Nikita said:"Conform to what? This society is full of serial killers, drug addicts, paedophiles and all sorts of creepy people. So what is fitting in meaning these days."

That's funny... I don't think that society is endorsing and promoting those things and one needs to conform to those sorts of things to fit in!!! Most of the people who do those sorts of things are the ones who are outsiders, who didn't fit in. Not all of them, but a goodly number of them. Even the abuse of children by priests... if the church hadn't forbidden them any adult sexuality, perhaps they wouldn't have been using children they had access to and could keep quiet. Most of the ones who shoot people in schools, kill their parents etc are kids who kept to themselves. Who lived in books alone and stayed at home a lot, not the kids watching Disney movies together with their friends and hanging out at the mall... I think it is important for us to instill values into our kids, to make sure they are able to go against the flow and say no to peer pressure, to be themselves and chose their friends wisely. But I scarcely think that "fitting in these days" means being a serial killer or a paedophile. Just the opposite.

"If it is hard for us as adults to deal with critisicm, a broken heart and that sort of thing, then it is no easier for a youngster. It just means the earlier they suffer, the more suffering they have to endure over their life.
I would rather have control over my kids friendships, where they associate with like-minded parents who feel the same."

Again, that is sort of funny, since I am dealing with this sort of thing with my 3 yr old son now... he is only in daycare a couple of days a week, since he grew up in an orphanage and I want him to experience being home with mommy. So we get together with likeminded parents and their kids. And right now he is having a very hard time, with his little heart broken, as another little girl who does like him, starts screaming after about 15 minutes and won't play with him, share any space within 15 feet with him and pushes him away and won't give a hug or kiss goodbye when we leave. He cries and says "I want to be her friend, why doesn't she like me? She won't play with me, I'm so sad, I afraid she not be my friend. Look mommy, tears falling I so sad"

I really don't see how keeping a kid at home is going to keep him from rejection, criticism and heartbreak. I thought I'd have to deal with this when he is 13 or so!! And btw, they actually get along BETTER at a dance class they both go to, where there is a teacher, it is a neutral space (vs one of our homes or our regular playground), there is a large group of children.

I don't think we can keep our kids from "being of their generation". They may be a different group, or not read the top 10 books, but they certainly live in a world of ipods, Michael Jackson is dead, Obama is President, we have cellphones and worry about global warming... they are not a child of Mozart's generation nor of mine, where we worried about the USSR and nuclear bombs, used payphones and had home delivery of milk, and phones stuck to cables on the wall.

As for reading? I think it is pretty much impossible, once a child starts leaving the house, and can read, to control that a child doesn't read adult books or things we dislike. Kids came to our house when I was a child to read our books that their parents had banned, and books my parents disliked I took out of the library and read at school, or read at houses when I babysat or visited... Again, we can give guidelines and discuss values, morals, what we think is appropriate... and set them free.

LOL re Nikita's date.
Well, I think that was not the right date for you (though if you were fascinated to know that stuff, or had similar knowledge about those plants and birds and could and wanted to add to his expositions, it might have been the date of a lifetime for you! !), but nothing to do with "knowing too much". I am certain that every doctor doesn't name every body part, tendon, nerve and hair folicule in common and latin nomenclature while making love, nor every accountant constantly read off every price during a shopping trip and add together the running total of purchase put in the cart just because they know so much about numbers. Really, most people either keep quiet, or point out one or two things of interest, or show willingness to engage in a two way conversation about something they are knowledgable about.

