Bao & Bun's Bilingual Journey

Recently, I heard from two moms whose kids had speech delays. During therapy, they primarily focused on English, and now both kids barely speak any Chinese. Seeing their frustration with their kids not speaking Chinese, I’m determined to keep up with Chinese learning despite any hurdles we face.

With first grade ending, we realized that Little Bao still needs help with his English. I got workbooks and decodable books for him to practice and planned out daily activities. Since there’s no homework now, I want to use this time to boost both his English and Chinese. However, like any other kid, all he wants to do when he gets home is play. Before, I didn’t have to deal with “work” too much because homework was done at afterschool care. Now, I need to monitor his work, and when he struggles, we both get frustrated.

Besides the Chinese goals I want him to achieve, we need to work on his English. As a working parent, we usually see the kids around 5 PM, and then there’s a series of dinner, shower, and work I plan for them before they go to bed at 8:30. There’s really not enough time to do all this as well as the online classes I’ve signed them up for.

After yesterday’s frustration with Little Bao, I decided to cut back on the work and some classes. But then, there’s not much time left to work on Chinese. With everyone talking about the third-grade hurdle*, I feel like I’m running out of time for Little Bao to get to a level where he can read simple books by himself. The struggle is real, and I can only count on good days and try not to be bothered by the bad ones.

I’d say I’m still lucky with Little Bun and glad her Chinese is progressing well. Having two kids on this bilingual journey at the same age with two different levels is definitely rough, but I hope I can keep going.