Myths,Pros,and,Cons,Raising,Mu family Myths, Pros, and Cons of Raising a Multilingual Child

A lot of women avoid wearing nice clothes when they getpregnant because they believe that they look fat or ugly. You know that there’snothing more beautiful than a pregnant woman glowing and smiling, so youshouldn’t hide your body during p Raising a family can be challenging and stressful at times. However, the common goals and emotional, financial, and physical investments made can be a common bond between husband and wife. One that compliments their marriage relationship.Of

I was born and raised in the western United States. During my early 20sI developed an interest in the history, geography, and cultures of the westernhemisphere. So one day while at the book store I picked up a book about Canadiansociety. I learned a number of things but what really stuck with me wasn’tstrictly about Canadaor Canadians. The author wrote that while growing up he remembered thinking itwas quite normal for a child to speak French to his mother and English to hisfather and being surprised to discover it wasn’t. That’s it. That one statementmade quite an impression on me.Because of my interest in the AmericasI dreamt of moving to Chileor some other Spanish speaking country. I wanted to explore the countries I wasinterested in, although I admit I also had developed an interest in theexposure to “hot Latinas” I would undoubtedly experience in Latin America. While attending the Universityof Colorado I discovered a studyabroad program in Mexicoso that’s where I ended up going. It turned out to be a good choice.In the end I wound up traveling back and forth to Mexico quite abit. I even moved there for a time. During my first trip to Mexico I had met the desired “hot Latina.” We are nowmarried and live in the United States and have two children. Throughout allof this I remembered the statement from that Canadian author. When our firstchild was born there was no hesitation about whether we should raise ourchildren with both Spanish and English from birth.MythsHowever, many people weren’t so sure it was a good idea. Wekept hearing concerns such as “won’t she be confused by being exposed to bothlanguages?” “She’ll wind up speaking Spanglish.” “It would probably be betterto wait until she was already secure in English - then learn Spanish.” I justkept reminding myself of that Canadian author growing up bilingual from birth.However, to back up my position with facts, I also did a little research anddiscovered I had nothing to worry about.It has been proven with studies that a second and even athird language isn’t really an obstacle of any kind for a baby. In fact, it’sthe best time to start a second language. Because of the way the brain developsand the way children learn language and language sounds, the ideal time tostart learning 2nd and 3rd languages is by age 3. Buteven if one waits until age 5 or 6 the child is in a good position to becomefluent and free from foreign accent.It is true that the child will do some language mixing, but ashe or she ages the mixing will disappear. Just as a monolingual childeventually learns to say “you were hungry” instead of “you was hungry,” abilingual child will learn to separate the languages and say “She’s my friend”and not “She mi amiga.” The best way to deal with this is to just be consistentand not mix languages yourself.Yes, your infant and toddler may get things confused fromtime to time - but so do all children. If you wait until your child is 10 or 12to avoid “confusion” you will just be making it more difficult for him tolearn. Ten or twelve is better than eighteen or twenty, but just as it’s easierto learn a second language at ten rather than twenty, it’s also easier to beginat age 3 than at 10. One of the great obstacles to learning a foreign languageis the fear of looking stupid. People hold back when speaking to avoidembarrassment. A child of 3 years is not going to have the same inhibitions asan eight year old and especially a fifteen year old. There is also the questionof whether your teenager will even want to bother putting in the requiredeffort with another language.Pros and ConsThere is an abundance of anecdotal evidence that raisingyour child with two or three languages from birth will result in your childbeginning to speak later than monolingual children. However, children generallystart speaking anywhere from 9 months to three years of age. If a bilingualtoddler starts speaking at age 3, it’s hard to say for sure if he would havespoken earlier had he been monolingual. Whether bilinguals speak later or notis very much debatable but even if it does mean your child will speak late, Ibelieve it’s worth it. The advantages of being fluent in two or more languagescan include simple convenienceto more career options and a higher income. Studies have also shown thatmultilingual children are above average with regard to reading and writingskills.The main concern you’ll have to consider isn’t howmultilingualism will negatively affect your child, but instead all the extrawork you’ll have to accept if you hope to succeed at fluency. At some pointyour child is likely to resist speaking the minority language, especially ifthere is no apparent need to speak it. Also, when it’s time to start learninggrammar, spelling, and reading you will have to find a way for your child tolearn the same with the second language. If you live in a community where it’sdifficult to find resources in your child’s second language it will take thatmuch more effort. You will want to find toys, books, movies, TV and educationalmaterials in the second language. Also important will be other live speakers ofthe second language such as friends, babysitters, and tutors.Bilingualism or trilingualism will take patience and a lotof commitment, but in todays would of globalization I believe the rewardsoutweigh the work, even in mostly monolingual societies.A Final NoteAs for my five year old daughter, she will be learningPortuguese soon. I had hoped to start her on her third language at age 3 butdue to a variety of circumstances we have postponed it for about age 6. (A biton the late side but still relatively early.) She seems to have a talent andinterest in language so I’m hoping she will also want to pursue French andmaybe Dutch. But by the time she’s ready to proceed to her fourth and maybefifth language, I’m sure she’ll have developed her own opinions. Perhaps sheand her brother will elect to learn Russian just so they could have their ownprivate language.