As for the little girl at 12 who can read so well... well, one certainly cannot keep one's child reading at a "hop on pop" level until university so they won't read newsmagazines, and indeed if they can read newsmagazines, they might be helped a lot, since they will likely be able to see the pictures of people falling off the buildings at 9/11, the dead babies in firemen's arms at the Oklahoma bombing etc, and if they can read they can learn more instead of just be haunted by images. Given that half the population is functionally illiterate and cannot read a newspaper, I would be thrilled if my 12 yr ol dread at a 21 yr old level. And of course she is "succumbing to peer pressure" and reading Twilight. Whyever would someone be doomed to not sharing popular culture with one's peers just because they can read well? It is not because one is an expert pastry chef that one is not allowed to enjoy a chocolate bar. I would be happy that she is able to access both classics and pop culture, and not doomed to be segregated as a "geek" (btw, I was a "geek" myself, top of my graduating class, and my fellow geek friends were huge fans of Starsky and Hutch, hardly a highclass tv show!)... She may take in that culture and do something amazing and original with it one day. Maybe write a critical treatise on the vampire genre for her phd! !

And the precocious 2 yr old? I don't think you can succeed in "dumbing her down"... certainly she will continue to learn at her rate, which sounds much faster than her peers. My son is nearly 4, and cannot recite a single nursery rhyme properly, though he can count to 10 in three languages, and he sounds a bit like a caveman speaking... he does not learn the same things as the same rate as your daughter, and I would cry with the waste to think you might dumb her down to stay apace with him. You know, she might one day be like the 12 yr old... able to read the classics in greek, and at the same time discuss Harry Potter with my son. (btw, my son also may be able to read the classics at 12, but not do an exposé on them: he apparently is 91percentile in receptive language but at least a year and a half behind in expressive language... just to say that "knowing" is not an across the board thing but fluctuates in each individual depending on the topic, context, skill etc) I agree that you might need to continue stimulating her to her skill and interest level at home if she finds school too "easy" for her or boring. On the other hand, she might just delight in finding the school work "easy" and enjoy the social time at school.

Personally, since my son is adopted from China, and that is where they use simplified characters, I am learning simplified. I do practice recognising traditional characters from time to time, both in children's books and subtitled dvds, as I would like to be able to understand materials from Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong etc.

But I am only learning the characters in depth in simplified myself: stroke order, radicals, writing them etc. And they ARE simpler. Sometimes easier to recognise, certainly easier to see on the page when printed small, most definitely MUCH easier to write, and to count strokes in order to look them up in a dictionary.

Others who have their origins in other countries or areas which use traditional, or who want to be able to read the widest, or who have philosophical reasons for learning traditional will have a different take on them than I do.

There is a whole thread on this:
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-signing-speaking-foreign-languages/teaching-chinese-language-traditional-or-simplified-chinese/

If you put "traditional characters" into the forum search, you will get other discussions as well.

ps, we belonged to a book of the month club for those Dr. Seuss Beginner Books in the 70's when I was a kid... We got all the classic Dr. Seuss, PD Eastman, Berensten Bears etc when they first came out. I still remember to this day the excitement of a new book coming in the mail and opening the box (we mostly had library books as a kid)... so I can attest to how wonderful a book club is for kids... but DadDude is very right: check their inventory, check the financial obligation etc and see if it is the right club for you.

My son gets the same excitement from books arriving in the mail through my online book shopping, without me being obliged to order them all to someone else's schedule, pricing or choices. But he just totally LOVES when a new book arrives... mail addressed to him.

But if you stick with the library... my son also thinks library books (which are kept up on a shelf separate from the rest so they don't get lost or broken) are the bees knees... and they are free and almost infinite in variety.

Like DadDude we use the library a lot. I take out a lot of books, and usually find there are 3-4 we really like enough to read more than once, and every several trips we find a book we love so much we keep renewing it. Then I buy a copy for our home.

I find a lot of books we love are out of print, so we buy a lot on abebooks.com We have favorite sellers like betterworldbooks I think it is, who give a deal on shipping more than 1 book at a time, and who give some of the $ for literacy. I also like them as they have a lot of children's chinese/english books. Many books we get from abebooks are used library copies, so the binding is really strong and they are hardcover. Very nice if you don't mind the library labelling on them.

I use Amazon a lot, but mostly as research... I read the reviews, take advantage of the "look inside this book" feature and can see what different editions of the same title are available. I also keep a "wishlist" at Amazon, which is a good way of bookmarking books you would like to collect in the future. Since I am in the publishing industry I do know that creators get less of a cut from Amazon because of their low low prices, so I try to buy elsewhere. But they do have low prices, free shipping and fast delivery.

