The author out and about by bicycle.

The Benefit of Hindsight:
The Changing Challenges of Bilingual Children
by Marjukka Grover

Reprinted from the Bilingual Family Newsletter (2005, Volume 22, Number 4) with permission from Multilingual Matters: www.multilingualmatters.com.

Most parents will face some difficulties raising children bilingually. In my experience of bringing up two bilingual children, I have noticed how the challenges of living with multiple languages change through the different stages of childhood, and our strategies for coping must therefore also remain flexible.

Every parent knows how much influence they have when a child is still cared for at home full-time. It is probably at this time (if the minority language parent is the main carer) that the child hears the minority language the most. When that child grows and starts interacting with the outside world the majority language and culture will automatically become an increasing influence. It is vital to set long term goals at this stage if the child’s minority language and cultural identity are to develop too.

It is common nowadays for mothers to return to work after maternity leave and the child is placed in a nursery or with a child-minder. It may be wise to think about how important full-time employment is for the minority language parent. Is it possible for the parent to stay at home, or to only work part-time? If the return to full-time work is unavoidable, is it possible to find a minority language-speaking child minder?

When the child joins a majority language nursery or playgroup the parents will get some idea of how powerful the majority language input can be. However, it is not until formal schooling starts that the full force of this process becomes apparent. Some families are lucky to live near an International School, but most children will enter into the local majority-language school system and may become embarrassed to speak a language that other children don’t understand. They may start to insist that the parents speak in the majority language only. Their friends will also start visiting the home, thereby limiting the time when the minority language parent is able to speak his/her language without switching. The following are some important strategies that  I have found helpful in overcoming  such challenges.

1. Talk to the school. Get teachers to understand the importance of bilingualism in the child’s life. If the opportunity arises, minority language parents could give a talk about their country in class. Younger children are not yet embarrassed about mum or dad coming to school. I used to make ginger bread houses for my childrens’ classes every Christmas.

2. Keep speaking the minority language. Keep up levels of input in the minority language, even if the child refuses to speak it. Praise the child’s ability and help him/her realise what an asset bilingualism can be. I also used methods like pretending not to understand, or reminding my children that they ought to speak Finnish with me. However, parents shouldn’t force the issue. When children come home eager to talk about their day, communication is the main thing – not the choice of language. Even if children are using the majority language, the parent can carry on using their own language, gently steering the children back to this also.

3. Value all family languages and cultures. Parents shouldn’t see each other’s languages or cultures as being in conflict, but rather as complementing each other. Adjusting to a new country takes time, and most people go through a stage when they are very critical of the new culture. However, both parents should try to see each other’s cultural differences as positive. Cultural harmony is an important factor in successful bilingual upbringing.

4. Give the children’s friends a taste of the minority culture. If the children see that both parents are proud of the minority culture, half the battle is won.We used to celebrate Finnish Independence Day and Midsummer’s Day by having a party. I also served Finnish food to my children’s friends, and taught them simple Finnish like ‘kiitos’ (thank you). I met one of them recently, now a young police officer. He remembered the gingerbread house I took to school every Christmas and asked for the recipe for ‘kaalilaatikko’ (cabbage stew).

5. Reinforce the minority language. It is the minority language, not the majority one, which is in danger of not developing. Teach the child to read and write in the minority language as this will give the child an independent means to develop the language later. My own children learned to read simple sentences first in Finnish just before starting school. Sami, my younger son (and now the editor of the BFN) had some problems at first as he tried to spell English words the Finnish way, i.e. phonetically, but  the problem soon disappeared. Minority language schools and Saturday Schools are also valuable for teaching children to read and write. Our local Finnish Saturday School  prepared our children to take a Finnish exam which we made sure was formally recognised in their school-leaving report, despite not being part of the mainstream curriculum.

