Defying could be a sign of assertiveness.

In India, most of the states of have their own unique language (not a dialect) but most commonly used language is called “Hindi’. Students are encouraged to study languages at least up to 10th grade beginning from 1st grade.

When Lydia joined 1st grade we had to make that decision. Since we live in Tamilnadu state in India our choices were limited to two – either Tamil or Hindi. Mom thought that it will be easier on Lydia to learn Tamil and I thought that since we live here she is going to learn to speak Tamil no matter what but choosing Hindi gives her an added advantage of an extra language apart from English and Tamil.

I was fine with whatever she chooses to study. In the first week itself she came home and told us that she chose Hindi and not Tamil. We asked her for the process how they went about and she said that the teacher asked the kids to raise their hands to choose the preferred language. Then we were curious of her rationale to choose Hindi. She said “everyone wanted to study Tamil and I wanted to be different”.

We knew immediately that her rationale is sound. We were proud of not the language that chose but how she chose (wanted to be different). I have studied Hindi up to 10th grade so I have agreed to help Lydia in doing her home work.

Now she can identify the alphabets and making two alphabet associations. All of us are very proud of her.