Friday 18 April 2014

Time to Revamp

That's right, folks.  It's time to revamp the board.  The first thing to go will be...the name!  On April 10 we welcomed our daughter Missy into the world, so Maman and Men is no longer quite accurate.  Over the next few weeks I'll be reviewing the purpose of my blog.  Forgive me if I'm silent for another long stretch.  Frankly, I have no idea where this blog was headed, which means it may take a while to figure out where it should be headed.  But, I promise to come back in relatively good time with a new plan for this blog's future.

Cheers,

Maman

Tuesday 25 February 2014

Four Tips for Integrating Language into Your Child's Life

Is that a pedantic post title, or what?  As usual, it has been a while -- nearly a month -- since I last posted.  I have to admit that with the tail end of my pregnancy here (only seven weeks left to go, and one or two fewer with any luck) blogging has not been at the forefront of my brain.  However, here I am, back again, and I'd like to share some things I've learned about raising a bilingual child in a more-or-less monolingual province.

Multiple-language learning is priceless, and is worth the struggle it sometimes presents.  The Man doesn't speak any French, and at first I was worried that he would feel left out or ignored if the boys and I spoke French with him around, but especially lately, he has been encouraging me more and more to speak French with the boys regardless of who is there.  As a result, I've become more comfortable using my French, and the boys have become more used to hearing it.  Monster, who is 3 1/2, has even begun to respond (in English) to some of the things that I say.

With all that in mind, here is what I've learned about raising small children to speak more than one language.

1. Embrace your language.  The first step to raising a child who embraces your language is to embrace it yourself.  Monkey see, monkey do, right?  When a child sees and hears his parents embracing their language and culture, he will naturally -- at least for a while -- want to embrace it himself.  Sure, outside influences will come and may lessen that desire for a time, but the important thing is that that child has had a good beginning in more than one language.

2. Integrate language into the day-to-day.  Going to, say, a French playschool, like we do, is great, but exposing a child to another language in an outside environment for a few hours a day one or two days a week isn't enough.  It's important to use your language at home on a daily basis, even if it's just a few words here and there.  For some, this may mean repeating something in both languages ("C'est le temps pour le lunch maintenant.  It's lunchtime now.").  Really, it's what works for you.

3. Make time.  One friend of mine set aside specific times during the day where she and her daughters only spoke French.  Because her husband only speaks English, she made sure this was a time when he wasn't home to feel left out of the conversations; but, the girls still had time to use their French.

4. Find friends.  Let's face it, anything is hard when you feel like you're on your own.  To add to this, a child is less likely to embrace a language if he feels left out and 'weird' because of it.  By finding friends who share the same language or culture as you, both you and your child are more likely to continue with it.  Many communities or regions have playgroups offered in different languages, although you may have to travel for it; you can check out your local (or not-local) library to see if there is a story time in your language; being French-Canadian, we're fortunate enough to have regional Francophone schools that offer a myriad of resources.  And, of course, there's the good old internet.  This may be the best way to find resources in your region.

If you're raising a child to speak more than one language, don't give up!  There are more people than you might think who are in the same boat.  Source things out in your community.  Start up your own playgroup with other parents who are committed to exposing their child to another language.  Create times in your day to really focus on language, and above all, learn to love it yourself.  Experiencing language doesn't have to be a chore.

Tuesday 28 January 2014

On the Bookshelf: Clearing the Clutter

I mentioned in my last post that one of my goals for the year is to cut back on clutter.  One very emotional way I did that was to get rid of a box stuffed full of books.  My dear friend was able to help me pack them up this summer in preparation for the eventual day that I would take them to the used book store; two weeks ago, I finally got up the nerve to do it.

It was hard.

I felt like I was giving away part of my childhood.  Many of the books I had had for years upon years (okay, so that may be a little bit of an exaggeration, considering my relatively young age), and some of them were editions of Black Beauty, which I collected as a child.  Seeing someone else pawing through my books and putting a price on the heads of my old friends was difficult.

It was made easier, though, by my leaving the book store with some new friends, including some more Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift books, The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Ten Years After by Alexandre Dumas.  I think I parted with about 35 books over the course of two days and came home with 13.  I still have credit left at one store and look forward to using it, when I have a chance, to find more books to make a part of my adulthood.  Besides, even if I have physically given away books that have been on my shelf for years, I don't have to lose the memory of them.  It's just time to make room on the shelf for a new phase of my life.

Monday 27 January 2014

Setting Goals

Yes, again, it's been ages since I've posted.  I'm terrible at keeping up with this blogging thing, I know!  One tough thing is that I don't feel that I have much to write about.  Let's face it, the life of a stay-at-home mum, and a pregnant one at that, is generally neither exciting nor glamorous.  I enjoy sleeping, eating, and sleeping some more, and I spend most of my time driving to and from appointments or spending time at said appointments.  In fact, just this week I have four appointments over three days.  Yahoo.

Anyway, today I wanted to talk about setting goals.  With the changing of the years, the popular thing to do is to make resolutions; I prefer to set goals.  Resolutions just seem so vague to me, without real substance.  It's hard to maintain a resolution like "lose weight" (how much? by when? for that matter, how?) or "clean up" (where? how much? does it involve getting rid of things, or just rearranging?).  To me, it's easier to set a concrete goal using the corny but helpful SMART mnemonic.  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Related is the variation I use, although there are plenty of others that may suit you better.

After rotting my brain on Pinterest a bit (one thing I do when I'm not sleeping, although I do occasionally eat at the same time) I came across this relatively old but still relevant post from moneysavingmom.com.  It inspired me to set goals for each week and each day, as well as setting big goals for the coming year.  For the last three weeks, I've had a "Things to Do" notepad on my desk with a list of goals for each week.  One recurring goal is to get rid of five things.  I'm trying to cut back on the clutter, and what better way to do that than by finding things to get rid of, one way or another?  Well, I suppose that getting rid of things is the only way to get rid of clutter, but I digress.  Slightly.

Also important to me is knowing exactly what I've accomplished, so I keep another note pad on my desk (this one reads, "Why not go out on a limb?  That's where the fruit is.") for a list of everything I accomplish each week, big or small.  It's encouraging to me on my bad days to see that I haven't been totally unproductive.  Maybe I've written letters to my friends, or done some important banking, or sorted through a pile of paperwork.  Maybe it's been a good week and I've done all three.  Either way, I know that I've done something that's important to me.

The point of this all is that setting goals is necessary to my accomplishing anything.  With that, I share this weeks goals with you, in the hope that it may inspire you to set your own goals.

Goals for the week of 27 January

1. Find five things to get rid of.
2. Sort one box from storage.
3. Finish reconciling 2012 bank statements (done!)
4. Finish colouring Monkey's valentines.
5. Clean off the top of the dog's crate.  Again.

Things that I've done in the week of 27 January

1. Finished reconciling 2012 bank statements.
2. Made appointments with the vet, hairdresser, and physiotherapist
3. Banking, banking, banking.

I figure if I can finish one goal a day, I'm set, although some goals (like paperwork) may take a few days of plugging away before they get completed.  Do you set goals?  What's one goal you'd like to accomplish this week?