We also belong to http://bookmooch.com and get a lot of children's books from there. People list books they want to give away (often as their kids have outgrown them). When you give away books to others, you get points, which then can be "spent" on books you want to "mooch" from others. You can put up a wishlist there too and they will email you if a copy becomes available.

I also buy too many books (for our limited bookshelf space and budget) in shops, and esp chinese books online at http://childbook.com and several ebay stores that offer chinese kids' books. I try to find out as much as possible, using google search, before buying a book online, looking for reviews, inside page views, pricing, shipment options etc.

Add in garage sales and friends... and you will have a great collection in no time!

OK, I think you totally misunderstood me.

I did NOT cite translated Chinese as the best way for small children to learn characters. I only cited it as an example of how in English we Can and Do have the ability to write meaningful sentences in three words of three or two letters that rhyme. We were just marveling about how wonderful Chinese is in that way: using three characters to rhyme to form a complete sentence with meaning. That is the ONLY reason I wrote the last post. Because I saw "Hop on Pop" and laughed at seeing the situation flipped.

Yes I have been learning Chinese myself for over three years now, and can read things like "Hop on Pop" and "Go Dog Go" in Chinese because the concepts are simple and the words used are high frequency, even though they do not rhyme in Chinese and are not succinct. I still can use the vocab and sentence structure when practicing spoken and read chinese with my son. He hops on the dog, for instance. We say "stop!" and "go!" at red and green lights, and I can say "Do you like my hat?" "I do not like our hat"... We are familiar with the story and thus it is easier for us to pick up new chinese characters when there is no pinyin.

I don't think it is possible to compare teaching chinese as a second language and teaching chinese characters to chinese speaking children. There are some similarities, but usually chinese speaking children already know normal sentence structure for speaking in Chinese, as well as culture, and thus can understand the large meaning behind complex ideas rendered in only three characters. They are memorizing the characters, but aren't memorizing the meanings at the same time: they already know most of the words spoken: that "gou" means "dog"... "ren" means "person" etc. The chinese speaking children aren't only learning the language in school: they learn it in context all day long on the street, home, etc.

I do think it would be possible to flash characters with images to teach characters without any translation to small children' or in some cases even adults (which is what Doman... ie Baby Learns Chinese, and Pimsleur does) and have them grasp meaning, and make connections intuitively about the radicals. Of course many words are not precise enough  with just images. In BLC, I couldn't tell without translation if a certain character meant "sweater" "top" "cardigan" "pullover" etc... Even for a dog" does the character mean "greyhound" or "dog" or "hunting dog" if the photo is of a greyhound...

And I still submit that this San Zi Jing is a wonderful classic, but for a child who knows very little or no chinese, given no context, no images, such adult concepts that are foreign to our culture and lifestyle... very little "character learning" would go on... though listening to it might be good for hearing the sounds of chinese language, and looking at it might be good for recognising chinese (vs korean or english or arabic) script.

Thanks for the links to the preschools... it is interesting to see the curriculum. And I do see that they do learn characters "Berries Read & Recognise Programme lays foundation for interest in reading through short sentences created using words the child has learnt" as well as nursery rhymes etc, which makes perfect sense to me.

Anyways, I did order the Dr. Seuss books... we know them by heart in English, and so I am sure that reading the chinese will go well. (note my son is nearly 4, not a baby either. )

And I do want you to know I do very much appreciate the info in the San Zi Jing... I find it so important to know about Chinese traditions and culture.

