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Ages and Stages
Our Ages & Stages section is where we pass on to you information, ideas, support and knowledge that we have collected from you, research, books, media and our own observations and experiences.
Ages 0-2: Customs
Long before your child enters her first classroom setting, she will have learned some of her most important lessons – from you! Before she can speak, your child is learning from the people and activities in her surroundings and is putting together the pieces that will form the foundations for formal learning later.
It is important that you feel comfortable about your child’s bilingualism and biculturalism at this stage since she is picking up cues from you right now. Go ahead and imagine what it might be like when she starts school and how you might feel. Are you afraid that other kids will make fun of your child for her second language and culture? Are you worried that she may decide she doesn’t want to have anything to do with her second language and culture after spending time with children in school? Your child isn’t too young for you to start thinking about such issues. How you feel about them now can have a tremendous impact on how you help your child embrace bilingualism and biculturalism throughout her life.
Before you know it, your child will be starting preschool or will be spending time with other children, learning how to share, take turns, be patient, say “thank you” and “please.” She will begin to learn what it means to be part of her local society. You may not realize it but she will be learning how to assimilate with the local community. She is slowly learning the local customs. This may be difficult for you since you might start to feel that you are “losing” your child to the local culture. You may feel that your child is pulling away from you. Often the local customs may be ones with which you are not very familiar and you may find it difficult to teach them to your child.
No matter how you feel about your local community, it is important that your child learn what is and is not allowed. If your child is in preschool, or later when your child is in school, she will need to be able to rely on these unspoken “rules” to feel grounded and comfortable when apart from you.
Don’t forget, however, that you also need to find ways to teach your child about your native customs and the “rules” of your culture. You owe it to your child to teach her how to behave in your native culture so that she will feel comfortable with family and friends when you are on visits. Feeling that she is part of her extended family, and not some kind of outsider, is essential to her feeling that she is truly bicultural.
Ultimately, customs make us feel part of our surroundings. Even if our child later decides to “do her own thing”, it is important that she understands how each of her cultures may interpret her actions and attitudes differently.
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