If you and your partner are able to speak more than one language, or if you are living in a bilingual environment🌎, there is no reason why you would choose to stick to a single language. Yes, we know it will not be as easy as it sounds🥲, but there are so many benefits worth trying out!
Good for your child’s development
There were numerous studies 📖 proving that being bilingual has many cognitive benefits, which will activate your child’s brain better! It helps them to have better academic results, and later in their life, it gives your child more options for diverse and interesting career opportunities🤓. Also, your child will have a better connection with your family with enhanced emotional bonds, which will make everybody happy!
How to:
👨👩👧Your family’s options
If you and your partner both speak the same language at home and your family is living in, let’s say an English-speaking community, speaking your language at home and English outside will help your child to learn faster. 👩🏫
If you and your partner speak different languages, the easiest way for you and your partner is to speak each of your own languages to your child. Surprisingly, children accept both languages naturally and will use them at the proper moment!
☀️In daily life
It is always a good idea to bring learning and playing together🪅. Find friends who speak the same language. Watch movies, play games, read stories, and sing songs in both languages so that your child can be exposed to both languages in everyday life. There are many books and apps that support bilingual education, so you might want to take a look at them as well!
🤔Any disadvantages?
Delayed language development
They begin speaking 3 to 6 months later than monolingual children. Though there is no scientific evidence, this makes sense: a bilingual child has twice as many words to learn📚.
Mixing languages
Learning two languages at the same time can be very confusing. This can create a risk of the child not perfecting any of the two languages. But in most cases, the problems are only temporary😉.
💕Raising multilingual requires efforts from parents!
As your child gets older, they might be less willing to speak a language other than the language they use the most eventually - English in this case. They might start to respond in English even if you talk to them in your language🙄.
Even so, you should keep using their languages so your child doesn’t lose track of them. There are more challenges and requires more effort compared to raising monolingual children. But the effort you put in is well worth giving your child a skill that will take him far and help him achieve his goals in his future life💪!