Re: English/Urdu problem
its totally ridiculous, imho! firstly, if, at 16, she doesn't already know her roots, then frankly, its not gonna happen. and not letting her have any american friends or read english books- that's just ignorant. you cannot control your children like robots- sooner or later, their personality develops and they're going to rebel because this extreme behaviour ain't normal and they're going to pick up on it pretty quick.
its better to develop a balance between living here and being desi, and teaching your kids the best of both worlds. otherwise, really, you belong back in the pind you came from because you'll never be able to adjust or be comfortable and you're going to raise a bunch of alienated kids who will neither fit in here or back home, wherever home may be.
this issue really bothers me, personally (can you tell? lol). people need to have more confidence in themselves and their desi-ness and their ability to pass on an identity to their children, and yes,* do* come here knowing that what you teach will be a DIFFERENT, but not automatically a bad, version of what you yourself were taught. its not the same environment, it CANNOT be the same. OR don't bother coming here and having kids because you're ruining your children's lives by limiting their opportunities.
poor girl! if she's struggling in high school, what on earth will she do in uni, not just academically but socially? like i said, ridiculous.
i say speak to your kids in urdu and english. i like the concept of one parent speaking each language. kids watch and learn english from tv and books too. all the kids in our family who've grown up here, young or old, speak english even though they understand urdu, punjabi, and/or persian, some/all of which are spoken by various family members, quite well. that is their choice and that's good enough. so long as people in the family speak different languages, there will always be opportunity for them to respond in something other than english. so see, they *can't *lose their mother tongue!