When we moved to France, we made a very brave - some might say questionable - decision.
We enrolled our young children in the local village school.
Not an international school.
Not a bilingual program.
Just a normal French public school where not a single soul spoke English.
Total immersion.
The logic was sound. Everyone - books, blogs, actual French people - said it was the best way for kids to learn the language and the culture.
Also, the nearest international school was 40 minutes away, and we didn’t move to the French countryside just to spend three hours a day in a commuting loop.
So we did it.
We dropped our kids into a completely foreign environment with nothing but love and hopeful stares.
And it was hard.
For them. For us. For our poor tear-streaked steering wheel.
The French Flood
Our kids were very young when they started - the age when most people say it’s “easiest” to adapt to a new language. And maybe that’s true on paper.
But in practice?
It was like asking them to build friendships and follow rules and self-advocate and sing songs and go to gym class - all while being dunked underwater and told to just breathe normally.
They didn’t understand a word.
I remember my daughter looking up at me with giant eyes one night and saying, “No one understands me.”
She wasn’t being dramatic.
She was telling the truth.
Every day, for months, she and her brother were surrounded by a language they didn’t speak, couldn’t decode, and had no experience with. It wasn’t like they’d had a French preschool, a bilingual babysitter, or a parent casually dropping phrases over breakfast. There was no foundation - just a full plunge into the deep end.
And it showed.
There were meltdowns.
Refusals to get dressed for school.
Cries of “Why do we have to live in France?”
And on one very memorable day, an actual attempt to hide behind the couch so we “couldn’t find them” when it was time to leave for school.
We understood.
It was overwhelming.
The effort of surviving eight hours a day in a language you can’t speak is exhausting, even for adults. And for kids, it wasn’t just hard…it was lonely.
The Rebellion Phase
There was a stretch of time when they rejected anything even remotely French.
If we put on a cartoon in French?
Rage.
If we asked them to translate a sentence they’d already learned?
Flat refusal.
I don’t blame them. Their little nervous systems were on fire. It wasn’t France they were mad at - it was the overwhelm. The loss of control. The silent hours at recess. The confusion of not knowing whether someone was inviting you to play or telling you to go away.
We worried, of course. Lay-awake-at-night kind of worry.
Had we done the right thing? Were we damaging their sense of security? Would they start to hate school forever? Were we chasing an ideal at their expense?
The Shift
And then, slowly, things began to change.
They started recognizing words.
Then understanding full sentences.
Then saying full sentences.
They began correcting our French, whispering the proper pronunciation like tiny linguistic professors. They started watching shows in French, voluntarily. And now, they do what all bilingual kids eventually do:
They translate for us at restaurants.
They tease us for our accents.
They say things like “Maman, that’s not how you say it here.”
And best of all?
They’ve made real friends.
The kind that makes you run toward school in the morning instead of away from it. The kind that makes the lunch table less scary. The kind that makes language a bridge instead of a wall.
What We Learned
Total immersion sounds romantic. And in the end, it can be beautiful.
But it’s not easy. It’s not instant. And it’s definitely not painless.
There were months of resistance.
Tears. Tantrums. Tiny acts of defiance against this big, beautiful country they didn’t ask to move to.
But they made it.
And I honestly believe they’re stronger, more compassionate, and more resilient because of it.
They’ve learned to communicate across barriers. To sit with discomfort. To laugh at themselves. To help others who are struggling, because they remember exactly what that felt like.
A Note for the Other Brave Parents
This isn’t meant to scare anyone.
It’s meant to make you feel seen.
If you’re planning to move abroad - or if you’ve already made the leap - and your kids are struggling at first, you are not alone. There’s nothing wrong with your child. There’s nothing wrong with you.
And if they don’t seem to be learning the language immediately?
Still nothing wrong. Totally normal in fact.
Despite all the stories of kids picking up French (or Italian, or Dutch, or whatever) “in three weeks flat,” the truth is that it can take months. Years. Sometimes you’ll feel like they’re not absorbing anything. You’ll quiz them on a phrase they learned two weeks ago and they’ll look at you like you’ve asked them to solve a physics equation. You’ll wonder if it’s working at all.
But then - bam - it’s there.
One day, our son invited a friend from school over to play. We watched in awe as he spoke fluent, rapid French for over an hour straight, barely pausing to breathe between sentences. My husband and I just stared at each other, jaws on the floor. It was like watching him reveal a secret life.
And of course it makes sense - he wasn’t practicing French at home. He was living it at school. With his teachers. With his friends. We just hadn’t been there to witness the progress.
So if you’re feeling doubt, or fear, or guilt:
You’re doing fine. They’re doing fine.
It gets better. And then one day, it’s not just better - it’s breathtaking.
I’m proud of them in ways I can’t always articulate.
And I’m proud of us, too. We did the hard thing. We stuck it out. We stood at the school gate with fake confidence and real fear, and we kept showing up.
It’s not the kind of story that ends with a cinematic montage of fluency in four weeks.
But it is the kind of story that ends with a little girl whispering to her maman, “You said that wrong,” and giggling as she fixes your grammar.
And honestly?
That’s the kind of happy ending I’ll take.
Merci et à bientôt ✨
-Kamille
A note for new readers: we’re an American family living in rural France, restoring a small château, and writing it all down here. Subscribe so the next chapter finds you.
Paid subscribers get Castle Diaries: the chateau renovation journal, written in real time.
Really cool to read this! Our family immigrated to Portugal 4 + years ago, when my daughter was 14.... and we chose to enroll her in international school, with instruction in English, mostly because we felt it would be uber traumatic to do otherwise. Much to our surprise, she picked up Portuguese through her sports activity - the coach let the other athletes speak in English to her for 2 weeks and he maybe spoke to her in English 4-5 weeks, but it was a sink or swim situation and she loved the activity so much, she was uber motivated to learn. (note she did have to take Portuguese at school, and started in the beginner's class, and they quickly moved her into "capable" though she wasn't technically capable yet, but she only had it for 2 years). We spent the first summer after our move here and she hung out with Portuguese teammates/friends all summer and leveled up... fast forward to high school graduation and she chose to attend University here, in Portuguese. There were moments where there were social misunderstandings, communication issues and there was lots of discomfort but she powered through and us parents just stayed out of the way. The friends and the activity were important enough to her she worked through the issues. Regardless, I wish more ppl were willing to give the process enough time to actually work, especially with younger kiddos and maybe an ability to sit with the discomfort? Mine came with a native level fluency in Spanish which of course helped her tremendously (public Spanish immersion school combined with SoCal upbringing for the win), but it's been magical to see her growth and understanding of a new culture at a much deeper level than my own (though I do take classes)... just discovered and enjoyed reading a couple posts from your blog.
Interesting. We moved from the NWT to Quebec City for my wife’s schooling. Our 3 year old son got plunked into a bilingual day care. Not really, French. I realized something was up when my son asked for his truck red. French construction in English. By the time he was five he said « J’aime pas ça quand tu parle comme ça Papa. I was talking in English. We decided then he would go to An English school.
Our kids both went French émersion schools. Most classes in French with some in English. At the end of HS, they could both get by but needed finishing in a total French environment to become fully bilingual. My son persevered and my daughter took up skiing in BC.
Our grandkids all go to French school. None of them spoke French before they started school. They started in pre maternelle and carried on. Now we can talk to all of them en français.
All this to say I am an advocate for total émersion starting at a young age. Partial immersion provides a bit of security for parents but it is a half measure.
Good got you for letting you kids jump in and sort it out.
Best