When my son became old enough to register for Junior Kindergarten, I honestly didn’t spend much time thinking about school options.

Actually, I almost didn’t think at all.

One of my neighbour moms strongly suggested sending him to French Immersion. Her own son was already attending that school.

She is a dentist in her home country.

Her mom is a family physician.

Her sister is an OB-GYN.

Basically, she is my parenting Bible. (Go ahead. Judge me.)

She told me,

“This school has a really good pathway. It connects to a good middle school and high school.”

I remember laughing.

“Pathway? He’s only four!”

At that time, talking about middle school and high school sounded crazy to me.

Looking back…

Now I think very differently.

Why We Chose French Immersion

Again, we didn’t compare ten different schools.

The only other option we seriously considered was Catholic school. My husband went to Catholic school throughout his school years so it seemed natural to choose that.

Since my husband is baptized, we understood that our son would qualify to attend a Catholic school, but we chose French Immersion over Catholic school.

(My husband is baptized Catholic, and apparently that is a big deal in the Catholic world.😅 Either the kid who wants to go to the Catholic school or one of their parents should be baptized.)

Not because we knew it was the best choice.

Simply because we trusted someone who had already walked the path before us.

Sometimes parenting is like that.

You don’t know what you’re doing, so you follow the mom who looks like she knows what she’s doing. 😂

Things I Never Thought About

After my son started school, many questions came to me that I had never even considered before registration.

“Wait… What About His English?”

One day, I realized that my son could say Monday to Friday perfectly in French.

But then he struggled to remember them in English.

That surprised me.

During a parent meeting, his JK teacher told me that her own daughter had some difficulty reading in English until around Grade 5 because she was in French Immersion.

That made me think.

So what are parents supposed to do?

The advice we heard over and over was actually very simple:

Read English books every night.

Not English homework.

Not grammar lessons.

Not spelling worksheets.

Just keep reading together.

The idea was that his English would continue growing naturally at home while school took care of the French.

That made me feel much less stressed.

“Will School Become Too Hard Later?”

Another thing people kept telling me was:

“As subjects like science become harder, learning everything in French becomes more difficult.”

Some parents said their children spend extra time trying to understand the French before they can even begin learning the science or math itself.

I also heard that some families hire French tutors—not to teach their children more French, but simply to help them understand their regular school subjects.

That made me think,

“Isn’t that kind of defeating the purpose?”

I honestly don’t know if that will happen to my son.

He is only going into Grade 1 this year.

But I understand why some parents worry about it.

“Is Canadian French Really That Different?”

I heard many opinions about this too.

Some people told me that Canadian French is very different from the French spoken in France.

A few people even said,

“Canadian French isn’t real French.”

I know that isn’t a fair way to describe it. Canadian French is still real French, even if the accent and some vocabulary may be different.

Others joked,

“It’s only useful if your child gets a government job.”

Again…

I don’t know how true any of that is.

I’m just sharing the conversations that suddenly started happening after my son entered French Immersion.

Before registration, I didn’t even know enough to ask these questions.

I simply followed my parenting Bible and signed him up. 😂

These were all things nobody told me before he started school.

So, after two years, do I regret choosing French Immersion?

That is a whole different question.

Read Part 2: Do I Regret Choosing French Immersion Two Years Later?