Benefits and disadvantages of raising a bilingual child

[7LaurenS]

Being bilingual means speaking two languages. 43% of the world’s population is bilingual, but only 20.6% of the US population is bilingual, and 12.5% have Spanish as their first language. In the US, many people speak foreign languages, so much so that the US has no official language. Federally, the US allows citizens to speak whatever language they please. But what are the advantages and disadvantages of raising your children to be bilingual?

 

Being bilingual can greatly improve cognitive skills in children, these include critical thinking, multitasking, and problem-solving. It can open up new opportunities in different cultures and new social experiences.

 

On the other hand, it can slow down language development (not often but it happens), lead to language confusion, cause difficulty learning, and cause social and emotional difficulties.  It can also cause the child to struggle to form a solid identity due to exposure to multiple cultures.

 

I think it would be beneficial to raise a bilingual child as knowing multiple languages can provide them with more opportunities both in jobs and international travel.

 

Would you want to be raised bilingual?

 

Do you want to raise a bilingual child?

 

https://www.newsdle.com/blog/world-population-bilingual-percentage#:~:text=43%25%20of%20the%20world's%20population,in%20two%20or%20more%20languages. 

https://wohum.org/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-bilingualism-in-child-development/#:~:text=It%20also%20opens%20up%20new,and%20social%20and%20emotional%20difficulties.

[4Rebekah]

I think that being raised bilingual could be beneficial. This is because you will be able to communicate with more people if you can speak more languages. This would also be good for many jobs : a waitress, secretary, etc. I do think that being raised bilingual can cause the child to struggle in the future because they will not become as proficient in one language. I think that it could be hard for a child if they are learning two different languages at the same time, instead of learning one and becoming better at that, before learning a new one.

[7LaurenS]

I think that learning two languages at the same time at a young age would be better than learning one, then the other. This means that the child wouldn't be set on the grammar rules of one language when it's time to learn the other.

[4Tatiana]

I wish we started learning other languages at a younger age. Many countries do it and we might be just a little smarter. It would allow many job opportunities like you said and would just be beneficial overall. 

[7LaurenS]

I didn't know that most other countries do that but it would make sense. We have a comparatively large country so a lot of people go decades without meeting someone from another country, whereas Europeans would see people from other countries way more often.

[7Kennedy]

I think it would be awesome to raise a bilingual child because it would be easier to pick up language skills as a kid. Being raised as a bilingual would be a huge advantage in my opinion it would be nice to speak fluently in other languages. 

[7LaurenS]

I agree that it would be a great advantage to speak multiple languages and that it is way easier to pick up at a younger age. Speaking fluently in other languages could totally help people in the long run when it comes to colleges and jobs.

[7Lejla]

I think it would be great to raise a bilingual child, althought people think it would cause confusion I don't see a problem with it. It allows a child to think as children and it could help them in school. If it does cause an issue I don't think it would be anything too serious to fix. 

[7LaurenS]

I agree that children are resilient enough to be able to handle learning another language. If they ever have a stressful week or something along those lines it would be simple for them to take a break, get through the problem, and pop back into the language.

[7Nathan]

I would  raise a bilingual child because I think it would be good for them to learn multiple languages early on. If they know how to speak fluent Spanish by second grade, that opens the doors to more of a variety or classes in high school. They may want to go to collage, and some collages require multipe languages. So, you can take different classes in highschool if you already know two languages.  

[7LaurenS]

I agree that not needing to take a foreign language class can open up more opportunities in high school. This way the child can fill that time with something they enjoy doing more or a study hall for their other classes.