learn to speak the second language? My DH speaks German and I don’t. I am happy for him to speak it to our kid.

Are you always there with them? They never spend one on one time?
My nieces are fluent in their mother’s native language, even though she has never been rude and spoken in front of other people who can’t understand.

ops kids are refusing to speak her language. Your response is up there with people getting on a thread by a mom whose kid is struggling with reading and telling how your nieces just picked up reading with no problems.

Where did OP say that her kids were refusing?

In the OP! Her kids are only replying to her in english. If she could get them to reply in her language she wouldn't have made a thread about it.

It does not say they are "refusing" to speak the language.

Look I get that you don't have experience with this. It is a normal stage for kids to push back and try to speak the community language to their parent or parents. First, kids try it out. Then they refuse. Then they get to a point where they cannot speak the language and only understand it.

I do have friends both doing OPOL and doing minority language at home who rmanaged to reverse course and got their kid speaking again, but most people are not able to reverse it. It us common to reverse it by going to their home country and staying with family members who don't speak English and who support your kids speaking the language and stating for a couple of months, particularly if your kids have cousins their age to be with.

I know more people, including family members,who were not able to get their kid fluent for expression. The kids will have to work at it as older teens or adults. It will have to be their choice when older.
The parents have huge regrets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the pp above that simply said "yes"

BUT

then I noticed you said in front of your Dh...
So your DH can not understand your native language and you will speak to your child in front of him, knowing he can't understand?
That is truly horrible.

New poster. The DH should make an effort to learn at least enough of the language's basics to help his kids out and to support his wife in teaching it, at least in the early years! Having a second language is a BIG benefit in many ways in life, and if kids do not learn it early enough, they likely may never learn it at all.

OP, have you talked with your DH about why your kids should learn the language as well as English? Is he supportive of your teaching it, or does he have a problem with it? If he resists the idea of your kids learning your native language, well, he has a problem with who YOU are and with your culture, I'd guess. Is that the case?

It's not rude to use a second language with others around, as in, if you and kids are at the playground and communicating with each other--that's fine. If you'e at the playground and you and they are trying to converse with, say, another parent and her kids who are also there, it's not polite to have a side conversation with your kids as you're also having a conversation with the other parent/kids. But it is not at all inherently rude simply to speak another language outside your own house!

If your DH thinks it's rude for you to talk to your children in your own native language, you need to have a serious talk with DH about the value of a second language. He ought to have your back and support you. I'm assuming you're not joking with the kids about dad in the second language. If you were, and he gets that vibe, that's rude. But if you are not and he simply assumes you are "talking about me" he is a bit...paranoid.

[Anonymous]

In front of DH - no not rude if he agrees to use the language to encourage bilingualism.

Other friends/family - yes rude.

In front of random strangers at the park you are not interacting with - not rude.

[Anonymous]

Yes I think it’s rude
We’ve several friends from Europe who do this and we spend less time with them as a result
It’s not just rude because we can’t understand yet it’s often clear that they’re talking about us
But it’s also annoying to have to listen to foreign accents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes I think it’s rude
We’ve several friends from Europe who do this and we spend less time with them as a result
It’s not just rude because we can’t understand yet it’s often clear that they’re talking about us
But it’s also annoying to have to listen to foreign accents

I appreciate you posting this.

Find nice friends, op.

If you don't want to have the hard conversations about puberty, sex, drugs or death in your second language with your kids, keep speaking your language to them. GL

[Anonymous]

OP- I am also raising a bilingual child and don't think this is rude at all. But it is something I also thought about. I agree with PPs who said it is okay when they are younger. When the kids are younger they are most likely not part of a bigger conversation where you break off and start speaking your language. You are directly addressing your kids, and can do so in your native tongue since you are raising them to be bilingual. This is the case because children resist speaking the "minority language" and tend to respond in the "majority language." Letting them see that you can switch languages makes this already difficult task much, much more so.
Now that my DS is 6, we switch between English and our language when around others. He has learned (ha! jinxing myself) that we speak our language at home and English is for around English speakers.
As a side note- when we were in our home country and hung out with expats I never thought it rude when a mom or dad spoke in their language.

[Anonymous]

Op - you just have to decide what your priorities are
No easy answer. Someone may find fault with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes I think it’s rude
We’ve several friends from Europe who do this and we spend less time with them as a result
It’s not just rude because we can’t understand yet it’s often clear that they’re talking about us
But it’s also annoying to have to listen to foreign accents

I can see why they might want to have a running commentary about you in a different language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, my friends talk to their kids in their language all the time. Its usually when they're scolding their kids or making demands. I wish I could talk to my kid in a language nobody else understood for saying things like "get your finger out of your nose!" Or "did you just take a bite of that potato chip and put it back in the bowl?!"Or whatever.

Haha! That's exactly the kind of talk I am having with my kids when I speak in our language. "Stop whining and share or we are going home right this minute" etc. etc.

[Anonymous]

It depends if the others would be a part of the conversation, should we all speak the same language. If you are near me on a playground, but I don't know you, then I will speak my native language with my kid. My kids learn in trumps your curiosity.