I can’t tell you how excited I am to announce that my book “Bringing up a Bilingual Child” will be out in June! It is a how-to-guide for parents raising bilingual children in families with more than one language. The subtitle of the book is “How to Navigate the Seven Cs of Multilingual Parenting: Communication, Confidence, Commitment, Consistency, Creativity, Culture and Celebration”
Communication
The goal is to raise children who can communicate in the family languages. To reach this goal, parents should discuss with each other to agree on how to go about it. They should also tell family, friends and other people their children come in contact with about the family’s intention to pass on the family languages.
Confidence
It is important to feel confident about the decision to raise your children to become bilingual. For this parents need to be aware of all the many myths surrounding bilingual children and families, as well as bilingualism and languages in general. Armed with the facts is much easier to answer doubters’ questions.
Commitment
Once the decision has been made to bring up bilingual children, the family needs to stay committed to the common goal. Parents (and others involved in the process) will need to be prepared to put in the time and effort needed to pass on the family languages.
Consistency
I firmly believe that consistency is one of the corner stones of successfully raising bilingual children. With this I am not saying that it cannot be done in any other way, but that the chances of success are far greater if, for the majority of the time, the language use in the family is consistent.
Creativity
No family is the same and each multilingual family encounters different challenges. This is when creativity is needed – and I believe everyone has a creative side when it comes to the crunch. Parents of bilingual children will have to come up with creative ways of keeping the minority language alive: how to motivate the children to use all their languages; what to do when they stop speaking a language; how to make language learning fun and interesting.
Culture
I have said it many a time before and I will say it again: language and culture go hand in hand. Offer your children not only the gift of your language, but also the richness of your culture. Understanding your cultural background is an important part of everyone’s identity.
Celebration
Having many languages in the family is something to be really proud of! Document and celebrate the successes your children make when they are learning the family languages. And what better way to show your pride than to arrange an annual party for family and friends!
If you haven’t already done so, please, sign up to my newsletter so that I can notify you of when and where my book “Bringing up a Bilingual Child” will be available.
May the peace and power be with you.
Yours,
Rita
© Rita Rosenback 2014
How exciting, congrats Rita! I’m sure your book will be very helpful and inspiring for many bilingual/multilingual families!
Thank you so much for your kind comment, Judith!
Hello Rita,
Another excellent post 🙂
I’m looking forward to reading your book.
Have a nice day!
Thank you!
Congratulations on this great news! I really look forward to reading your book.
Thank you, Jonathan!
Congratulations, Rita! I can’t wait to read it! Well done!
Thank you so much!
Very exciting! Congratulations!!!
It is! Thank you, Julie!
Reblogged this on hungarywolf.
Congratulations, what an amazing achievement. I’m sure it’ll be a valuable resource to so many multicultural/mulitlingual families
Thank you for your kind, encouraging message, Phoebe!
Congratulations! I can’t wait to read this and add it to my resource list for families.
Thank you Ariadne!
Will it be available in the U.S? Can we pre-order? Kindle version?
Hello Rogerio, thank you for showing interest in my book! Yes, the book will be available in the U.S. and yes, it will be available for pre-order – I will let everyone know through my newsletter when it can be ordered. Kindle version will also be available.
Hello Rita! Your book sounds exciting! I’m a franco-german journalist working and writing about bilingualism and multilingualism, would it be possible to have a press-specimen? Thanks a lot in advance for your response.
Thank you, Frogette 🙂 Sounds interesting!
Please get in touch with me directly so we can discuss this in more detail: http://multilingualparenting.com/contact/