Some things parents of bilingual children experience seem to be universal. As a parent of a bilingual or multilingual child, you become more aware of your native language and you may also consciously try to improve your own skills. In today’s world, there is an infinite number of things parents can potentially worry about or feel pressure for. Adding another language to that brings a new dimension to parenthood. You have to ensure that your child gets enough exposure to all languages and be on a constant look-out for language resources. To make up for the lack of materials, you probably end up being more creative than you thought you would ever be.
Dear Santa, I hope you and all your elves are well so that you can get everything ready for the big day. I write to you again this year, as I know you read all the letters because I always get at least something from my wish list. I have figured out that you must know...
What we need more than anything in today’s and tomorrow’s world is respect, understanding, appreciation of diversity and a global mindset. What we can do as parents to fill this need, is to ensure that our children grow up to become respectful global citizens. Knowing...
What to do when your bilingual child avoids using the minority language and speaks to you in the majority language instead? I am all for keeping the communication going with your little one, no matter what, so you will not be surprised to hear that I do not recommend...
Being creative is a bit of a must when bringing up a bilingual child. Of course, creativity is always called for when raising children, independent of how many languages are involved in the process. Keeping multiple languages going in a family brings however with it...
The majority language parent plays an extremely vital part when raising bilingual children. Most post on the topic of bringing up kids to speak more than one language are written with the minority language mum or dad in mind – including the ones on my site. This is of...
Grandparenthood is a very current topic for me – having grandchildren feels like all childhood Christmases coming at once! Apart from being so excited and happy to the nth degree, naturally, my thoughts also go to the language-rich environment our precious new family...
Due to the nature of my work, I spend a lot of time on-line: researching, reading blogs and comments, finding articles to feature in my newsletter and looking for experts and parents to share their stories. Inevitably, I spend quite a lot of my on-line time on social...
![When a bilingual child is diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum – what should parents do? [guest post]](https://multilingualparenting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/September-2015-400x250.jpg)
It is with great joy that I welcome our guest writer for today, Eugene Ryan, a father-of-two and a researcher into bilingualism and autism, with focus on the effects of a multilingual environment on the linguistic and cognitive development of children with ASD. In his...
The third part in my series on teaching your child a non-native language is all about different language-learning activities that you can do with your kid. So far in the series I have written about the things you need to take into consideration before embarking on...
I hear you, you are not alone – come closer so I can give you a virtual hug! Not being able to stay consistent in the language use is the most common reply I get when I ask parents what their biggest challenge is when raising bilingual children. So how important is...