Six Months Post Placement Visit

It's hard to believe, but it was time for our 6 month post placement visit last night.  We have only been home 4 months, but the post placement report is due on the 6 month placement anniversary.  For GW, that will be August 8th. So, in order to have enough time for our SW to write the report, a holiday thrown in, our agency to translate the report and then send it in with some days to spare, we decided to schedule our appt last night. 

It went very well and our SW had a few nuggets of wisdom for us on the language front.  He suggested that we go to alternating days for our language.  What I mean is this - on odd numbered days, we all use English at home; and on even-numbered days we all use Chinese at home (yes, even Mom and Dad).  It will let the boys know that we don't want them to lose their language, but encourage them to use their English more.  The side benefit is that our four other kids will hone their Chinese skills.  The downside is that CP and I will have to work a LOT harder on our Chinese! 

Our SW pointed out that our struggles with Chinese will make the boys feel better about their struggles with English.  It will also allow them to teach us and feel confident while we are teaching them.

I thought this was a GREAT idea (well, maybe except for the mom and dad part!), but I will probably wait a little longer to implement it.  The truth is that since our other kids have spoken so much Chinese to them that they really haven't been "immersed" in English as much as we would like.  As a result, they don't yet have enough spoken English to feel comfortable yet.  I don't have a target date in mind for switching over; I just know that I'm not ready to "force" the issue just yet.

We also had another interesting development with JA last night.  But you are going to have to wait to find out more about that until my next post!