Small question -
Parents evening tonight for our 12 year old, her first proper one in secondary school, and she’s politely asked/firmly told/hopefully requested/begged -(delete according to how mischievous I’m feeling!) me not (no please don’t) embarrass her by trying to speak to her Welsh teacher in Welsh.
But I don’t think that I’ll be able to resist temptation. Ohh the dilemma… sgwrs or control myself!!
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Tell her we send sympathy and support, and if she needs to run away from home for a while, there’s room in the garden…
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Speak.
I’d ask her what’s so embarrasing if YOU speak in Welsh with her Welsh speaking teacher. If the teacher would think speaking Welsh is something to be emabrrased for, he/she wouldn’t speak Welsh either. (I presume the teacher speaks Welsh him/herself). Or maybe your daughter thinks you don’t speak good enough to speak?
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There are so very many ways for a parent to seriously embarrass a twelve-year old. Speaking Welsh would barely register. 
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I’ve got to say, although mine are littler, that I hope I wouldn’t agree to that one. I might try to explain to her, my explanation might go something like – speaking welsh is one of our priorities as a family, and that is why you speak welsh whenever possible, including when you are talking to her teachers. You can acknowledge that she finds it embarrassing without giving in to her request. But parents with older children might have more wisdom to add to what’s already above.
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exactly - reminds me that my eldest, now almost 17, still hasn’t quite got over the time I pirouetted across the stage in steel toe-capped boots in the middle of one of her dance classes when she was 8!
But on a serious note, I will have a go at having a conversation in Welsh, after all I’ll talk to her English teacher in English and her art teacher in ‘artist’!
I hope that the Welsh teacher (who’s first language) will be encouraged that we’re working as a whole family to become bi-lingual.
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Yes, very much. I’m increasingly hearing of families with young children who are learning - a very positive sign I hope
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Isn’t it a parent’s job to embarrass their children?
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Yes. Hugely important psychological step for children to learn how to forgive their parents, which is impossible unless we do things that require their forgiveness…
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Although to be fair I can see why she’s nervous. On the way to drop her off for the school bus this morning I told her I’d really like to have a go at doing GCSE Welsh. True enough.
The bit when I was joking was when I said I’d have to come and do the exams at her school, and maybe even study a bit there, I’d see if I can dig out a school uniform, I can ask her teacher if my welsh is good enough etc etc etc. That’s where her nervous, please don’t pleadings started…
Of course I wouldn’t be that mean.
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Ohhh … I know this part just not regarding languages … I was told by my son when he was about 10 (ish) (18 now and TECHY!) to better not to come to school while there are other activities then “parents-teacher” meeting(s). So I firmly stayed at home and only my husband went if neccessary. The contraversal part is that he could praise me for being a cool mom many times in front of his schoolmates. Maybe because I “obeyed” him and vanished from the surroundings of his school for good.
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Is she going to be present during the P/T meeting? if not, we won’t tell…
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Present and watching me like a hawk!
There was a time when parents had to watch out for their children’s mischievousness, now it seems to be the other way round!
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I think @margaretnock hit it on the head here! It is indeed our job to embarrass our children as needed. But seriously I think it sends an important message to both your daughter and her teacher that using your Welsh is something you try to work in at every opportunity. And, your daughter will get over it soon enough I’m sure. Having a 13 yo daughter and 16 yo son myself, I’m starting to get used to this kind of thing as a regular occurrence!
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I’d love to hear how you and your daughter emerged from this “no win” situation. 
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One completed parents evening.
Really disappointingly she (the Welsh teacher) started in English and didn’t use a word of Welsh. I did try, but I guess after having seen the parents of 50ish year 7’s by that time she had a script and she kept to it.
Luckily my daughter had a glowing report for her Welsh lessons which more than made up for my slightly downbeat feeling about the teachers lack of even a ‘noswaith dda’ 'diolch’ or ‘hwyl’
Which leads me to ask, should a Welsh speaking member of staff in a school in Wales open the parents evening conversation with something along the lines of 'would you like to talk in Welsh or English?’ I was surprised with myself with how deflated I felt by the automatic assumption that English should be spoken, and yes I know that it was my daughters evening, not mine and her success was celebrated by the whole family, but I’m a touch jaded. Oh well, dust ourselves off, find someone else to talk to, right place, right time next time round!
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You’d think it would pay dividends…
[Although to be fair, if she was anything like me, she was probably talking as fast as possible and hoping that you weren’t going to say ‘Do you actually know which one my child is?’…;-)]
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But the real positive of all of this is showing to me that I have an increasing passion, not just for Welsh, but for the importance of learning languages, and for the use of those languages whenever possible.
Yes, and it could be such an easy thing to introduce…
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In a Welsh medium school I would say yes but in an English medium school, no. But having said that, if you would have started speaking in Welsh she would have to be obliged to carry on in Welsh, surely. That’s what I did last year at least.
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Sounds a bit like a “who blinks first” stand off / stare off.
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