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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If your goal is to raise a fluent child (vs. getting your DC into some academic program), you should enroll them in full immersion and expect to still have to invest significantl time & resources.

My DS and I have purposely hired only Spanish speaking nannies since our DC's were newborns, we enrolled them in Spanish immersion preschool and kindergarten, we have placed them in a 2 week summer camp in Mexico every single year since age 4, we have always required Netflix, Disney,  and Hulu to play only in Spanish.  They are now in middle school and the top Spanish speakers in their classes, but still barely fluent.

Honestly, if you are not 100% committed to your DC's becoming fluent, it's not worth it.

[/quote]

^^^this

DH and I don't speak Spanish but are committed to bilingual children. This is exactly what we have done.

We had immersion until 1st grade however.

Kids tested better in Spanish in ES than English.

We also had weekend tutors for reading and writing (just an hour) and their Spanish vocab is fantastic. They already read for fun in Spanish.

From what I hear from their Spanish teachers and our Spanish dominat friends, their Spanish is better than most Latino kids.[/quote]

Their Spanish is better than kids whose parents only speak Spanish at home? I highly doubt that.[/quote]

Not based on the parents education and if the parents don't make speaking Spanish a priority.[/quote]

Most Latino kids don't get to attend immersion programs. It is very, very hard to keep the language when your school is all in English and you have no opportunities for full immersion. I am Latina and the only reason I am still fluent is because I would visit my native country for 2 months every summer and even then it was a struggle. I still lack confidence in the language and am missing a lot of vocabulary.

Shaming kids and families who "don't make speaking Spanish a priority" is so dumb and offensive to me.[/quote]

Who said I'm shaming families who don't make it a priority. They might have other priorities and dual language isn't it. Also like you they might not feel confident in their Spanish so they don't want to teach their kids Spanish.

I have my basic Spanish from HS and have been told by my fluent friends to STOP because it's not helping my kids.

But my dual language friends aren't always able to send their kids to a dual language school. So their Latino kids speak Spanish but only have a home vocabulary not a history, science, math etc that you get with school.

I have friends who will tell me they are fluent in a language like a 5th grader or only know the kitchen versions of a language becuase that is the only time they spoke the language.[/quote]

You said Latinos who don't speak Spanish have uneducated parents who didn't make the effort to teach their kids Spanish. I can tell you from personal experience that without the resources and opportunity to access Spanish immersion while living in the US, maintaining the language is very difficult, including for Latinos with very educated parents who prioritize speaking Spanish at home.[/quote]

Rereading what I wrote I could see how it could be condescending.

I meant OR not AND. You can have Latino parents who speak Spanish only at home but they themselves don't have a HS degree so vocabulary is limited. This being similar to an English only speaking parent who won't have a high vocabulary in English because of their education. So the child is not exposed. For a bilingual child this will be an issue as they get older and should have a more robust vocabulary.

And then you have Latino parents who aren't confident in Spanish, think they are doing what worked for them or don't do the extras at home.

100% it is harder to make a fully bi-lingual child in the US but not impossible.

I have a friend with 3 Latino kids, the oldest is fluent and the other two can just understand. It gets harder the more the oldest child is immersed in the English world and then you have another English voice in the house.

[/quote]

I realize your intentions are good and I'm sure much of what you wrote is true but as a Latina I just find you incrediblly irritating. Why do you feel the need to opine about experiences you have never had?  It seems like Latino families get dinged because we fail to learn English AND because we fail to teach our kids Spanish. Maybe recognize our families are navigating two different cultures and languages, often with fewer resources than you have, and stop talking about us without us.[/quote]

I am the PP who mentioned hiring a Spanish-speaking nanny and putting DC's in a summer camp in Mexico every single year.  
I'm Latino, I grew up in a Latino neighborhood in the U.S., and I didn't speak one word of English until I started school.

There is nothing irritating about the PP who pointed out the obvious - developing bilingualism in the U.S. is hard and requires commitment.  Some people lack that commitment and rather prioritize other things.

[/quote]  My parents had that "committment" but it wasn't effective. Sure, I can speak Spanish, but I don't like to because I'm not confident in it as a result of being shamed, made fun of and bullied when I made mistakes.

I don't think committment or prioritization is what matters. I think what matters is support. Do you support your child's language learning? That depends on whether or not you have the resources to do it. You might really want to support it and think if you do OPOL at home that will work. OPOL is a huge committment and it's also not enough support.[/quote]

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