6. Let children experience the other culture first-hand. During holidays in the other home country, it may be possible to enter the children into a local school for a while. Many families attest to how successful this kind of “language bath" can be. When our boys were eight and ten they stayed in Finland with my parents from Christmas through to Easter, attending the local primary school. That winter happened to be the coldest in Finland for 100 years. It was hard to send them off  to school on those cold, dark winter mornings, knowing that I soon had to  leavethem behind. However, the experiment worked well. Both Tommi and Sami learned to read and write in Finnish, and my parents got to know their grandsons better. Most of all the boys learned what it is like to be able ski, skate, play ice-hockey – simply, what it is like to be a Finnish boy!

Just when parents sigh with relief that their children have learned to speak the minority language, they enter  the murky world of the teenager. Teenagers will question everything and often seem to reject their parents’ values and beliefs. They may therefore reject the minority language to prove their independence. There is just no point in forcing a teenager to speak the minority language, but that doesn’t mean that parents should stop speaking the language themselves.

Identity is probably a more important issue than language for teenagers. This is the time when a young person starts to work out how he/she sees himself and is seen by the outside world. We often refer to children from intercultural families as being “half” this and “half” that. This can be hurtful however, as “half” suggests that they are somehow less English, French etc. than their peers. It is better to describe a child as having both one and the other language or cultural identity – “he/she is French and English”. We all have multiple identities ( a mother, a nurse, a swimmer) and, in the same way, we can have two (or more) cultural identities without one somehow compromising the other(s).

It is not, however, always easy to fully belong to several cultures at the same time and some bilingual teenagers may experience identity crises. My elder son, Tommi, went through a definite period of not knowing where he belonged. We were puzzled, and slightly worried,  about his sudden change of appearance and behaviour. It was only later that I realised he had gone through an identity crisis. In Tommi’s case he was too proud of Finland  and irritated with everything English. Later on, in his article about bicultural identity (BFN Vol. 14:2, 1997), he admitted that there were times when he wished to have been born into an ordinary, monolingual family in Finland “who didn’t try bringing up ‘circus freak’ children”.

Being bicultural is not simply a case of adding two cultures together; it is more like two overlapping circles. One circle is the majority culture, the other is the minority culture, and the overlapping area is where the two form a unique culture of their own. Most teenagers will want to fit into their peer group – the majority teenage culture – and it is only when they become young adults that they start to value their own individualism. One of my Finnish friend’s adult children for example, who were not brought up bilingually, are now learning Finnish and using the Finnish spelling of their names.

There are now many exchange schemes between universities and colleges in different parts of the world. Spending a year in the “other” home country gives bilinguals new possibilities to strengthen the minority language. Tommi spent his second college year at Helsinki University and found it an enriching experience. But a word of warning; because Tommi was fluent, he wanted to take courses in Finnish and was advised by his tutor to do so. It hadn’t occurred him that absorbing academic information might be much more difficult for him than conversation.  He had to work extra hard on English courses in the spring term to make up the failed courses in Finnish. However, the year in Finland was generally very successful. Again he wrote about his experience in the BFN  (Vol.16:1, 1999):

“I gained a much more rounded picture of Finland ...... Having experienced the menial everyday aspects of a culture andrecognising a country’s bad points are justas important to a realistic feeling of identity as the ability to sing the national anthemand celebrate the culture’s achievements”.

I suspect that most parents raising their children bilingually go through periods when they think that life would be much simpler with just one language and culture. But being brought up with two or more languages and cultures can help young adults to appreciate the vast range of cultural and linguistic differences around the globe. This can be an asset in the modern world.  As I have so often said, raising our two sons bilingually was extremely hard work but, without doubt, it was well worth the effort.

References
Arnberg, L (1989): Raising Children Bilingually: The Pre-school Years.

Clevedon: Multilingual Matters (OP)
Baker, Colin (1996): Foundations of Bilingual

Education and Bilingualism.
Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Baker, Colin (2000): A Parents’ and Teachers’ Guide to Bilingualism (2nd
edition), Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Cunningham-Anderson, U. and Andersson, S. (1999): Growing up with two
Languages. London: Routledge.

The Bilingual Family Newsletter
Tuomi-Nikula, Outi (1989): Saksan suomalaiset. Helsinki: SKS

Reprinted from the Bilingual Family Newsletter (2005, Volume 22, Number 4) with permission from Multilingual Matters: www.multilingualmatters.com.

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