Why does a child need Russian if he lives in another country? Many parents in the United States and beyond wonder about this. If everything is clear with math, then the language is not so clear.
Usually the conversation comes down to career. If you work with Russia and other countries where Russian is spoken. However, this is far from the main argument.
Language is a heritage
Children who grow up between two cultures sooner or later ask themselves the question: Who am I? I am a stranger there, and I am not quite my own here either.
In this case, language may be the answer. A child reads a book that mom read. Understands a joke in a Soviet movie. Hears a song and knows the meaning behind it. That's identity. It can't be explained through favor.
Contact with relatives
The grandmother tells a story. The child nods, but doesn't understand half of it. The grandmother's stories afterward go away with her.
Many adults regret exactly that. Not that they didn't learn the language for their resume. It's that they didn't have time to have a real conversation.
Russian gives you access to the living people who love your child. Their stories and their humor. A translator is not even close.
Also, sometimes language can be an important element in communication. Not everyone has relatives living close by. Many families are separated by an ocean, so Russian is necessary for basic communication.
Emotional intelligence
It's rarely talked about. The words «longing», «luck», «avos» do not translate into English in one word. There is a whole layer of experience behind each one.
A child who knows these words. Names what he feels. And naming a feeling is half the skill of dealing with it. Psychologists call it emotional granularity. The richer the vocabulary of emotions, the better a person understands himself.
Russian language gives this dictionary. Just for fun, as a package.
«But he doesn't want to learn.»
It's okay. No child is attracted to something that seems foreign to him.
If Russian is copywork and grammar, he will resist. If Russian is a conversation with your grandmother, a picture book, a song in the car - the language absorbs itself. Create a context - the resistance will decrease.
It's about «who I am.»
Twenty years from now, a child is unlikely to remember the cases. But he will remember that he spoke his grandfather's language. That he understood when the whole family laughed. That he felt like he belonged.
That's what internal growth is. Not grades. It's the feeling of knowing where you come from.
