It's not about perfection! Bilingual Parenting Goals for the New Year!

I try to have an honest blog. Raising kids is not easy. And raising kids in a language which you do not speak natively can be downright hard at times. But I know it can be done. I'm not the perfect example of non-native bilingual parenting. I know there are plenty of families who do a much better job than we have done. But neither we, nor any other family, is going to do it perfectly. Each family has their own struggles, their own unique personalities, their own histories, and their own situations. No one is going to have a perfect family and no one is going to do a perfect job of raising bilingual kids. It's just not possible.

But, we can all do our best--whatever that is. It's January...a time to evaluate and set goals. I have plenty of goals swimming around in my head. Many of these goals relate to our non-native bilingual parenting attempt. January is a good time to think about how far we've come and where we want to go. I'm grateful that we have made the German language a part of our family identity. I'm often amazed that I have 8 kids who all understand and speak German (even if they don't do so perfectly). This week, I've been thinking about my goals in all areas of my life. There's a lot I would like to accomplish this year. Many of these goals are much more important than my children's foreign language development (for example, my family's spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being). But our bilingualism IS still very important to me me. If it weren't, we wouldn't have 8 bilingual kids. And it's important to have goals. Without some sort of goal, we don't have any direction. So that said, here are some of my non-native bilingual parenting goals this year:

1. Continue to talk German to my kids, even when they speak English to me.
2. Continue to do our German school once a week (where we learn to read and write in German)
3. Continue to read German chapter books to the kids every night.
4. Have the kids read from German books every day.
5. Continue to expose them to French (have a French lesson at least each week)

In addition, I want to make sure that the kids have fun and continue to value their ability to speak two languages. Rather than force the kids to learn against their will, I want to take each of their unique personalities and characteristics and find a way to help each of them reach their own potential. 

Speaking of funny personalities, here's a cute video of my attempt to take a picture of my three youngest in their Christmas jammies. You can probably guess which one requires extra patience and a more active approach to learning....love these kiddos!

Good luck to all of you and your non-native bilingual parenting goals in 2017!!!

As you can see, we're still speaking mostly German to the kids.

Video translation: Just me and my husband encouraging the kids to stand still for 1 second so we can take a single picture :).

Job Chart in Action

One of the things I LOVE about having two batches of kids, is that I don't have to reinvent the wheel for each phase of the kids' childhood. Now that the younger ones are old enough to really help with chores, I don't have to try and come up with a whole new system. I already did all that work the first time around.  I actually did a lot of cool things with my older batch that I'm able to use with the younger ones. For example, I spent a lot of time developing a great job chart that I used for many years with my older kids. How fun to pull it back out this summer and put it to good use!! All I had to do was change the names on the chart and update some of the chores. I LOVE my job chart. It has worked so well for us for so many years and I'm just tickled that I get to use it for many more years (one of the perks of having another batch of kids later in life)!!

For anyone interested in how it works, you can read about it HERE.

As you can see, it's a hodge-podge mixture of English and German--but it works for us. Each morning I pick all the jobs that need to be done that day. I sort of walk around the house and see what I'd like to have done. Then I lay the corresponding job tabs on the counter and have the kids pick which ones they want to do. Then they hang them on the chart in the order that they prefer to do the jobs. Then, throughout the day, as they complete each job, they are able to turn over the corresponding tab. They know they can't go out to play until all the tabs are turned over. And I am able to easily track their progress. It's been a great system for us.

Below is a video of the kids using the chart. As you can see, the kids mostly speak German as they discuss what chores they are going to do. But, many of our words we use for our chores are English. For example, we've always used the English word "mud room"--probably because there just isn't a good word for mudroom in German. We also use "stair basket" instead of figuring out the German word (Treppenkorb?). I find that we often insert English words into our German conversations. It's just easy to do. I should probably try a little harder to come up with German versions and get them to switch to the German word...but honestly, I often just don't worry about it. The kids already speak way more German than I ever expected from them. I'm just tickled that they are still speaking mostly German as they go about their morning chores.

