Four-year-old Paul Kerdel speaks English with his father and French with his mother and au pair. The Issaquah boy did not always have such fluency, but developed it as French permeated his household.

The Kerdels knew they wanted their children to speak French. Karinne Kerdel grew up in France, and she lived there with her American husband for three months before they moved to New York and then Issaquah.

They tried speaking French in front of Paul, but at the end of the day, it was easier speaking in English, Kerdel said. She spoke to him in French before bed, but “even though I was trying to speak French to him at night, he was speaking English 10 hours a day,” at home and at preschool, she said.

Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Anne-Sophie, in 2009, they hired French au pair Emilie Uteza, a childcare worker who knew Kerdel’s family in France. The family also started sending Paul to the French American School of Puget Sound on Mercer Island, so “he’s speaking French all day,” Kerdel said.

Even Anne-Sophie, still in her babbling stage, has benefited from the family’s French movement. Her first word, cou cou, means hi and peekaboo in French.

If Paul and Anne-Sophie master French, they will be able to speak with their grandparents and cousins and, once they are old enough, decide which country they would like to live in.

“When they’re little, it’s amazing how they catch on,” Kerdel said.

Learning through play

Many children can learn a foreign language, and they learn best through play early in life.

Since 2003, the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences has researched the fundamental principles of human learning, especially children between infancy and age 5.

“We think that the brain is more plastic, or more open to experience learning — the earlier the better,” Gina Lebedeva, translation outreach and education director with the institute, said.

By 10 months of age, the babbling of infants reflects their mother language, and researchers have found this is when they start to lose the ability to distinguish sounds not needed in their language.

For instance, the sounds of L and R are the same in Japanese, but English-speakers must learn to distinguish the difference between the two letters for rake and lake.

While windows for learning different aspects of language are not rigid, research has shown that infants learn most about sounds, called phonetics, in their first year of life, and learn more about syntax between 18 months and 36 months, according to a research paper from the institute by Patricia Kuhl.

Vocabulary development skyrockets at 18 months of age, but can continue throughout life, she wrote.

“At 6 months, babies are universal citizens of the world,” Jackie Friedman Mighdoll, founder of Sponge language school, said. “They can distinguish any sound about the same. By 12 months, the neurons in their brains have been pruned, so they recognize their native language and they are less able to distinguish other sounds from other languages.”

How babies learn language is pivotal to their success in its fluency. Social interaction is a must, meaning children watching DVDs or listening to CDs will not get the same results as children interacting with a person speaking the language to them.

“You don’t need fancy toys. You just need to interact,” Lebedeva said.

In a recent study published by the institute, a group of 9- to 11-month-old infants was brought to the institute, where they interacted with a native Mandarin speaker for 12 30-minute sessions.

A control set of infants was exposed to Mandarin DVDs, a second control group listened to CDs and a third control group interacted with English speakers.

The group that played with the English speakers showed no sign of learning Mandarin, and neither did the group exposed to the DVD or CD, even though the children had shown rapt attention to both.

The relationship between the speaker and child makes all of the difference, Lebedeva said. The child can follow the adult’s gaze, imitate their speech and movements, and receive feedback.

“If a child laughs, an adult laughs. There is an engagement,” Lebedeva said. “That doesn’t happen in a TV interaction and that doesn’t happen in a CD interaction.”

Learning a foreign language happens best during bath or meal time, she said, adding, “It’s counter-productive to use things like flash cards and drills. Instead you want to build things into play.”

Affects of a second language

Children learning two languages may have smaller vocabularies in one or both languages, compared to children learning only one language, Lebedeva said.

Yet, when words from both languages are counted, bilingual children have either about the same or more words compared to monolingual children, she said.

Sometimes, bilingual children will mix their languages together, and Lebedeva said this is a normal stage bilingual children go through that helps them develop language skills.

Playing in Issaquah

Parents can find a variety of language-friendly play areas in the city. The King County Library System hosts free, 30-minute story times in 10 languages at its various branches. The Issaquah Library has Spanish story time at 7 p.m. every Monday. Go to the website at www.kcls.org for more details.

