Veleta

Well, my best friend is Mexican (with a German mother and Spanish father). Her daughter has a Spanish father, but was born in Mexico.

They spend their time between Mexico DF, Germany and Madrid.

According to my friend this continent hopping has only been of benefit to her and her daughter. I never even considered that it might not be!! She leads a very envious lifestyle with multiple nationalities meaning they can settle almost anywhere without all the red tape.

HBG

I was going to delete my post relating to my negative experiences in moving to a foreign country at the age of 12, but it’s too late now as it has been copied and pasted in subsequent posts.

I’m not going to elaborate, and the poster who replied to say that we all have childhood traumas that we should forget about, is absolutely right.

(I still might write a book about it though).

Luz

I think that our kids identity comes not only from the country they live in but from the home they come from. The children walk through the door at the end of the school day and they find endless worries about: did we do the right thing?, are they speaking Spanish or English well?, are their friends coming to the house?, do they have friends? etc etc etc
When they come through the door they need love, security and conversation.
They need a stable home with the same people there every day, good food, sober parents (most of the time) and love, lots of it.
My children came to Spain more than 20 years ago. Their schooling has been totally in Spanish. Our language at home is English. (otherwise they would never have spoken English) Our TV, books, newspapers, films, theatre, concerts were totally Spanish until about 5 years ago when I decided that Sky could come to the house because we all (they more than me) were fluent in culture, language and friendships.
When we move to another country we take our thoughts and feelings with us in the suitcase. Our thoughts and feelings help to shape our children. Our angst is tranferred to them.
Go with the flow, enjoy your kids, enjoy life, learn Spanish, read El Pais or El Mundo, or whatever you prefer, watch TV (even though a lot of it is dreadful). stop and try and chat to your neighbours, listen to Spanish music, explore Spain (don't always go back to the UK for holidays), accept that you have choosen a new home and embrace it.
Take a leaf out of the book of, for example, Asians who moved to the UK 1 or 2 generations ago. Lots of their children and grandchildren have made a success of their lives, are British, but still retain a part of their culture thanks to their parents. (please no comments on terrorists, ghettos. non integrators etc.) These people went to the UK looking for a better life for them and their children and it worked for a lot of people.
If you are here to stay then you should transmit that to your children. If it is an experiment then maybe you should have done that before you had kids, or at least when they were between 0-5 years old.
Stop worrying and enjoy. Children grow up very quickly and before you know where you are they are adults, their childhood has gone and if you don't treasure those years then you miss out on probably one of the most enjoyable parts of your life.
Sarita I think that your child will be fine. Your comment "unless we offer him great stability and constancy throughout his life" is the key. I am sure both you and your husband will do this and he will turn out to be a very interesting. secure and loved child. If he is that as a child, adulthood should be a breeze.

lynnxa

great post

fionamw

We've just moved our 7 year old from the state primary locally to an International within driving distance.... after quite a bit of thought, I might add and as you might expect. We wouldn't have done it had there not been two overriding factors.
1 - The village school struggles, and not only in our eyes, not because it is Spanish but because of the low expectations of the local population in general; motherhood or agricultural/construction work being the likeliest routes. I know it doesn't apply to all, but is a reasonable assessment. The IT seemed non-existent. The head smokes in school. The attitudes to bullying and fisticuffs and cigarettes & blah blah blah are somewhat lax. The buildings/surroundings are shall we say a little tired. (reverse hyperbole)
2 - The school he's now in is over 75% Spanish, and though the language of most lessons is English (75:25 split) the language of the playground, corridor, car park, parents, huddles outside, etc, etc., is predominantly Spanish. He's the only foreign boy in his class (at the village school, ironically, he was one of two!) Without that knowledge, by moving him to the International school I'd have been seriously concerned that we would fall into the trap of putting him/ourselves in a Brit bubble. Why be in Spain & do that?
ps We too, as at least one other person has posted, believe the Spanish lessons he'll be having will be at least as good as, if not better than, those at his old Spanish school.

The concensus among Spanish friends/acquaintances we've talked about this with is that for his education we've definitely made the right choice.


Luz's post - Lynnxa got there before me! Great post. Don't agree with every last dot & squeak but great all round

lynnxa

so different to the International school my 2 went to at first (before we went the spanish route)

I wouldn't say they were forbidden to speak spanish in the playground - but it was definitely discouraged

jojojojojojojojojojojojo

They're not exactly encouraged to speak spanish at our school, but you know wht kids are like. I think the point is that the schools try to stop the nationalities going off into their own huddles and not mixing, which doesnt seem to happen at our school very much. I was watching them when I picked my kids up the other day and what seems to happen is that they speak english until either an english kid start to speak spanish cos he can (showing off) or the spanish kids perhaps dont know how to say something.

Jo xxxx

manamama

Yes a good post - some good points.

I don't think you can say to parents to "stop worrying and enjoy".

Today's worries are not the same 20 years ago.

SaritaBarcelona

Thanks again for all this debate. I'm not actually worried, more interested to hear what people think in order to make decisions at a later date based on other people's experiences. We are lucky as a family as I can move between Spanish and English easily so our son sees both as "normal", and can move between them too. He already knows that he has to say one word to me, and something different to Papá, but recognises that I also speak Papá's language! Papá is too lazy to learn English, and our son seems to recognise this (a missed opportunity to learn alongside his son...). So many people have said that it confuses children to have two languages, blah blah blah, but he takes it all in his stride, it took him a bit longer to get up to the same speed as some of his friends (thinking more of English here) but he has THREE languages as nursery and school use Catalan. Sometimes he is roleplaying Thomas and Friends scenes, and some comes out in English, and then some in Spanish, very cute!

Triana

Sarita, it sounds as if your son is doing just fine. Our god-daughter is bi-lingual in English and Latvian (because of her parents) and is reading Spanish and German at Uni without any difficulty.