Big Change!

My little man Tae is gorgeous.

He has bucket loads of personality.

He can charm the birds from the trees.

He has such a gentle nature.

He is also very stubborn.

However, I have talked about his communications skills before.

He always gets his message across, whatever he wants, with as little language as possible.

However, we have now hit a problem. Since last summer his Norwegian has been in decline, and it was never that great to begin with:( There has been many changes in his daycare after it burnt down in the summer with a new location and staff, and I expect this is a contributing factor.

His English on the other hand has continued to develop and it is fair to say it is now his first language. It is strange and I don't understand it. We live in Norway. He goes to nursery 5 days a week where the only language is Norwegian. Tig only speaks to both boys in his native language. It is only Tim and I who speak to him in English and he watches some English cartoons.

So - what can we do?? It is very important that his Norwegian catches up! 

He is a sweet natured child who quietly gets on with whatever he is doing. He is not one to be loud and seek attention at nursery, more like the one quietly playing with the cars. I have spoken to them and they have now taken positive action to make sure they address his needs too (or not let the bossy/noisy ones dominate). They have noticed that his language skills have come a long way since Christmas. That would be when the main group leader returned and took control again and I got very proactive;) However, they are also quite clear, it is only a speech issue and no other problem, he is as sharp as a needle on everything else.!!

However, we have decided to take action at home too.

It is with a sad and very heavy heart I have decided (with Tig) to ask Tim to go over to Norwegian with his brother.

This is a big step......huge.

Now, they both only communicate in English. Do you know how unusual this is? I do not know any of my friends whose children communicate with each other only in their mother's language and not Pappa's and their country language.

The reason why Tim initially began speaking English with him was due to Tae hearing Korean for the first 7 months of his life. Since, he would be living and attending nursery and school in Norway he would need all the help he could get to master English. He needed English as this is our other language at home and the only way for him to communicate with half his relatives.

Hopefully his English language will continue to develop as I will continue to talk English with him and he will still watch a few of his favourite shows in English. Since he now has a solid base Im certain he will be fine, but it is still a big thing for me.

I love that my boys chatter away in English.

However, I love my Tae more and if this help him, it has to be done. I know that he adores Tim and I expect with Tim speaking Norwegian with him it will really help and speed up his progress.

Tim, said he is happy to switch over, but agrees we may need to keep reminding him as he is so used to speaking English with Tae. When we told Tae, Tim would start to speak Norwegian with him his answer was very clear 'no'! It was very funny listening to them in the back seat of the car.

Tim: Tae, Jeg skal bare snakke norsk med deg,ok?

Tae: NO!

Tim: Jo, det vil jeg.

Tae: NO!

Ok, it may take a while, but we will get there eventually. 

Love my little English man and my big bilingual man who will do whatever is best for his little brother.