Cecilia McGowan, KCLS coordinator for children’s services, said the program targets children whose families speak a foreign language, and children who are learning a foreign language.

Several language schools in Issaquah teach children about different languages and cultures. One of them, Sponge, teaches children through play, song and dance.

At a recent Mandarin lesson, teacher Xinyang Liu played with 9-month-old Grace Robertson and 2-year-old Kai Marcelais, showing them toy farm animals and talking to them in her native tongue. Their mothers played, too, surrounding their children with Mandarin words.

Friedman Mighdoll said she and the instructors live for moments when children spontaneously speak in a foreign language. Art projects with their toddler students are speckled with foreign phrases about the most ordinary things, like saying, “Can you pass the glue?” in Spanish.

Parents are given handouts so they can review vocabulary and songs their children learned in class, she said.

Other parents join neighborhood language groups, or spend time with friends who speak a foreign language. The Issaquah Highlands Playgroup meets every Thursday from 9:30-11 a.m. at the Eastside Fire & Rescue fire station, 1280 N.E. Park Drive. E-mail Natalia Santi at natalia@santilive.com to learn more.

A fine balance

Andrea Noon, a Spanish teacher at Issaquah High School, studied Spanish in college and traveled across Chile and Spain as a young adult. When she and her Mexican husband had their daughter, Leila Ramirez, they decided to teach her both Spanish and English, so she could communicate with both sides of the family.

When a Spanish-speaking friend of hers babysat Leila for the first two and a half years of her life, Leila’s Spanish blossomed so much that her parents began to worry about her English. Now age 4, Leila’s English is by far better than her Spanish, though she improves every time she spends time with native Spanish speakers, like friends of the family.

“I’m excited when Leila goes to play with them, because her Spanish improves in 15 to 20 minutes,” Noon said.

As a Spanish teacher, Noon said she recognizes two types of students with a previous knowledge of the language. There are students who grew up speaking Spanish, “and their parents have done a really good job educating them in reading and writing,” Noon said.

The other type includes students who speak Spanish at home, “but there is not really an emphasis on the educational side. They might have never seen it written,” she said.

While this last group may speak the language conversationally, “usually their level of Spanish is weak grammatically and they have a lot of misconceptions about it,” Noon said.

Noon said she hopes Leila will speak and read Spanish fluently, though she knows she and her husband will have to use the language regularly at home if they want their daughter to follow suit.

Kerdel, the French mother, acknowledged the challenge of sticking with a foreign language.

“I think children tend to go with what’s easier, and English is everywhere,” she said.

The benefits of a polyglot

The most obvious benefit of speaking a foreign language is obvious to most. Speaking French, Spanish or Mandarin can help children communicate with others and could expand their circle of friends, as well as career opportunities.

Friedman Mighdoll said she feels a thrill when her two children say hello to people in Seattle’s International District.

Other benefits are not as readily observed. A recent study published by the institute at the University of Washington showed that bilingual children tend to think more flexibly.

“It doesn’t mean that bilingual people are smarter, that they have a bigger memory, that they have bigger IQ,” Lebedeva said. “What it does mean is that there are certain skills that bilinguals are better at.”

Bilingual children playing a game were able to adjust to a change in rules faster than nonbilingual children, according to the study.

In one game, children were asked to sort objects by color. Then, the rules changed and children had to sort them by shape, though some children got confused since some of the shapes were red and others were blue.

“In order to do that, you have to ignore the first set of rules and use the second set of rules,” Lebedeva said. “Bilingual kids don’t get as confused.”

The answer to why may lie within the child’s prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that allows him or her to switch back and forth between two languages with variations in words, pronunciation and grammatical structure.

To get to that point of fluency, Lebedeva prescribed children a healthy dose of foreign language playtime. She instructed parents to follow the child’s lead, meaning, “if the child is interested in the ball, let’s talk about the ball and play with the ball,” she said.

When children reach middle school, learning a second language is harder to master.

“By the time seventh grade rolls around, it’s just too late for your brain to learn a second language as well as a native speaker would,” Lebedeva said. “You can learn vocabulary, but you’re never going to learn it as functionally and efficiently as a young child.”

