I'm Ukrainian and only spoke to my son in English before the war. Now we live in the US and he adjusted better than I did.

• Hanna Khoma is an Ukrainian YouTuber who has been raising her child bilingual.
• Even though English is not her language, she only speaks to her son in it.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Hanna Khoma. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I decided to bring up my son, Alex, as a bilingual child, I did not anticipate the dramatic turn of events in Ukraine. Or that we'd end up living near Chicago by the time he was 5 years old. The language education system is not very efficient in my country, and I wanted Alex to have the advantage of being a native English speaker so he could have more opportunities in life.

I couldn't find a good teacher or a native speaker back in the days when I was eager to improve my English, so I eventually stopped searching. But when I had Alex at 26, that desire reappeared. I wanted to learn and do something new. A year later, in 2018, I created my YouTube channel called English Fluency Journey. While I thought about living abroad someday — not necessarily in an English-speaking country — my son was my main motivation to be better, work harder and develop my skills.

I started to speak to him in English when he was just 8 months old. I didn't have anyone around me at that time to speak English with, so I thought I'd raise my own native speaker.

People ask me if it was hard

A lot of parents, both in my community and subscribers, asked me if it was difficult to talk to a child in English when my language knowledge was lacking at the time. It wasn't, because I would just explain something little by little, using one sentence, or some separate words, just like I would in my native language.

I did a lot of research on the topic and being bilingual is very beneficial for you and your brain. As a start, I let Alex watch all the cartoons in English. Thinking about how his pronunciation would develop made me eager to refine my own, focusing on mastering the American accent. But I wasn't worried anymore once I noticed how fast he was picking things up. I knew he'd soon be the one teaching me, which is where we're now. I still have a lot of things to work on and sometimes confuse words or sounds, and he corrects me.

My family supported me, but strangers not so much

While my husband, family, and friends supported the idea, I got side eyes from strangers who didn't understand my intentions behind it. In public, people would ask questions and make me explain my reasons for speaking to my son in English, commenting on how it's a waste of time and calling me stupid.

When visiting my friends, however, most of them were on board with it. They'd let the kids watch cartoons in English as they recognized the benefits for their children as well. They'd talk to Alex in Ukrainian, while I'd speak with him in English and help him translate if he got stuck.

Nowadays, with the Internet, it's easy to find native speakers to work with your kid. In my experience, it might be challenging to find a non-native teacher who would teach a language in a natural way. Language acquisition has to be natural, just like the way we learn our native language, and teachers are trained to teach in a way that is unnatural, unfortunately.

My approach had proven to be successful after we came to the US just over a year ago. Thanks to no language barriers, Alex adjusted wonderfully. Better than I did. He's had his school, some friends, and now the rest of our family is here with us. The tables have turned, so I'll ensure Alex practices his Ukrainian.