Anonymous wrote:I think the only obligations parents have to their children are: feeding, clothing, sheltering them; providing reasonable care and stimulation; being kind to them.
I don't think there is any obligation like teaching ballet, Spanish, or paying for college.

but it was your choice to pick a 4 yaer old from another culture. You should care about that child. Your best interest is not whar this is about

I think the only obligations parents have to their children are: feeding, clothing, sheltering them; providing reasonable care and stimulation; being kind to them.
I don't think there is any obligation like teaching ballet, Spanish, or paying for college.

We struggle with this -- our daughter was 11 months old, so she wasn't speaking yet in her native language, and her first words were in English.

However, she clearly had a lot of receptive language, and for up to a year after that she would randomly come out with words in her native language that she definitely hadn't learned from us. (I learned ~50 words and would try to use them with her, but these were words I had to look up to identify.)

We tried language classes for 1-3 years olds when we first brought her home, and they were a disaster -- the first time we walked into the room, which was full of people of her ethnicity w/me the only white person, she began crying hysterically. (I think maybe she thought I was handing her off to another new family?) After several classes, she stopped crying hysterically, but she never completely relaxed. (Some of it was the teacher, who would back off for a while and then get right up in her face as soon as she started to feel comfortable.)

We tried (and failed) to get her into a language immersion school. Classes for older kids are about 90 minutes from our house (and geared toward kids living with at least one native speaker). I'm trying a language immersion camp this summer, and if that goes well I'm thinking of signing us both up for classes, together -- I think it would help me support her language acquisition, and I think also she's competitive enough that it might motivate her to learn.

We've visited her birth country once, about four years after she came home, and we hope to go again every four years. It was clear to me on our first trip that she would enjoy it a lot more if she spoke the language -- it wasn't strictly necessary, as we had someone around to translate whenever we were meeting people (her birth mom, her foster families, our relatives who live there), but she was very aware of (and uncomfortable with) not being able to communicate with these people who played a big part in her life.

I think it's something adoptive parents should do, and I definitely feel that I've dropped the ball with it -- but I also have to say I found it more challenging than I anticipated.

Personally, DH and I felt it was important to embrace DD's culture while also introducing and adapting her to ours. So we DO speak her native language. Not fluently, but we can stumble along. We are able to expose her to people who speak it fluently.

We also have an open adoption, and go to her home country approximately every 12-18 months. We wanted her to be able to carry on a conversation with her birth family when we visit. She already is overwhelmed and feels super weird with her worlds colliding and would feel even more weird if she couldn't communicate with them and had to rely on a stranger to translate back and forth.

That is true for a child who did not speak the language prior to adoption. It is not true for a child who had the language and needs to continue to hear the language to keep from losing all connection to the language. The situation initially referenced was a child who was adopted post verbal and whose parents did not insure sufficient exposure to the child's language for the child to keep at least some of his/her native tongue. There is definitely a difference between pre and post-verbal language acquisition/retention.

Anonymous wrote:

In some cases, this is easier than others. Affluent DC-area parents adopting a child from Latin America, French-speaking West Africa, or mainland China will find a lot of language-based play groups or they can get an au pair or nanny who speaks the child's native language. If you live in rural Iowa and adopt a child from rural India, you're unlikely to find someone who speaks the child's regional language.

It doesn't have to be costly to keep the child exposed to his or her language via music tapes, videos and even the internet. Every agency my friends or I had dealings with also had assistance with maintaining the culture of the children. However, the new parents have to care enough to ensure that the child does not lose its language and cultural identity. Sadly, too often they are not willing to make the effort.

It is very hard for a child to truly understand without a native speaker doing it. We adopted and have foreign biological grandparents. We expose to the language but our child only gets it when we are with them for extended periods and they only speak to them in that language.

In some cases, this is easier than others. Affluent DC-area parents adopting a child from Latin America, French-speaking West Africa, or mainland China will find a lot of language-based play groups or they can get an au pair or nanny who speaks the child's native language. If you live in rural Iowa and adopt a child from rural India, you're unlikely to find someone who speaks the child's regional language.

It doesn't have to be costly to keep the child exposed to his or her language via music tapes, videos and even the internet. Every agency my friends or I had dealings with also had assistance with maintaining the culture of the children. However, the new parents have to care enough to ensure that the child does not lose its language and cultural identity. Sadly, too often they are not willing to make the effort.

What you are talking about is language attrition. Always viewed as a loss. A 5 year old might stop talking his language. That does not mean he has lost it.

In some cases, this is easier than others. Affluent DC-area parents adopting a child from Latin America, French-speaking West Africa, or mainland China will find a lot of language-based play groups or they can get an au pair or nanny who speaks the child's native language. If you live in rural Iowa and adopt a child from rural India, you're unlikely to find someone who speaks the child's regional language.

What is the point of carrying that discussion here? You know in reality the family wants to forget the child was adopted and pretend everything is just the same as a biological child. I think they should try to maintain the language and expose the child to the culture and that is what we do with our child but its an individual choice and people are lazy (and cheap as some of that is very expensive).

Anonymous wrote:The parents can so whatever they want. Either way they are right.

they can do what they want, but should they?

Anonymous wrote:The parents can so whatever they want. Either way they are right.

really? What about the rights of the child?

The parents can so whatever they want. Either way they are right.

I don't believe that there is an obligation, but it would've been awesome and very good thing to do.I'd say that the parents hadn't thought it all through.
Lucky kids whose parents make keeping their native tongue a priority.

Anonymous wrote:
My son was adopted from a foreign country. He was almost five when he came to the US. In a year, he could not speak his native language.


You seriously aren't comparing a 5 year old losing his native tongue after a year and only have been talking less than 4 years with an adult (speaking in excess of 20 years) forgetting his native tongue. Apples to oranges.


The PP said people don't lose their language which is bullcrap. The POW was in captivitiy for 5 years without any English. Yes, I am comparing my son. He was in America hearing English 24/7 and lost his native language in less than a year. A language that he had heard since the day of his birth. And the first language he spoke, so no it is not apples to oranges.

I have also heard in the adoption community where older children from both Russia and China can no longer speak the language of their homeland. You obviously don't know about what you post.


06/06/2014 10:54 Subject: Bowe Bergdahl
Anonymous



Comparing a 5 year losing native language to a 28 year old losing native language is indeed apples to oranges.
Adoptive Mother

This is a take-off from the political thread where an adoptive mom appears to be "arguing" with another adoptive mom regarding loss of native language. First mom's son was adopted at 5 and already had learned to speak in his native language. She goes on to talk about how her son lost his language and she knows other older adopted children who lost their language. As an adopted person, I think it is the responsibility of those parents to ensure that their children do not lose their language upon adoption. Changing the names of older children, not giving them an opportunity to use their native language, erasing their culture...the child discussed was not a baby without memories, but a young child with an identity, language and culture. IMHO, that poster had an obligation to her new son to see he could continue to maintain that identity, including language.