My name is Sebastian Moraga, I was born in 1979 and I am 41 years old.

No, the math is right. On Oct. 5, I watched my first child being born and I aged 10 years in about an hour.

It all started at about 10 p.m. Oct. 4, when the doctor looked at me and said “he’s not coming out.”

That meant one thing: forceps.

Now, imagine the inventor of the surgical tool the forceps replaced and made obsolete — if such a thing ever existed. Let’s call it “The Thingy.”

Well, you take the inventor of “The Thingy” on a bad day at the office, and I’m still more anti-forceps than he is. I grew up around horror stories of cousins whose lives were forever changed by what Bill Cosby calls “the salad spoons,” and I had decided long ago not to add my son to the family’s list of cautionary tales.

But I had seen my unborn child’s heart rate climb to 210, I had seen the nurses put cold washcloths on my wife’s forehead and an oxygen mask on her face, and I had the feeling things could worsen. So, maybe…

Then, I saw the actual forceps.

Oh, hell no.

I had never seen forceps before. They looked like something you use when you want to know where someone hid the money.

No way that thing was going to be used on my child and he was going to be OK afterward.

I suggested the suction method, and the doctor turned me down, saying my child’s head was too hairy for the suction cup to work. I am buying industrial amounts of Nioxin every month so I don’t die bald, and my son is too hairy to be born.

My wife and I had talked about forceps prior to the birth and we had both decided that it would be a last resort. In fact, we would likely use “The Thingy” first.

But this was different. This wasn’t a chat inside the still-unused nursery or inside Target shopping for bibs. This was the real thing. The heart rate kept climbing, my wife’s forehead kept dripping, and the more I thought about it, the more worked up I got.

Then, the next contraction hit. My wife pushed three times. No baby.

I wish I could tell you there was a Hollywood moment that convinced me, complete with background music and close-ups, Mr. DeMille. But there wasn’t. All I remember clearly is feeling my wife’s hand in mine and me thinking about my dad.

Back in 1979, my dad faced the same dilemma. He also had an unborn son who would not come out. He also hated forceps, and he also had a wife whose health was in danger. He told the doctor, “You do what you have to do to save my wife and my kid.”

So, 41 years later, I turned to my wife’s doc and I said the same thing. The doctor went ahead and started putting the forceps together.

I didn’t feel one bit better. I thought, “Who do I go to for forgiveness now? If the forceps do what I fear they will do, how do I explain to my son that it was my call to alter the course of his life before it even began? Where do I get the gall to explain the ultimate in ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time?’”

The need for answers weakened me, so I sat down for a second. Now, my eyes were forceps-height. Suddenly, that cushioned stool felt like Old Sparky. I got right back up.

Then, the two forceps clicked. The most horrifying sound I’ve ever heard in my life, and it sounded like nothing worse than perhaps four or five people snapping their fingers at once. That’s how worked up I was.

Then, the next contraction hit. And the spot of stubborn hair became a forehead flanked by two pieces of metal. And the forehead became a head, and the head became an upper body and the upper body became 20.5 inches of the handsomest anyone ever looked while covered in Lord knows what.

Twenty-three hours of labor and he was here, screaming for average and for distance, sporting the long, wrinkled Moraga toes that so delighted his grandfather when he saw them on me 41 years earlier.

And what do you know, without a forceps mark on him.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t scream. All I remember is standing there, smiling, completely lost in the moment, staring at my new love and wanting to keep staring at him like that until his fifth birthday. So lost I was that my wife later told me she wondered if I would ever grab the camera.

I thanked the doctor, kissed my wife and I apologized to them for being so nutty over the forceps. Then, after about a hundred photos, I called my mother, who cried with me, congratulated me and then screamed at me for letting the doctor use forceps.

My son was well into his lung workout, so I didn’t hear much of what she said.

I walked for a while, until I found my mother-in-law, one of my brothers-in-law and my wife’s best friend, who hugged me like I had just found their wallet, glasses and pet.

