Multicultural Kid Blogs is a a community of like minded parents with one goal – raising world citizens, through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love.
With a new year comes new year’s resolutions, and a group of multicultural bloggers are sharing their new year’s resolution with us:
Olga from
Olga Mecking’s resolution is “to work on my children’s Polish (especially by finding a Polish playgroup or another way for them to meet more Polish children)!” She shares more of her resolutions
here.
Ute from
Expat Since Birth’s resolution is “not to expect my kids to talk their languages perfectly, i.e. to be highly proficient. I know they will attain a very good level if they read a lot. Therefore my resolution is to continuously find “food-for-reading” (i.e.
Lesefutter in German) for them in all the languages they talk. That’s quite a challenge, because my son is going to study his 6th and 7th language next year (French and Spanish). – Oh, for myself, the resolution is to start my own business as counselor and coach.”
Jennifer from
The Good Road’s resolution is to resolve to focus on compassion in 2014.
Natalie from
Learning with Mouse’s resolution: “This year I want my 7 year old to learn more about people who made an impact to the world. I also want to continue to expand our menu with international dishes and participate in
Around the World in 12 Dishes. We also plan tentatively a trip to Germany for Papa and daughter – last time she was there when she was 20 months. Who knows, perhaps she might get more interested in German then.”
Amanda from
Miss Panda Chinese’s resolution: “I just started learning Spanish and my kids are learning a little with me. I would like to make learning Spanish our daily routine in the new year. At the same time, we will keep our Chinese going. In the new year, I am planning to have a Chinese language and culture outreach program for young children in the community. I also would like to keep exploring DC with my children.”
Amanda from
The Educator’s Spin On It’s resolution: “One of my goals is to include a raising globally aware children tip in 2 our of my 4 playful preschool posts every month. That will both encourage me to be more involved and hopefully inspire others.”
Olena from
Bilingual Kids Rock shares two of her resolutions: “I have two things on my list 1) Find a ‘speaking partner” in Russian for my two older kids, so they can regularly find themselves in monolingual mode. They code-switch a lot with me. I plan to have Skype sessions with this Russian speaking partner. 2) Have a solid hour of reading every day. I am guilty on shorten it or skipping some days.”
Madre Exilio from
Mama Expatriada’s resolution: “My most important goal is to start doing small things that empower me and other people to change the world in a positive way. Eg. If I have a friend who is using a baby carrier which is not ergonomic I will explain her kindly why that type of carrier can harm her baby. So one day she may do the same with another friend. I want to stop the silence. We all can do something to change the world but we don’t dare to.”
Cordelia from
Multilingual Mama’s resolution: “Oh yes! This is good… maybe I’ll be better at the ones with kids since I’ve been making the same ones for myself for about errr 20 years… Doh! For me this is the year I finally take my ‘just get by’ Spanish and go fluent. We are scrapping every penny to take a big trip to Mexico so the start of the year will involve trying to work on our Spanish more actively to lesson language shock on arrival and the return? Well figuring out a new approach to our three languages and the time we allocate to them. (This is also the year I continue to learn to quiet my inner and not so kind voice and focus on positive friendships) (oh and maybe by year 21 I’ll get my driver’s license at last!)”
MaryAnne from
Mama Smiles’ resolution: “One of the things I love best about the fact that we now live in Silicon Valley is that my kids have classmates from all over the world! I want to help them learn more about their new friends’ countries and cultures!”
Jody from
Mud Hut Mama’s resolution: “My resolution for 2014 is to start putting down some roots somewhere. We have moved around a lot in 2013 and our living conditions haven’t always been conducive to family life. Once we figure out where we’ll be living, I want to spend some time and energy making our home a comfortable place where we can relax and be ourselves and I want to spend a lot of time getting ensconced in our new community.”
Sarah-Jane from
Chasing the Donkey’s has two resolutions: “Two NY resolutions for the Chasing the Donkey family are 1) Take more time for family time, right now so much has been spent on work and plans for the house. #2 For us to start to read to our son in our second language (Croatian) with the aim to help both him and us.”
