As the saying goes, there are many ways to skin a cat, and so there are a multitude of strategies for raising bilingual children. Among all these choices, one thing remains constant — a childrens love for predictability.
Have you ever noticed how poorly many children handle change and how they thrive when on familiar turf? When youve read that same story every night for two months, youll know what I mean. Certainly, kids learn languages under the most chaotic conditions — just look at the average dinner table scene — but some predictability within the chaos spells safety and security, which in turn promotes learning.
Most multilingual families have discovered that a fixed language system in the home greatly reduces the tendency for children to mix the languages — or worse, the flat-out refusal to speak the second language. One parent expressed it perfectly; Ive noticed that when Anna gets overwhelmed by something, she just tunes out. I guess that it is the toddler safety mechanism against information overload. Kees van der Laan continued, But I really dont want her to tune out my Dutch, so my wife and I agreed on a language combination...
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