We walked back to the delivery room, and while they talked to my wife, I sat down again. That’s when it hit me. I tried to get back up, and while I knew this wasn’t Old Sparky, the clamps were on.

It was all business now. I had a son. Playtime now belongs to someone else. I had stopped living my life and become a supporting actor in someone else’s story. I have to impart wisdom even when I have none for myself.

I had no idea what to say at first. So I said everything. I called him pet names, goofy names, sang him songs while I changed diapers, talked to him in English and read to him in Spanish. Not Dr. Seuss, but he loved it. OK, maybe I did. He slept.

But I claimed ownership. I figured the worst that could happen is he stains a few shirts with his meals, I stain a few onesies with my drool and we get used to each other.

On the third day, the jaundice hit and he spent his day with a mask on, a diaper on and nothing else. He let us know right away that that was no way to start a life.

Then, I talked to him. Nothing clever.

“What happened, Matías?” I asked twice, using his middle name because I like it better than his first.

And then, the tiny fellow with masked eyes and little clothing recognized my voice and stopped crying. I could not believe it.

He stirred a bit and fell asleep, leaving behind the cold of the room, the darkness of the mask and a 41-year-old 30something looking at his own shoulder for a place to stick his first stripe.

Ryan Fleisher had a hunch her daughters would become gymnasts. Almost as soon as Mikayla and Raelynn were able to walk, they would enter the living room and perform their version of a gymnastics meet for Ryan and her husband.

Both daughters have grown up around gymnastics as their mom is Issaquah High School’s gymnastics coach and also an instructor for the Gymnastics East program. Mikayla, 11, and Raelynn, 8, both are in competitive gymnastics now after beginning in an introductory program.

Fleisher said she believes it’s advantageous for children to get involved in some kind of physical activity at an early age. She’s not alone in that belief. There have been several national studies that maintain children who get involved in physical activity early and have a nutritious diet are more likely to lead healthy lives. It is believed that people who are active while young will be active as adults.

If done correctly, organized sports can be beneficial, providing a framework for children to play in a safe and healthy manner.

The question for many parents is when to start their children in organized sports. According to a study by the National Center for Sports Safety, there is no definite age or magical sign marking when a child is ready to participate in organized sports. Each child and sport is different, making it, by necessity, a case-by-case decision.

Fleisher said she believes it’s important for children to get started in some kind of introductory program before embarking on a competitive program.

Gymnastics East, for example, has an introductory program for children 18 months to 3 years of age. The Issaquah Swim School also has an introductory program that starts with children 6 months of age to 3 years.

Issaquah Parks and Recreation have a variety of programs for children age 3 through middle school. One of the popular programs is the sports sampler, where children ages 3-5 get the opportunity to try a variety of sports. For instance, fall activities include soccer, T-ball and basketball.

Some organized programs like the Issaquah Little League start at age 5 with T-ball. The program is structured so that players can steadily develop their skills. The Issaquah Gliders running program begins at age 5. For other organized programs, like lacrosse and football, children should be at least 6.

Fleisher said the United States Gymnastics Association won’t let children take part in competition until they are 6.

“The USGA believes that children younger than 6 aren’t able to handle the stress and the pressure of competition,” Fleisher said.

Many national studies show it’s important for children to be examined by a physician before getting involved in organized sports.

Fleisher said she believes sports have had many benefits for her girls.

“My kids have turned out pretty healthy and are well-rounded. Being involved in gymnastics, they are learning time management,” Fleisher said. “They not only have time for practice, they have to set aside time for homework. Kids who are involved in sports usually turn out to be good students.”

Fleisher added one other important aspect of sports.

“Kids have to have fun. Whether it‘s gymnastics, football, debate or chess, it‘s important for kids to have fun,” Fleisher said. “If my girls weren’t having fun, they wouldn’t be in gymnastics.”

Did you have a grandmother who told you technological advances were sinister? Did you just discount her as merely being set in her ways and stuck in the 1950s? She may have been overlooking the obvious benefits of technology, but perhaps she had a point.

While moderate usage of video games, the Internet and cell phones can be harmless, excessive use can have adverse effects, especially on children.

