I don't know where to begin...
For the record, the reason I'm writing this and reaching out to cyberspace is because it's too early on a Saturday morning to call my bilingual guru, my other friends didn't answer their phones, it's too late in LA, too early in NJ...so it's just me and the sticky computer keys.
As a parent, you try to do what's best for your kids. You want them to be themselves. you want them to learn the best of you while trying to shelter the worst of you from them. But, I think most intelligent parents know that there's no way to keep all the crazy from them. There's no way your kids will not inherit some of your own crazy, no matter how hard you work at it, no matter how many years of therapy you do, no matter how much interspection you do...
Before the kids were born, I had a long talk with myself (and my therapist) and decided on a couple basic tenets : 1) I will always tell my kids I love them no matter what 2) I will not yell at them for breaking things unless it was an act of stupid kidness and 3) I will not hide when I am upset or crying.
The thought behind all this was that my kids not only know unconditional love but that they also know that I'm a person too and have feelings and cry, without getting mad for nothing. You can of course read into this and think what you may about my upbringing. And I'd just like to say that, yes, my parents made mistakes like all parents. But I know they didn't do it on purpose. And a lot of my "crazy" is just how I am.
The first time I saw Suzanne, she was anxious and wired. From the start, she was more like me : a little high strung, a little too easily overwhelmed...Max, on the other hand, has been all or nothing since birth. His first morning, I woke up in the hospital with him in his bassinet next to me, my finger in his mouth. This calmed him instantly in the middle of the night; the same treatment only made Suzanne scream more. MAx has two states: on and off. Suzanne seems to being buzzing all the time - you can never turn her completely off, but you can turn her down.
Over the past couple weeks, something's been amiss with Suzanne. She was uncontrollably a few weeks ago. I finally think I figured out it has to do with young love (the boy she likes kissed her but now says he didn't - I learned the story by listening to her tell her best friend). She's also had a couple of serious tantrum, what I can only describe as 5 year old panic attacks: she clenches up her fists, squeezes her eyes tight and starts to shake. It's happened two times and I can tell you that Jeorme and I are more than worried. I think we both understand her feeling of being overwhelmed and neither of us want her to have that kind of crazy....
And so, of course, I begin wondering if the OPOL system in our family, the fact that she's bilingual and therefore different, is not only putting too much pressure on her but also stigmatizing her at school. Yesterday she told us at dinner that sometimes her friends ask her how to say something in English but she can't find the words. We both told her it was normal and we acknowledged that being bilingual isn't easy but she'll be so happy later. And I know she will.
But right now, all I want to do is cry because I feel like I'm doing something completely wrong. I'm damaging my daughter before my very eyes and I can't stop it because I am who I am. I can see her absorbing my crazy. I wonder if I can do it another way to ward off future panic attacks. And I wonder if bilingualism is contributing to her state of panic....