Buße Bank (Repentance Bench)

Today, we had a little argument. Jonathan had a laser toy and wouldn't share it with Simon. So Simon spit at Jonathan and called him "gemein" (mean). This accusation caused Jonathan to burst into tears: "Ich bin nicht gemein". Funny how the house can go from peaceful to a wailing frenzy in a matter of seconds. So, what's my favorite way of handling these situations? Well, I'm not a spanker and I'm not good at enforcing time out. So, over the years, I've adapted an idea I came across, and I call it the "Buße Bank" or, in other words, the repentance bench (it sounds so much better in German). Here's how it works: As soon as I hear screaming, crying, tattling, or any type of fighting, I immediately send (sometimes drag) all involved parties to the repentance bench. In our house the "bench" is the raised fireplace hearth.
They cannot move their little bums from the hearth until the conflict has been resolved in the following manner: Each of them has to tell me how the other is feeling (and the other person has to concur with their diagnosis). And then they have to figure out what they might have done that caused the other person to feel hurt or angry (of course we know that no one can "make" another person angry...but I'm mostly asking them to look back on their past actions in order to identify something they said or did that was unkind, selfish or thoughtless.) No one is allowed to accuse or talk about what the other person did or didn't do to them. If they start with "But he..." then I just shush them and ask again "You need to explain to me why you think Simon feels angry." All of this is done in German, of course. Simon then has to explain what he might have done that hurt Jonathan's feelings. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out exactly what caused the contention. Once they both figure out why the other person feels hurt, they then have to apologize for whatever they did that was unkind or thoughtless. Sometimes they didn't mean to hurt the other's feelings, but they still need to figure out what they did and why it was misconstrued to be hurtful. Even if they didn't purposely hurt the other person, they still can apologize, by saying something like "I'm sorry that you got angry when I said that the purple cat you drew was not a real cat color. I didn't know that would make you feel dumb. Because you're not dumb, you're smart and your purple cat is cool." Almost always, by the time they get to the apologizing stage, they start giggling and end up hugging each other so much that they fall off the bench in a heap of laughter. It's been a great way for the kids to learn how to talk about feelings and to understand that other people have real feelings, too.

 So here are the Buße Bank rules summed up:

1. All parties sit on bench
2. Each child has to identify the other person's feelings
3. They each have to explain how their own actions were hurtful, unkind or thoughtless
4. They have to (sincerely) apologize for their selfishness, thoughtlessness or hurtfulness.
5. They can't leave the bench until their sibling is happy. They also have to hug each other and express their love for each other. When all parties are happy, THEN and only then, can they leave the bench.

By the way that weird character "ß" is a double "s" in German. So, it's pronounced Boosseh Bahnk. :)

Morning and Evening Routines!

About a year ago, I realized that we needed to set some expectations for morning and evening routines for our three youngest. They were 4, 4 & 5 at the time and I wanted them to do their routines without help from me. At first I tried to use my big job chart, but then I realized that they needed their own chart in their room.
Since I wanted tabs that could be turned over and used every day, I came up with the following chart.

To make it, I simply used some Dollar Tree Document frames ($1 each). (You could also use 8x10 frames, you'd just have to cut down your paper.) Then I created and printed the back ground of the chart on colored card stock. Here's the file I used (it's a Publisher file, so you'd have to have Microsoft Publisher on your computer. I don't think you can preview or open the file without it):
Morning and Evening Routines
Yes, I realize that this is in German. Since we speak only German to our little people, the job chart is in German. So, for those who don't know German, the morning jobs are: Prayer, Get Dressed, Brush Teeth, Make Bed and Clean Room. The evening jobs are: Put on PJs, Brush Teeth, Clean Room, Read Scriptures (I read to them), and Prayer.
So, now for the CLEVER part: In order to make hooks, I took the little round head brass paper fasteners and stuck them through the paper from the back, so that the pointy part stuck out the front side (I made a little slit with the tip of a sharp knife to help them push through the paper). Once I stuck all the fasteners through the paper, I secured them on the back with clear packing tape. Then, on the front of the paper, I bent the ends upwards to make little hooks! (I KNOW, IT'S SO CLEVER, I CAN HARDLY STAND IT). Anyways, after that, I made little job tabs with pictures. On the back of each tab, I drew a smiley face. Then I laminated the tabs and punched holes in the top. Lastly, I took the glass out of the frame and put my chart into the frame, securing it on the back with tape and hung it in the kids room.

Immediately, our morning and evening routines were transformed. Now, when they come out of their room in the morning, I ask them if they've turned over all their jobs. If not, they run right back in their room and do it. At night, I can send them upstairs ahead of me and tell them to do their jobs and if they get them all turned over before I come up, then they get an extra story. They love having a routine. They love knowing what's expected. It helps the whole family, since often an older sibling or my husband is putting the kids to bed. The chart has really helped our mornings and evenings run so smoothly.

Love my charts!!!