Marianne Goble, counselor at the Wise Heart Center for Psychotherapy in Issaquah, said one of the most important things for a parent to remember is that video games should not take the place of playtime, which is absolutely paramount for children ages 4-12.

She said the playtime should be away from electronics and in the physical presence of friends and parents. This playtime helps a child develop social skills, explore his or her own creativity, and develop an understanding of how others think and feel.

Nonetheless, even electronic communication is preferable to no communication, such as when a child plays a solitary video game, she said. Cutting communication altogether isolates the child and stunts social skills, and the effect can extend into adulthood.

“The impact is huge. It’s very, very huge,” Goble said. “A lot of people don’t get that.”

She said children most often begin isolating themselves from ages 7-9, and it often comes as a result of something troubling in the child’s environment, such as bullying at school or arguments between parents at home.

Dealing with dependency

By using electronics enough — socially or in isolation — a dependency can develop, said Dr. Hilarie Cash, co-author of the book “Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control,” and co-founder of the Internet addiction recovery program Restart in Fall City.

She said using electronics can release dopamine in the brain, which induces a feeling of pleasure.

Excessive use builds up a tolerance in the brain, and when the chemical is taken away, one goes through withdrawal. For the developing brain of a child, such a chemical dependency can affect thought processes, perception of how the world works and resourcefulness, Cash said.

In 2007, the American Medical Association discussed designating video game and Internet addiction as an official diagnosis, although it ultimately decided against doing so. The AMA Council on Science and Public Health wrote in a report that what could be considered video game addiction bears the most resemblance to a gambling addiction.

A child is often in a sedentary state while using video games and computers, which can lead to health problems such as obesity, upper-body muscular-skeletal disorders and increased metabolic rate, according to the report. Some studies also suggested a correlation of video games to attention deficit hyperactive disorder.

Debbie Steinberg Kuntz, a counselor at Issaquah Family Counseling, said a child’s dependency on electronics can strain the parent-child relationship, resulting in arguments.

“It becomes a big power struggle,” she said.

Kuntz said parents should use family meetings to discuss the problem, and provide incentives for straying from electronics. Incentives could be an extra play date or a later bedtime on a given night of the week, she said.

Goble said parents should be sure to replace electronics with relationships when usage is a problem.

“It needs to be relationship with parents, relationship with friends,” she said.

If a child is having difficulty balancing such relationships, counselors can help.

If you see your child beginning to fall into heavy video gaming or use of electronics, try inviting him or her outside to throw a ball and show him or her that such activities can be more fun, Goble said.

Healthy alternatives

Once a child reaches 9 or 10 years old, encourage him or her to find a sport to play, or encourage him or her to learn an instrument. Sports increase physical activity and instruments make strong neural connections in the brain that increase dexterity and coordination, she said.

Maya Andreics is one parent who has taken advantage of these tactics. Her son, Kai, is in first grade, and her daughter, Seana, is in third grade at Challenger Elementary School.

“The rule is they have to play piano first, and then they have an hour to do whatever they want,” Andreics said.

After finishing playing piano, Kai takes to “Super Mario World” on the Wii, and Seana plays “Webkinz,” in which players care for virtual animals.

If a child isn’t interested in music, offer to let him or her choose the instrument, and he or she will likely be more excited about the new venture, Goble said. When a child reaches 11 or 12 years old, he or she may develop an interest in writing, another healthy activity.

To avoid bad habits with electronics, set rules and stick to them, Cash said. Being inconsistent will beget whining, which the child will continue to do until getting what he or she wants. Also, set time limits on usage, monitor what websites he or she visits and consider requiring homework to be finished before allowing any usage.

The AMA, in accordance with the American Council of Pediatrics, recommends limiting electronics use to one to two hours per day and prohibiting violent games, which increase aggressive behavior.

Kuntz said another option is to allow a child to play a video game for a fixed amount of time, then require any further video game time to be educational.

The opposite problem

While limiting time using electronics may be something many parents need to do, some parents may find themselves with the opposite problem, such as Chris Hensen.

