Reasons why Spanish speaking parents should teach Spanish to their children

Our children already have a competitive advantage When I was studying at the University in Schenectady NY, a family hired me as a Spanish tutor for their three children, a boy of 17 years, a 14 and 7 years old. The day I met them I was pleasantly surprised. These guys were polyglots, this means, they spoke more than two languages; Polish, German, Spanish and of course English. Needless to say, their Spanish was almost perfect.

It was then when I asked the Dad, how he had done it? His answer was simple: "in this house my children can speak any language except English. They will learn English outside the house without a problem". It is worth mentioning that the Father was from Poland, therefore he only spoke only Polish to his children. The mother was German; therefore, she spoke only in German. And they decided their children should learn Spanish because it was the second most spoken language in the world.

From that day on, I understood that for the simple fact of being Mexican and speaking Spanish the day I had children, I could give them a competitive advantage in the working world if I made sure they learned Spanish.

Today I am a mother of three children and they are bilingual. But achieving it has not been easy. I have several Hispanic friends with children who do not speak Spanish because maybe the father doesn’t speak Spanish, because we believe it is easier for our children to understand us in English and because finally we live in a country that is mainly English speaking.

The truth is that keeping our language at home and making our children learn it will bring great benefits.

For just highlighting here are some of the benefits of teaching our children our mother tongue; speaking another language means being able to see the world in a different way, fosters tolerance with other cultures, opens doors in the labor sector, may be able to learn a third language more easily if they wish, significantly increases their vocabulary in English, and there are currently studies that show that bilingual children solve problems more easily than those who are monolingual and at school obtain better grades on exams.