others ascribe to the theory that it's better to not translate (often using native-speakers) but to go through the process of discovery and learning the language in a fashion more similar to learning your first language
I have a different theory. Your first language affects the way you see other languages. Since langaues from different groups can be worlds apart in the aspect of grammatics, learning languages for a child the way you described above might be very frustrating and stressful.
I remember as I child I was learning French. The thing which put me off was that I had to learn sing songs in French which I did not understood and I couldn't revise at home (we were given texts but couldn't read French.. we just barely learned how to read in Polish, it was incomprehensible for me that there could be other ways of pronouncing letters or that word might be pronounced differently than the letters suggest!)