Raising bilingual children can seem daunting but can be exciting and rewarding as well. The path to bilingualism varies greatly depending on your child’s exposure to their native language as well as the new language in their lives and the opportunities for bilingual development you both experience. As a parent, you can support your child’s bilingualism by using your home language, seeking opportunities to incorporate the new language into your routine, and supporting your child’s organic and unique path to becoming bilingual.

While you may be excited and anxious for your child to learn English or the new language they are experiencing at school, continuing to educate them in your native language is actually a wonderful tool in supporting their bilingualism. Being comfortable in their home language boosts their confidence, their understanding of how language works, and their ability to communicate with and bond with their family. Professor J.D. Ramirez, who studied various types of English immersion programs, states that students without a strong cognitive foundation in their first language “will tend to take much longer to acquire cognitive academic language skills in the second language.”

Be Consistent and Curious

While children are sponges, as is often said, it will take a while for them to adopt a new language, maintain their home language, and become fully bilingual. Be prepared for them to struggle at times, and to feel frustrated yourself, especially if you are also on the path to becoming bilingual. If you become overwhelmed, take a deep breath and integrate a relaxing activity into your day, such as going on a walk together while singing a song in your home language or snuggling up to read your child’s favorite bilingual book. Guiding a bilingual child along their path takes consistency, patience, and also curiosity. If you are learning right alongside them with enthusiasm, they will pick up on that and it can boost their level of commitment. Reading Rockets reminds us that “children may mix grammar rules, or they might use words from both languages in the same sentence. This is a normal part of bilingual language development,” as is the “silent period” in which children learning a new language are quiet while they are processing and absorbing. If you remember that language acquisition is an individual and layered process that takes time, you can better help them to feel comfortable with their progression, and you can enjoy and celebrate accomplishments with them along the way.

Homework time, shopping time, and reading or TV time are great opportunities to promote your child’s bilingualism, both by communicating in your home language and by integrating the new language into conversations, stories, and games. Encouraging your child’s bilingualism benefits them greatly. As the Multilingual Children’s Association shares, “Bilinguals appear to engage more of the neural landscape available for language processing than monolinguals, which is a very good thing.”

Lectura Books has won numerous awards for our bilingual children books. If your interested in taking a look at our large selection of books, click here.