LOL!
I just saw the cover of the Chinese version of Dr. Seuss "Hop on Pop" and thought about San zi Jing! Now of course Hop on Pop is not a philosophical or historical treatise, but one can hardly get shorter more succinct words and sentences than that... and then the Chinese translation is so long!!! LOL! I somehow think the simple consonant-vowel-consonant three letter rhyming for beginner readers is quite lost in translation!
http://lanbridge.org/hop-on-pop.html

That's funny, re not finding traditional characters materials in the States... most if not all of my stuff comes from the states and it is quite a chore finding simplified... I find there is a lot of traditional: a lot comes from Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, which all use traditional. I have my adult "learn characters" book in traditional (I see it is also available in a simpl. edition), our flashcards are in traditional (from Childbook.com), and the Baby Learns Chinese dvds and flashcards have both but trad is dominant. Our Bob the Builder dvds are trad. Lots of other dvds give the choice between the two. Other than mainland China, most places read trad, so most commercial dvds have both.

Most of the picturebooks I have are traditional (a lot printed in HK or Taiwan) and a lot of the children's learn chinese textbooks at childbook.com are available in both versions.

Our Dora dvds, I am not even sure they have subtitles, so it really makes no difference... we just listen to them.

Anyways, just to say, you really should look around. Esp at places like http://childbook.com, http://asianparent.com, http://chinabooks.com ... there are so so many trad resources, for babies, toddlers, children and adults.

I just looked and there are Dora learning materials in trad characters at asianparent:
http://www.asianparent.com/Doras-Chinese-Character-Writing-Workbook.aspx

Best of luck!

Yes, do ask her re the dvds for sale.
If it says simplified, it probably is.

When I wrote traditional, I mean the ones online for free at youku.com

Personally I prefer the simplified, but it is good practice for me (knowing simplified) to read the subtitles online in trad.

Let us know what she says about the dvds for sale. thanks!

My favorite ebay seller (where I buy my Dora the Exploer in Mndarin) had new dvds starring this little girl character I've never heard of before: a Japanese animation called Chibi Maruku. She has them in Japanese and Mandarin. 樱桃小丸子 (Yingtao Xiao Wanzi in Chinese)

So I looked them up. They only seem to have the same tv show in live action on youtube, but I found them on a similar Chinese video sharing site:

http://www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_584943.html

They are just beyond beginner chinese. I find them quite understandable... though I don't know all the words. They have the characters beneath as subtitles (traditional, not simplified) so they are good practice and I think good for kids to watch. On youku, they seem to have complete episodes as they are about 20 mins long each.

If you are interested in buying the dvds, you can go to Bogeji's ebay store:
http://tinyurl.com/yeymss2

I think this is what I'll get my son after Dora in Mandarin.

Yes, I think it would be like getting children or babies to recite the Gettysburg address or something. And I am not so sure that they would “learn 1200 words” , and the “that they don’t understand the meaning” seems beyond pointless to me. I could just read words out of the dictionary or recite the table of elements... well even less so, because they can use the table of elements later in life, and I am not sure wherever my son would use stuff about generations of filial piety. He is an only child with no father, and frankly being adopted from China, he is totally disconnected from the generations before him, etc etc. It all makes sense in a society that may be based on these principles, where country and family etc are traditional basis for centuries. But I am pretty sure it has very little bearing on his life now, and he might be interested in the principles behind it as well as the history if he decides to study chinese history and culture as a college student.

But spouting words that passed by with no meaning (even if I explained to him, whatever would he understand of these Buddhist principles?), how will that develop anything linguistically? I am pretty sure he would tune it out. The best I can imagine is that he could run around chanting it, like the little French girls in the neighborhood I used to hear singing the Spice Girls. They had a lot of the pronunciations down, but couldn’t tell me the meaning of a single word (and in fact, couldn’t tell syllables apart from separate words... they were just sounds to them), and could not and still cannot speak one iota of English.

As for the San Zi format... it is wonderful and a brilliant poetry form we cannot replicate here, as we don’t have single character words, and very few one syllable words that have much meaning at all in english. The format is used brilliantly in all sorts of children’s books/songs/poems. I have several books at home with this format, rhyming three character lines. But with illustrations and about things in a child’s life or nature, so they are learning words they understand and can use later in conversation. I’d rather my son learn 500 words he knows the meaning of and can use (dog, cat, friend, throw a ball, leaf, tree, farm, run, kick, laugh, cry, sad, fly, happy...) than 1200 words he has no clue what they are or what they mean.

