4straphobia ⁴⁴ :
tbf you're already doing a lot having him enrolled in an immersion daycare and such, but it's never too late to start and I think it would absolutely be valuable to start! I don't actually know anything research wise, but I was raised bilingual + English bc we lived in England (similar to you with English and German and then moving to Chile I suppose) and having german and swedish spoken to me was so valuable in hindsight. it was difficult when I was young bc I had the attitude of "no german and swedish are boring I wanna speak English" but my parents essentially forcing me to speak my mother tongues was so important, especially since I wasn't a kid who read a lot, so once I grew out of the age of being read *to*, I wouldn't really have had any other source of my mother tongues other than through spoken language from my parents. and to some extent I get the whole like "professional language" thing bc I also never spoke English at home, it was a school thing, but that's just something that comes with time I think. you might learn how to speak "intimately" just through speaking with your son, but even if not, he will likely learn later in life and build upon the verbal skills you taught him by still speaking to him in Spanish even if it wasn't in an intimate way. also, creating an expectation of speaking Spanish with you will help him "keep" Spanish. if he doesn't go into an immersion primary school usw. and he doesn't end up reading a ton, he will likely lose the language, and you becoming someone he regularly speaks Spanish to will prevent that. idak what I'm talking about since this is all just personal experience coming from a teen lol but I do think speaking to him in Spanish is incredibly important.
holy yap, tldr: from personal experience, I think speaking to him in Spanish is soso valuable and absolutely worth it even if it feels weird and awkward in the beginning
2026-10-22 19:55:30