[moelladeville]

I agree with Devora, and my suggestion was just to give our thread a name, so that we can "check in" when we see it. Just a thought!
Marjorie

[golden_x_two]

Marjorie, I like your idea.
I would love to see the parents of older children sharing their stories. I don't have a referral yet but someday I will have a 3 to 5 year old girl. By reading the posts on this thread you have all eased my mind a bit about her learning English. One of my biggest fears is not being able to communicate with her. Now I know what I will need to do to help her along. I know I will have questions and who better to ask, but the people who have been there. I hope all of you do check in with each other once in a while so others adopting older children can learn from you about all the ups and downs they will be facing. Thank you everyone for sharing your stories.

[brink]

To encourage those concerned about the language...it comes very quickly! Maybe not in all cases, but our experience and many others we know. Our two 4yr old sons were speaking only English after 2mo and 6mo. Our 10yr old daughter knew some English and could read English when she came. She had an English teacher in Guatemala in the private school the orphanage sends the kids to. Of course, she couldn't understand nearly as much as she could say. We thought it would take her quite a bit longer than the boys, being older. She also learned English quickly. She has retained her accent, the boys haven't. I think she will keep that, and will have to make a conscious effort if she wants to avoid it. I know she can, as I can imitate a southern accent, etc.

It IS scary to not be able to communicate with your child. More so in Guatemala, where others can talk to them, but we can't. THAT is weird...and scary.

Much can be pantomimed, as in "Did you brush your teeth?" as you hold up toothbrush, paste, and make tooth brushing motions. And tone of voice really communicates a lot. Of course, you will experience the dumb look of "No habla Ingles"...as in they will pretend they don't have any idea what you are saying, when you know they understood perfectly. But my bios have done this at times...playing dumb...and my DH has selective hearing sometimes, also!

I have no idea how their young brains can learn a new language so quickly...but they can. Don't let THAT ever stop anyone. We are not bilingual. We know some helpful words and phrases. We should know more...our kids have made this too easy for us.

[captainzip90]

brink,

I had to laugh, our 9 and 7 year old have been home 13 months and once in a blue moon they try to pull the, " I don't know that word." Usually it comes after I have told them to do some chore. They are sooo smart!!!

I have a question, we still get this response from our 9 year old daughter, who is slightly emotional, " I don't belong in this family." She alsways says this when she is having a fit about being disciplined. How long will she use this trump card? Trust me we have thoroughly discussed that we love her and she is treated just like all our children ( 2 bio and 3 adopted). This is a manipulation tactic.

Any thoughts anyone?
Michele.

[LucyLuMyLuv]

[quote=captainzip90] " I don't belong in this family." She alsways says this when she is having a fit about being disciplined. How long will she use this trump card? [quote]

Probably for a while, but then again my bios have used that line also! Just reassure her when she does use this that she really does belong -- which it sounds like you are already doing.

Another comment about language -- this one is one my husband will never live down. I had practiced helpful phrases before our daughter came home and a lot of my high school spanish came back. But he did not practice and never had spanish so he relied a lot on me and using gestures. One night he came into the other room so proud because he had "understood" her. She had only been home a few weeks and he said, "Elizabeth told me she wants to go to Montana." I thought a minute. She did not even understand that we lived in Oklahoma so HOW could she know Montana? So I asked, "did she say manzana?" "YUP, that's it!" he says. I tell him to go give her an apple. We still laugh about it!

[brink]

Montana? Apple? What's the difference? Funny!

My DH was proud to tell our daughter on the phone (when she was still waiting in Guatemala) that we have many pigs...but ended up telling her we have many dogs. I think the words are cerro and perro. We raise hogs...not dogs. Close. I was afraid she might be nervous about coming here, if she thought we had a lot of dogs.

[captainzip90]

I like the Montana/apple story.


A friend gave our two kids used bikes after they came home. They both said, "Gracias" to which my friend said, "dinero". I said, Gina, now they think you are asking them to pay for the bikes, the response is, "de nada".

The kids use to ask my husband to say Spanish words and he would try, usually his pronounciation wasn't that far off and then they would laugh hysterically and repeat how he said it. Cheap entertainment.

Michele.

[LisaF]

My daughter came to our family from Guatemala at the age of 10 1/2. We just celebrated her 3rd year in our family. She had not gone to school at all in Guatemala and really did not even know the basics that we teach our toddlers, like counting and colors. She could count to 10 in spanish and knew the basic colors but didn't really know much beyond that. It would take a VERY long post to tell you how I have worked with her schooling, but in a nutshell...she was placed in 3rd grade 4 weeks after she came home and worked with an ESL teacher in her classroom. Since she had never been in school she first had to learn how to cooperate with others, play and just the basics of school. That summer we had her in Montessori. The second year she was in 4th grade, ESL part time and Individual education part time. She still had very basic english so she had to have everything explained to her individually. The class moved too fast for her to keep up. For 5th grade we homeschooled her part time and she went to school part time. We felt like she was falling through the cracks even though the school seemed to think she was doing fine. We started with 1st grade math and english books and worked our way up. By the end of the year she was easily doing 4th grade work with the exception of being able to read some of the words. This year, she is in 6th grade. Her teacher specializes in Individual education. She does some 6th grade work and some individual education work. We work with her a couple hours a night on her homework. She is by no means caught up to her classmates but doing amazingly well for not having a formal (or informal) education until age 10 1/2. The one thing that I have to say is that you have to stay in constant contact with the teachers and there is never a day without having to help with some homework. Her english language has taken off this year, alot of "experts" say it takes about 3 years for them to really be able to understand a second language without having to translate it into their native language first. It has been a real eye opener for me to have to be a constant advocate for my child at school. When Johana first came home everything was so new to her that she would get overwhelmed easily. If I had to do it over again and could I think I would homeschool her half days from the very beginning. I think that full days of school when she didn't understand anything was exhausting for her. OK..I'll stop for now, I could go on forever. If I can be of any help to those of you bringing home your kids you can PM me. I also think that if you have specific questions that you would like to ask her she would be glad to answer them. She likes to read theses posts and often has a comment or two. You just have to remember her comments are coming from a teenage perspective
Lisa

[brink]

Lisa...thanks for sharing your story. Sounds very familiar, except for our daughter having been in school in Guatemala. I haven't a clue as to how they compare, but we suspect our daughter didn't pay much attention and was easily distracted. She's getting better at that, but still is settling into just being one of the crowd. She got so much attention to begin with, it wasn't funny!

Your posts encourages me that we are doing things that have also worked with other older children. I do wonder when she will be caught up, but know that whatever it takes, we will do all we can to help her. I identify on how much time is spent after school on helping with homework. But there really does not have to be a "deadline". I remind myself that if this child isn't ready to head off to college at the usual time, there are other options. There may be some emotional delays which will effect those decisions, also. We've missed so many years with her anyway, why would we care if we got to "keep her" at home awhile longer? We praise God for her enthusiasm and desire to succeed. Her competitive nature has helped, though it also was what got in the way of her always being willing to accept the extra help...an aid, lower level spelling units, reading resource teacher, etc.

[captainzip90]

brink,

I think you hit the nail on the head about expectations. As I think about bringing a 12 almost 13 year old home I sometimes get caught up in the " think of all the things she won't know" but then by dh reminds me, "think of where she would be in all likely hood at age 17 if she was still in Guatemala with no mother. It can be overwhelming unless you step back and widen your perspective.

Michele.