I speak about ten words of Chinese and have just learned to count 1-10 because my son wants me to
Chinese is also our third language. We are on day 25-ish of LR Chinese and 20 of LR English, even though I started English first
This is because my son demands Chinese first and will sometimes refuse an English lesson after that. Often we only manage one lesson a day, so we have actually been using the Chinese curriculum for about 2 months.
I struggle, because I want to interact with my son in Chinese, but just can't. I make a go of pronouncing the words if I think I can do so with some accuracy (if I don't catch the sound properly, I don't try - there is no point encouraging him to repeat words badly!) but am otherwise silent. My son seems to love Chinese for its complete difference from English and Russian. With body parts, I would tickle or kiss the named part, with actions, I help him do them if possible, or do them to him (like blow). With animals, I made animal sounds. Sometimes there really isn't much I can say or do, so I just cuddle him and watch the lesson. Unfortunately, I think the only way for you to have conversations with your child during Chinese LR is to learn Chinese yourself! Or get a Chinese teacher who will sit and do it with them!
I don't expect this method will teach him Chinese fluently, but he does say some words. He names dogs and cats, has just started counting 1-2-3 and probably knows a lot more than he lets on! As a vocabulary-building and accent-forming tool, it is fantastic - I will never master Chinese pronunciation, but I expect my son will manage fairly well. I am going to learn Chinese together with him and have ordered some books that we can read together to start forming sentences and conversations together.
If you want your child to be exposed to Chinese, learn some words and simple sentence and, most importantly, your child is enjoying the Chinese trial material, go for it. I don't regret it for one second! But if your child isn't interested now, don't waste your money. There is no point buying a program they don't want to watch! Try again in a few months - children change their minds quite often and you may find that in a couple of months they are more interested in watching Chinese without you needing to hold a conversation.
Check out youtube for Wink to Learn and Little Pim in Chinese - Pim is a lot more interactive and my son loves him, and Wink to Learn is flashcard-based with songs or music at the end of each lesson, another favourite in our house.
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