Hensen said he gave his third-grade daughter Elliott, who attends Challenger, a Nintendo DSi for her birthday, but she never showed much interest in it. He said it was disappointing, given the hand-held console costs about $150.

“She played it like two days,” he said.

Still, he said he uses bookmarks on his computer to give Elliott and his two younger children access to games on websites such as Nickelodeon when they want to play. He said this method also allows him to monitor what sites Elliott and his two younger children visit.

Regardless, he said the electronic draw hasn’t been particularly strong.

“They’re not too interested in the games,” he said.

Even if your children do not take much interest in video games or other electronics, be sure to maintain open communication to keep your bond strong, which will help you address any problems that could arise.

“That relationship is everything,” Goble said about the parent-child relationship. “It really, truly is.”

Pimples can be tough enough, but the uncomfortable physiological changes on the horizon cannot compare to the other horror ahead: middle school.

Despite the monumental nature of the transition from elementary school to middle school, experts said the experience does not need to cause tears to fall or stomachs to tie up in knots.

“This is a challenging transition regardless of how well-adjusted your child is,” Pacific Cascade Middle School counselor Sonja Petersen said. “This is going to be a challenge for all kids.”

Challenging, yes, but not in the way grown-ups might expect.

The most common question Issaquah School District Associate Superintendent Ron Thiele hears from fifth-graders poised to make the transition: “What’s it going to be like to dress down for P.E. class?”

Other common concerns: becoming lost on campus, steering through lunch, slogging through a recess-free school day and — most terrifying of all — facing the threat of a swirly from a surly eighth-grader.

“Big brothers are notorious for telling you that kids are going to get swirlies and things like that,” Thiele said.

The fears subside, he said, after a handful of days as a middle schooler, in part because the district takes steps to prep fifth-graders for the leap.

“What I’ve always told parents is, within the first few weeks, your elementary child will be a middle schooler, and truly, it’s usually within the first few days,” he added.

Thiele, a former middle school teacher and administrator, said students start to feel more confident as they meet teachers and students, and become more accustomed to middle school life.

“I always used to tell my staff, ‘Smile a lot in the beginning and be helpful,’” he said.

But stress can build as students shift from a single classroom and a familiar teacher in fifth grade to a trek from middle school classroom to classroom throughout the day.

“I think a lot of the stress of starting middle school for kids is around, ‘How do I do all of this? I’ve got six different classes and different things.’” Petersen continued. “So, kind of be able to boil it down at the end of the day and say, ‘OK, let’s take a deep breath and look at what happened in this class and what happened in that class.’”

The key to success is to follow some basic steps to help students make the change.

Petersen emphasizes organization as the trick to keep sixth-graders on track and not hyperventilating from the sudden increase in homework and extracurricular activities. Structure is important, as children learn to set aside time to tackle tougher assignments.

“Middle school students really need a lot of guidance when it comes to organization,” she said. “I think we’d like them to just say, ‘Here’s your planner. Go use it,’ but they really need to learn how to do it, and they need to learn how to build that habit. It takes time.”

The other trick to maintaining sanity: patience, patience, patience. Petersen said parents must remember to lighten up, too.

“None of the teachers expect that parents are going to be able to help their students with all of their homework, but helping them to be organized,” she continued.

The transition has also attracted attention from education leaders.

Thiele, other district administrators and parents huddled in 2007 to examine the middle school experience and help students make the leap from small elementary classrooms to spread-out middle school campuses.

Thiele said the crucial elementary-to-middle school transition required special attention because of the physiological and structural changes — such as a busier school day — affecting students. So, teachers and administrators emphasize organization and preparedness, plus patience for parents.

In doing so, the district has charted a path for parents and students similar to the guidelines recommended by groups as varied as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Education Association, National Middle School Association and children’s book publisher Scholastic.

The results appeared to be successful on Aug. 31 — the day hundreds of former fifth-graders descended onto middle school campuses in the Issaquah district.

“I was at every one of our middle schools on the first day of school this year, and I did not see a single tear,” Thiele said. “That’s usually a good measure.”

Remember: In only three years, students transition from middle school to the cliques and classrooms of high school.

• Parents Guide 2009 (8.6 MB)