Helpful Parenting Tips: Most Popular Myths In Raising A Bilingual Child
My spouse and I are of different nationalities. While we both talk to our children in English, my spouse naturally wants them to learn her native tongue and would talk to them using her language. I know a lot of other people in the same situation, and I also know that some of them are worried that it would delay their child’s speech. Well, here are the most popular myths in raising a bilingual child.
MYTH 1 – Growing up with more than one language is confusing to kids
According to the author of Raising a Bilingual Child, Barbara Zurer, all infants can tell the difference between two languages when they are different from each other (such as French and Arabic) just a few days after birth. While they won’t be able to tell the difference between languages that are very similar to each other such as Japanese and Korean, they learn to listen to the difference once they reach six months old.
MYTH 2 – Children raised to be bilingual have speech delays
While it’s true that some kids who are raised in a bilingual environment learns to speak a little longer, it is not a general rule according to experts. Some parents were told that teaching children to speak two languages at the same time leads to speech delay, but this is mainly due to the results of poorly designed studies years ago.
Recent research shows differently. In fact, even if your child is already diagnosed with speech delays, raising him bilingual won’t make his speech more delayed according to experts.
MYTH 3 – Bilingual children gets confused and ends up mixing two languages
This is probably one of the most popular myths, and one that parents truly believe in. Experts say mixing two languages together it both inevitable and harmless. Doing it also doesn’t mean your child can’t tell the difference between the two. Sometimes, a person mixes two languages for different reasons. It could be that he doesn’t know the word for the language he’s using or he may just like how a word or a phrase sounds in another language better.
To find out more about behavioral problems in toddlers we suggest visiting this website about parental help.
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