Amanda from
Maroc Mama has three resolutions: “My resolutions 1) Be conversationally independent in Moroccan Arabic and start French classes 2) Plan better so that I have more free time 3) Take 3 family trips.”
Varya from the
Creative World of Varya’s “not so much resolutions” are: “Oh, I haven’t had any New Year resolutions in a while! Our family is expanding and so my only hope is for us to be able to be good parents and help guiding our children to become better people. I do want to spend more time speaking Russian with my daughters and start teaching my older one the alphabet and some reading. – So, not really resolutions – hopes and plans, which I wish to fulfill.”
Leanna from
All Done Monkey’s resolutions: “I am trying to switch to speaking mostly Spanish at home, which was harder than I thought it would be! But I think it will really benefit our kids’ language learning. I would also like to rediscover our spiritual core as a family (and for myself personally). I feel like our days are often so chaotic and haphazard that I have lost this focus and so often don’t take the time to do prayers together or to cultivate a joyful, loving atmosphere.”
Galina from
Trilingual Children has three resolutions: “My New Year resolution: 1. Work on improving my trilingual children weakest language – English. Until now I did not have English language activities with them on regular basis. I need to make a schedule and/or involve a language speaker or language school to support me in my task. 2. Keep working with the kids on their Russian. My both kids speak Russian very well; however, I feel I need to engage them more in conversations. 3. Find time for myself; there are so many books I would like to read!”
Sherisa from
Baby the Great’s resolutions are: “I want to really explore the Netherlands more and foster a sense of wonder and excitement in my son. He turns 1 in February so there’s not a great deal to do yet but it would be better for us both if I were more excited about here. I want to find him a nice play group to increase his sociability. I’m also going to take portraits of him. I can’t wait to look back at those. As for myself, I’d love for my web project to really take off when I launch in spring 2014.”
Rina Mae from
Finding Dutchland’s resolutions are 1) Taking care of herself, 2) Practicing mindful parenting, and 3) writing. You can read more about her resolutions
here.
Becky from
Kid World Citizen’s resolutions are related to blogging: “I’m trying to get more organized and I’m actually going to try to follow a blog organizer. In other realms, getting back into running/triathlons, and organizing my house. Our big news for 2014 is that we are almost licensed to be foster parents, and hope to adopt one more child in the process (yikes, from 4 to 5 kids!).”
I have really enjoyed reading everyone’s resolutions. However, as I gathered our wonderful multicultural blogger’s resolutions I realized I didn’t have any. I’ve never really made resolutions because I never tend to keep them. For the sake of this post I will share my new year’s resolutions: 1) take care of myself, and 2) focus more on creating Spanish immersion opportunities for our son.
What are your new year’s resolutions? Please share with us!
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Frances Díaz Evans is a Latina Author, Educator, Multicultural and Language Advocate. She holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of the East in Puerto Rico and a master's degree in Spanish education from the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.
She is the founder and writer of the multicultural, bilingual parenting website, Discovering the World Through My Son's Eyes and Discovering Español (Discovering Spanish), a business dedicated to teaching Spanish online.
She can be found musing on her blog, Facebook and her favorite social media platform Instagram.
It is so nice to read everyone’s aspirations and wishes! I hope everyone manages to fulfil them!
Ohhh some people put mine to shame. Good luck all xx
My 4-year-old daughter and I are writing a thank you note to someone different each week: http://africatoamerica.org/2014/01/01/new-years-resolutions/
It is so fun to read this collection. Now we just have to keep it up and make it happen!
Lofty resolutions, guys! Maybe I should sit down and make some before Chinese New Year…
You are making me think about New Year’s Resolutions for my kids to expose them to the world. Thank you! I hadn’t though beyond reading them lots of multicultural books. But I will add … try to expose them to more Spanish. We used to have a tutor but we haven’t studied in two years. At least try to find some videos!