With a child comes endless love, happiness, exploration and a huge responsibility. A whole new person for us, the parents to cherish, enjoy, play with to learn from and to teach. … to teach … We may not be teachers, but teach we will, just by being us, the parents....
parenting
Multilingual Parenting: Top 10 posts of 2015 for parents of bilingual children
The countdown to year 2016 has started, so let's look at the year which is coming to an end - here are the top posts of 2015, starting with number 10: 10. Passing on a non-native language to your child, part 1: Considerations Part 2 of this series is on choosing the...
Q&A: How to be consistent speaking the minority language AND include the other parent?
Question Hi. I am sure this question has come up a lot in the past, but I figured I would ask again. I live in New York. My husband is American and only speaks English, I am Colombian though was raised multilingual (French, English and Spanish). We have a 10-month-old...
Parents raising bilingual children are creative!
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...
Bilingual families: the role of the majority language parent
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...
Q&A: Daycare in a third language – how to handle and maintain all languages?
Question We are a French-German couple living in Germany, and expecting our first child for January. Our family language will be French (we met in this language) and my husband is fluent. We are quite clear on using the OPOL system, so I will speak French to the...
21 tips throughout a bilingual child’s life
"Practical ideas on what to do" is the request I often get when I ask my readers what I should write about in my blog - so here are 21 of them to cover the different stages! Before your baby is born 1. Get used to speaking your language with your child as early as...
Dear parents of bilingual children – time to cut some slack!
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...
“I can’t stay consistent!” – the challenge of parenting a bilingual child
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...
Q&A: Is it too late to teach my children my native language?
Question Hello, I am so glad I found this website, I just realized I did a big disservice to my kids. I am Italian, live in the States, my husband is American, both of our kids were born and raised here, I have lived here for 12 years now. In the beginning I was...