"International" Children

FURET

Just wondering whether any of you have children who've had what might be called an unconventional childhood.

For example, the child's parents are from different countries and both live and work in a third country (where neither are citizens and both are expats) with the child.

Any experiences to share in terms of any challenges when it came to raising your children?

Xdancer

My daughter is only 2 years and 7 months and was born in Spain where we live now. I'm Irish and my OH is French. We haven't had any issues thus far, although with all the countries being part of the EU I don't expect any major problems.

Tom Dunne

Friends of mine have some mix - Irish mother, English father, kids born in Dubai, going to French school.

Getting on fine, by all accounts.

playedalive

When I was studying Spanish in college for my degree, I had a lecturer who was half Spanish and Half Czech. She was married to an Irish guy who is a native Irish speaker. They are bringing up their children with herself speaking Czech and himself speaking Irish to the kids. They'll easily be fluent in 4 languages in no time.

And all those years of studying French and Spanish until university level to get somewhat proficient in them

Alun

playedalive wrote: »

They are bringing up their children with herself speaking Czech and himself speaking Irish to the kids. They'll easily be fluent in 4 languages in no time.

Haven't any kids myself, but I spent a good number of years working in a European organisation in Germany where there many families like this. Number one important thing for the childrens' development was apparently to be 100% consistent in which language each parent uses with their children.

One parent continuously swapping from one to the other was supposedly confusing for them, as they are quite capable of learning two different parental languages plus a local one at the same time, as long as they were consistent.

Aimeee

Only issue I've ever seen was where there were underlying issues with the child, ie needing assistance at school. Problems went undetected/hard to specify for a while as there was a brand new language to be learned in the resident country. The language was not that of either parent.

FURET

In my case, Irish father (me), Filipino mother, both Dubai residents.
I've never been a very "Irish" person though, in the sense that I have zero interest in the things that most Irish people tend to have some interest in (sport, the pub, etc.). I've always had much more of a European identity than an Irish identity, if that makes sense.

So I was just wondering what sort of national or cultural identity a child who is the product of a European-minded father and a Filipina mother living in Dubai would develop.

It's not a concern, more a curiosity. Naturally we'd expose the child to fairly regular trips and vacations to both Ireland and the Philippines.

ceadaoin.

I'm irish and my OH is English. Our daughter was born in London. We moved back to Ireland when she was 6 months old and before she was 2 we moved to the US. I think it's ok to move around when she is this young but as she gets older I would like to be a bit more settled. Overall though I think it's good to travel and experience different cultures from a young age. We visit my family in Ireland regularly and she loves going back and still sees Ireland as home. I'm sure as she gets older and we get more settled here that will change.

Jim2007

Well I have two young teenagers half Irish, half Swiss. At home we speak English, German and two Swiss German dialects! They have never had any problem dealing with four different languages and at this stage they really don't care which language they use, it is more a case of which language the person they are speaking to prefers. Although my son does prefer to do maths in English, he says he finds it easier to thing about maths in English.

When in Ireland they both take a great interest in understand the Irish language and Irish culture - their Irish cousins think that is weird! The can also but on a good West of Ireland accent and have no problem passing themselves off as locals - but then they have a lot of knowledge about the local areas around Mayo and Galway so that helps.

In terms of nationality my son describes himself as Irish, while my daughter describes herself as Swiss, although they both have dual citizenship and passports to match. The first time I because aware of this was when we were travelling back to Switzerland by train, my son was about 9 at the time and he had gone a few seats ahead of me to look out the Window. When the Swiss customs officers found him on his own they started asking him in Swiss German where he came from etc... he answered them back in Swiss German explaining that he was Irish but that he held a Swiss passport as well!

oranje

I am Irish with a Polish wife and three children who are more Dutch than anything else. The three girls go to Dutch school and speak to each other in that language but my wife speaks Polish to them and I speak English. I think that people have a bit of a romantic idea about how easy it is to bring up kids with two or more languages. It causes issues with schooling where they are expected to be just the same as Dutch kids with one language despite the fact that their minds are accommodating words and structures from three languages. Luckily the girls are doing okay but their school reports have shown weaker Dutch vocabulary levels time and again. It can also be uncomfortable as a family because we stick out if we use our own languages, in many cases you would fit in better if you just spoke Dutch in public. However that step can lead kids to stop spealing back in Polish or English so that us why we stuck rigidly to what they call the One Parent One Language strategy.
Where we are now our kids love English because it is the language of Hollywood and glamour, my wife has more issues keeping them from mixing loads of Dutch into their Polish but they do speak it well (below the level of their age cohort in Poland though).
All in all we are happy that we have tried to give them the gift of being trilingual but as with anything there is no guarantee that they will cherish this into their adult lives. They may drop our languages once they leave home (though that's not likely with English since Holland uses it in so many domains).