Parents seek Spanish speaking child-care providers

? Tiny voices chatter away in English and Spanish in a bustling home in this Kansas City suburb.

And that’s just what Jennifer and Steve Lyon envisioned when they sought a Spanish-speaking au pair to tend to their chaotic bevy of 3-year-olds – twins Ella and Catherine and their five-months-older adopted brother, Jackson.

The Lyons are among the growing number of parents who’ve expressed interest in Spanish-speaking child-care providers as demographers predict an influx of Hispanics and research shows toddler’s brains are specially wired for acquiring language skills.

Jennifer Lyon, 33, a manager at Sprint Nextel Corp., had done her best to give her trio a background in Spanish, relying on the language skills she acquired from high school and college Spanish classes.

Still, the toddlers didn’t begin speaking much Spanish until Wendy Aguirre, 19, arrived from Panama City, Panama, in September.

Now, the youngsters rattle off commands in Spanish.

Jennifer Lyon said her own Spanish has improved, and her husband is trying to learn the language as well. A Spanish-English dictionary sits on the bar in the kitchen.

“The best 97 cents I’ve ever spent,” Jennifer Lyon said.

As the children play with a toy train set in the living room, Steve Lyon instructs Ella to take her “leche,” Spanish for milk, into the kitchen. Later, the kids head to their bedrooms and show off their bilingual books, among them “Clifford’s Bedtime,” which in Spanish is “Clifford y la Hora de Dormir.”

When Aguirre asks Ella to name the color of one of the petals in a finger-painting creation, Ella uses both the English descriptor, “red,” and the Spanish equivalent, “rojo.”

The Lyons found Aguirre through Cambridge, Mass.-based Cultural Care Au Pair, the largest of the agencies that place foreign child-care providers with U.S. families through a cultural exchange program overseen by the U.S. State Department. The child care providers may stay in the United States from one to two years and they also are required to take six credits worth of college classes.

Au pair Wendy Aguirre helps the Lyon children Ella, right; C.J., left; and Jackson with art projects early this month in Overland Park. Aguirre, from Panama, is teaching the three 3-year-olds Spanish as part as her duties as the family's au pair.

The Lyons had hired two previous au pairs – both from Germany. But when the previous au pair prepared to leave, Jennifer Lyon made a demand.

“I always wanted a Spanish-speaking one, and this year I said, ‘I’m not doing one unless she’s Spanish speaking,”‘ Jennifer Lyon said.

Cultural Care Au Pair says the number of Spanish-speaking child-care providers placed by the firm has grown from 412 in 2002 to 1,104 in 2005 – an

168 percent jump.

Another firm, San Francisco-based AuPairCare, also reported strong demand for Spanish-speaking providers. The number of Spanish-speaking au pairs the agency has placed increased 125 percent from 2003 to 2006.

AuPairCare’s own internal research, conducted this fall, revealed that 91 percent of its families think having their child learn a language other than English is important. Of those families, 70 percent said the language they are most interested in having their child learn is Spanish.

“That’s the language most parents turn to both as a practical one and one that is accessible to kids and will be used in the future,” said Geoff Watson, senior vice president of AuPairCare.

Patricia Cascio, president of the International Nanny Association, said there has always been some interest from parents in Spanish-speaking nannies, which unlike au pairs are hired domestically. But Cascio, who also is the founder and president of Morningside Nannies in Houston, hadn’t seen a surge of interest like the au pair agencies are reporting.

Getting a Spanish-speaking au pair won’t automatically make children fluent. Marty Abbott, director of education at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in Alexandria, Va., said the amount of the second language youngsters acquire depends largely on the teaching skills of their caregivers.

“I think the parents think a little naively that the children will become fluent,” she said. “They’ll develop a certain facility with the language.”