Most days, teaching kids Spanish is fun. Playing together and watching your children learn will motivate you. Most days, you will find teaching kids Spanish a creative, energizing process.
That said, raising children with two languages takes a lot of work. The pressure to provide input is never-ending. Structuring exposure to a language, not to mention encouraging and motivating your child, can be exhausting. Regardless of your situation, there will be days when the enormity of the task of teaching kids Spanish is daunting.
If you are teaching kids Spanish at home or at school, be sure to check out our Teach Kids Spanish: Resources and Strategies page. You’ll find lots of helpful, inspiring information.
The printable poster below offers support based on my experience teaching kids Spanish. My own children are adults now, but I remember how overwhelmed and inadequate I felt at times. I had to develop strategies for dealing with those days, or I would have given up!
In general, my strategies came down to giving my kids lots of credit and giving myself a break. To this day, my confidence in my kids has never been misplaced. Children are resilient, language learning machines. Once they are motivated and exposed to a language, they will master it. Giving myself a break has also proved to be a good strategy. As parents and teachers, our standard for each interaction tends to be high. It is easy to forget that for a child the days and months run together; there is time for the pieces to fall into place.
On days when you don’t have the energy or time to be creative, and the task seems daunting, remember these truths about raising bilingual children.
We all have days when teaching kids Spanish if hard, so feel free to share these reminders with a friend or family member.
You can download and print the reminders with a dark background here. You can download a more printer-friendly version with a light background here.
You can also share this direct link to Piktochart: Ideas and Reminders for Days When You Need Them.
What are your strategies for the days when teaching kids Spanish seems overwhelming? Please share your ideas and motivational thoughts in comments!