So, I agree with the format but I guess I don’t see that the San Zi Jing is useful to me, whether the animations are cute or not. Thanks though... it was very interesting to read the it and the history behind it.

Thanks for all the great ideas. I loved the links to ziploc activity bags... I am usually so short on time when we come in from walking the dog and it is late getting supper started, it is hard to get him started in a project and we often resort to dvds as it just takes less input from me (he doesn't get tv, just dvds in chinese or french, or signing time... haha! I try to convince myself it is not the same as tv... sigh). If I made up bags in advance, he could mostly just take one and have all the stuff on hand. I googled ziploc activity bags and there are a LOT of great ideas out there. Also if anyone here is Canadian, there is a great Montessori equipment site I found online at http://ca.montessorioutlet.com/ though the shipping is expensive (fedex).

What exactly is a child whose first language is not chinese supposed to get out of these tu dou wang videos (I like that... potato web)? I already knew a few of the characters, and I suppose it was good to hear them pronounced, but there is no image or anything to indicate what meaning is. Mostly it went in one ear and out the other. I could be pleasant and rhythmic but unlike flashcards that alternate image and word, it is just a slew of words. I am pretty sure my son would not learn anything from this, and I cannot imagine him or I watching it for longer than a couple seconds before tuning out.

I guess if one understands the language already, one would be learning how the characters look for words one already knows/understands.

It was amusing to see the little section on teeth rotting if you come home and eat to much candy without brushing and that seaweed soup is good for you... fortunately those sections (di er ke and di san ke, at the end of each lesson) had narrative characters speaking, context and clear animated images to go with the text and promote comprehension.

I did find also the music quite intrusive and the little moving animals took my attention away from the chinese characters, and I'm not even a child who would be more entranced by laughing monkeys along the side than by words  on the screen.

So I am very curious as to what the purpose of these tu dou videos would be, the pros and the cons. Thankyou!

I think babies are allowed to take vacation. I bet that children who were out of town or travelling got as much or more stimulation and learning opportunities. And we all need breaks. It isn't so easy for anyone to come back to routine after a vacation, back to the office or school room. So it is just normal. Good to take time off, normal to take a while to get back into it. Maybe there is some way to hook your vacation into your lessons? Flashcards of the people and places you travelled to that will have specific significance to your child now? New things you saw only while you were away? Little children (heck, all of us) love to rehash our most recent experiences and relive the fun.

Best of luck, but most of all, listen to the others here to note that their kids succeeded brilliantly before Brillkids existed, without flashcards. Be kind to yourself, and don't stress it too much. It is so easy to pressure ourselves crazy! We all do it.

garry,

I know I hated when people would suggest this when I was trying to get pregnant (but then I was trying and wanted to be pregnant, but you're not)... have you considered adopting? You could have a second child without the pregnancy, and give a child a good home. My son is adopted from China (admittedly not the fast route these days), and he is just the greatest kid. And in my family, my mother had to be on medication after her first two kids, and so she and my father adopted my brother.

Note, having a child doesn't guarantee that your daughter (or the new baby) won't be lonely. I had two brothers, and I was plenty lonely. They were younger than me, and boys, and played more with their friends. And when I played with my girlfriends, I didn't necessarily want to include a brother 5 yrs younger than myself either... so I am sure he could be lonely too... My youngest brother was very into team sports, very active, and the brother older than him was into reading books for hours if not days... and there was a lot more friction than playing... I am sure the reason my youngest brother bugged and goaded his quietly reading brother daily to the point of anger and violence (the older one finally putting down his book and chasing after the active one, who ran around the house screaming "he wants to kill me!" until he locked himself in the bathroom and my older brother woudl run into the door over and over... sigh) was that HE felt lonely . He had a brother there all the time, but who deserted him for the world of books.

Just to say, you can't really know that giving birth again will give your daughter a friend and keep her from loneliness. It will give her a sibling (a boy or a girl), which is not the same thing, but valuable nonetheless.