Crazy Guest: We are Speechless

Language transition and adoption: When we decided to adopt older children we had others question how we would communicate with our children.  Some were just curious and in others fear came shining through as they wondered how we would be able to understand each other, know what they.  Quite frankly we wondered that too.  They were not asking anything we had not already asked ourselves.  To be honest with you we started this journey asking for an infant girl and one of those little reasons we desired an infant in the beginning was because we wouldn’t have to worry about learning a new language among many other things.  But God changed our hearts and those worries we had, while still there melted into the background.  By the time He had moved our hearts toward older children we had seen Him bring in thousands of dollars that we previously did not know where it would be coming from.  If He could help us financially surely He could help us with the day to day life situations like language transition.  Once the decision was made to adopt older children we looked for resources on our children’s native language. We tried to create a list of words that we knew might be comforting to them, help us get them to the bathroom, let them know food was coming or that it would be okay if they were scared.  I would say we were as prepared as we could have been.

Can I just stop and say it was hard!  Let’s admit it.  Put two people in a room who don’t understand each other, make one rely on the other for all their needs, give them a bunch of things to do that they have never done before and there will be resistance.  With that said, the God I serve is BIG and with His help we made it – you can make it too if you are contemplating older children but worry about communicating with them.

Here are a few questions /thoughts for you to think about if you are contemplating older children who will be learning a second language:

1. Does your school system have an ESL (English as second language) program to assist your child?  By the way – schools are mandated by federal law to assist families and children with special needs and ESL qualifies as a special need.
2. Do you know others who speak your child’s native language and can help you communicate if need be?  If not, maybe your local college has a program in their foreign language studies with a student who might be available to you?
3. Find simple resources to help you such as Simple Language for Adoptive Parents by Amy Kendall. It comes in a variety of languages and has a CD included for you to hear how words are pronounced.
4. Learn about the stages of learning a second language.  You can find out more about these stages by going to my blog A Blissful Heart where I have posted on each individual stage, their characteristics and what you can do to help your child.

From personal experience what I can tell you this… just as you teach a toddler to talk so do you teach an older child to talk.  Read books, describe what you are doing, name objects, etc.  You will be surprised at how quickly they pick it up.   You should also be prepared for temper tantrums and meltdowns at first.  This is very normal.  When children can’t communicate they get frustrated and their actions will show it.  Many families ahead of us told us to just hang on until about 4 or 5 months home and the tantrums would stop.  What I discovered was at almost the exact same time the tantrums stopped our family was able to communicate!

So why would I share our fears regarding the language barrier?  I truly believe others share that same fear.  The transition of language has helped create a bond between us.  We didn’t get the chance to give bottles, change diapers, and snuggle with them as an infant but the journey of learning a new language together has given us some of what parents with small children get to experience.  When our kids mess up a word we get the chance to giggle together and be playful with each other.  When they learn a new word that is exciting to them I get the joy of seeing their face light up and learn something new about who they are.  What was once a scary thing for us has become a sweet reward in our obedience of following what God has for us.

Feel free to leave comments on how you have worked through the language transition with older children or leave your questions and I will work with Kari to try and help answer them!