[momm2be]

Yes we had bad issues at 14 months. Its a complicated time, most likely he doesn't have a detectable accent. Most who see him will assume he is fluent, which he is not. Also they are really in between languages right now, can't express themselves in Russian anymore and not yet completely in English.

At 6 they start to understand loss. With the lack of fluency in either language it could be very problematic. We found that DD was an easy target of mean kids at this time and she didn't have the arsenal or years of secure attachment, language or cultural know-how to cope with it. She became very anxious and I found myself tiptoe-ing around her as she seemed ready to explode at any moment.

Don't get me wrong - she was still loving, adorable and fun alot of the time, but this was the time when her stress level peaked. I sought out a Russian social worker/child psych for a psych educational consult. We discovered that alot of her mis-behaviors were responses to events she could not understand - either language or culturally. that she appeared immature to the teachers when in fact she tested to be more mature than her peers. Non-verbally she was ontrack, verbally not so. She was internalizing everything and her self-esteem (what little there was) plummetted. I was advised to remove her from her school, place her in a small catholic school where the social learning would be more closely supervised and the day would be very structured. We had to keep things constant as she was already overwhelmed with the social learning and demands of 1st grade.

The amazing thing is this advice was spot-on for my DD. Her mood and behavior changed 180 degrees in the 1rst week at the new school, and she has just blosssomed into a very unique and precious individual. Her confidence and self-esteem are approaching average (a major advancement in our life). Something that was being stifled in our first school setting - and then carrying over to home.

I don't think everyone's problems relate to school environment - but ours were literally fixed by this change. Just something to keep in mind as you enter elementary schools. Though you may have a great school system, they usually don't work for everyone.