Do you treat your eldest child any different?

            Do you treat any of your kids different than you do your other kids? If you do, what is the reason? To be honest I do, and I’m not sure if it’s cultural or societal, or maybe a combination of both.

            I come from a family of 6 kids, 3 boys and 3 girls. You could say we’re the Tongan Brady Bunch as our order is boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, however we’re all from the same parents J The oldest child is my brother Sateki, followed by oldest sister Makuliti and then Me and the rest of my siblings. Growing up I could see that Sateki was treated very different from the rest of us. Being the oldest child, and a boy, he bore a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. If he did good, we all celebrated and tried to follow his example. If he made a decision contrary to what my parents have taught us, it seemed that he was made an example of to teach the rest of us a lesson as well. With this in mind I believe we come to earth in a particular order for a reason. I have no doubt in my mind that my brother was meant to be the oldest, because of his leadership qualities, his love and patience for us and his ability to communicate with our family and take lead when my father is not there to make a big decision.

            In my own family, I see that I do treat my oldest son, who I named after my older brother Sateki, very different from my other kids as well. Admittedly, I am very hard on him. I push him to make good decisions, I correct him when he makes bad decisions and the reason is: his younger siblings are watching and following him. Am I wrong for doing this? Should they all be treated the same? I’m not sure of the correct answer, but I do know that I put a lot of responsibility on his young 6 year old shoulders as the eldest of my children and I do expect great things from him, as I do all my children, but especially him as he will be setting the example for his younger siblings.

            Perhaps I’m harder on him as well, because I know his potential and I want him to live his life accordingly to reach his potential. I’m sure as parents that’s all any of us want. I’m sure that’s all our parents wanted for us. Sometimes I have to step back and remind myself that he’s only a kid, and that I need to just chill out and let him make mistakes and be a kid. Sometimes I know that I’ve been too hard on hm. These are the times that I pull him aside and tell him how much I love him and how great he is now, and how great he will be.

            Again just a few random thoughts from a father learning new things every day. Have a blessed day family!

Keeping The Language Alive

We had a discussion in my Tongan Language class today that I felt was rather interesting. The topic was how quickly our language can be lost growing up in a country other than the one your parents were born in; for me it’s being born and raised in the U.S. and my parents who were born in friendly island kingdom of Tonga.  

I wish that my parents spoke to us in Tongan more, during our upbringing. Maybe it was because they moved here and struggled with school, work and life in general trying to learn English. For them, teaching us English would only benefit us, as it is the language here. Then again, we would learn English anyways from school and our friends, why not teach your kids your native language in the home, and raise them bilingual? Quickly I had to take the blame off parents because in my household, my older brother and sister speak and comprehend Tongan very well. We were raised in the same home, and I think it was the effort that they put into understanding and learning the language outside of the home that made the difference. Whenever we would visit our grandparents they would try to speak Tongan to them whereas I could understand my grandparents well, I just chose to respond to them in English, afraid of making mistakes in Tongan. Looking back, who better to practice and learn Tongan from than your own family.

After continued conversation, my Tongan Language professor asks me “Knowing what you know, what are you doing in your own household to teach your kids Tongan?” I had no good answer for him. Again, I’m embarrassed that I don’t know proper sentence structure or may be unfamiliar with certain names of verbs or nouns. I do teach them nouns and verbs that I do know. I speak a combination of English and Tongan to them (I affectionately call Tonglish) and they have done well with so far. I should, however, make more of an effort to speak more to my kids in Tongan. Speaking it in the house will help improve my Tongan as well as my kids. Lesson of the day, teach your kids what you know of your language. The ability to speak multiple languages, regardless of which language, can only help their ever growing brains.