Consider the children of Chinese Americans. These kids tend to overcompensate for the benefit of their school classmates…they work to be as American as possible and that includes NOT learning Chinese.

When they get to be young adults, they are embarassed when Chinese people expect them to be able to speak the language.

Your child will not have Chinese parents…I assume you are white. So the child might avoid some of the peer-pressure to be more American.

Sure, teach her Chinese…but figure out a fun way to do it. If you are near a Chinatown, go to the Culture Center….there is one in every large Chinatown…run by the government of Taiwan. There your child can play with Chinese children…Chinese American kids. And she can learn Chinese with them.

It will be fun and it will help her establish healthy attitudes towards her Chinese “tong-bao”.

our third son has a good friend who is chinese. this kid spends a lot of time at our house. he also happens to be a whiz on the trumpet. this fall, when our fourth boy picked trumpet, perfect. our smallest son works much harder for the older friend than he ever would for me. cheap too, and the kid is already over here alot. it was fun bartering with him over the details too, he loves to haggle.

good luck, hope your girl is chattering away soon. combine language lessons with dance movements, chances are she’ll learn both things twice as fast.

Hmm. That’s an interesting idea, since there’s the older boy in the house what attends a middle school with a few Mandarin-speaking kids in it.