need help with kids and grandparents phone conversation

chaaral · Sep 19, 2015

The topic might sound weird or silly but this has been in my mind for a while now.
My kids dont talk fluently in our mother tongue but they understand. my fil will speak in english to them but mil cannot. so when we talk to them the kids donno what to speak they just answer their questions. mil cannot understand what the kids talk not becos of their accent but boys being themselves speak faster.
she also doesn't ask anything about friends or school so finally they both dont know what to talk and we end up talking to them. i feel later there wont be much bonding between kids and mil. i want to somehow create some common topics they can talk.
my mom speaks english so she always talks about his math or english or extracurricular activities. mil is not that easy going too, somehow i feel later she is going to blame me. any ideas? or suggestions?
what happens in your house?

songbird46 · Sep 19, 2015

Your kids could learn their mother tongue, at least to understand if not respond. Your MIL is too old. In the meantime have FIL/DH translate. Or you, because you sound so nice to go to this trouble of understanding MIL's feelings. :hatsoff
But don't push it too much. Leave it to DH.

songbird46 · Sep 19, 2015

Double post.

guesshoo · Sep 19, 2015

Kids can learn to speak your mither tongue. Even otherwise if mil can understand English, remind them to talk slowly and enunciate.

My 4 year old has a ball talking to my mum and playing word and number games. With ILs she sings or tells them about her week. She also talks about any news item or asks them questions about her dad's childhood. She complains to mil about long hours he spends at work and ask her to order him to play more with her. I prime her about festivals and she asks questions about those.

If they are receptive and ask cogent questions, she talks. Otherwise, she is gone in a while.

yellowmango · Sep 19, 2015

Teach them the mother tongue but don't nag them or they will blame grand ma for the troubles.

ramyaramani · Sep 19, 2015

It is a good thing that you are initiating your kids to talk with your MIL. Teach your boys how to speak to MIL. Without you teaching them, they probably dont realize the problem. Every grandparent is proud of the smallest thing that his/her grandchild does. So you tell your MIL about somethings that your boys did. She can ask them about the same. At least for a starter, there is something to converse about.

chaaral · Sep 24, 2015

Thanks for the wonderful ideas. My kids can understand our mother tongue. They both are learning to read write too.
will try to teach them to talk few topics or some news. This week I asked them to sing few para slokams ( lingashtakam). They forgot few lines n the topic diverted to fil ,mil telling them to learn it well instead of appreciating their effort. Which made my older one upset So now doesn't want to recite or sing. Dh tries to escape in such situations. It would have been easier if he jumped in to save and also kindly remind in laws to appreciate kids.
But hoping after few weeks kids can talk abut dussera n celebrations. Let's see how it goes. I guess some ppl are natural with kids n some aren't.

thanks once again !