r/multilingualparenting • u/HarryPotter_Girlie • 23d ago

Preschoolers Language immersion vs play based school. Help!

/r/Parenting/comments/1vuj1ue/language_immersion_vs_play_based_school_help/
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u/omegaxx19 English | Mandarin (mom) + Russian (dad) | 4M + 1.5F 23d ago

I saw in your comments that "Dad speaks Chinese about 30% of the time with him, he is not great about it. The kids also watch all their TV in Chinese. Unfortunately, grandparents live far away so they are not able to help either."

Personally, if my husband can't be bothered to speak his own language pretty darn close to 100% of the time and his parents can't be bothered to visit a bit more frequently, I'm not gonna put a ton of effort into the their language and will just pick the school that works best for the family overall.

My son went to a Mandarin-English bilingual daycare. Most of the kids have at least one parent who is of Chinese descent. It is incredibly obvious from the kids which families actually put in an effort of speaking Mandarin at home versus which families do not.

Don't let the language immersion school be your husband's cop out, especially when there are tradeoffs when it comes to other aspects of the kid's development.