Does talking to babies really matter? Are multilingual children confused? Do you have to stick to your “mother tongue”? Here are three myths about raising multilingual children that I hear again and again, from parents and professionals alike. Each is paired with a picture book to counter it.
Myth #1: It Doesn’t Matter If You Talk to Babies
This myth may surprise you, yet I’ve heard it often from both parents and non-parents alike.
Talking to children before they start talking is, in fact, essential for their language development, even before birth.
We aren’t born linguistic blank slates. At birth, we have the potential to learn to distinguish and produce the sounds of virtually any language, but we already show recognition of and a preference for the sounds and rhythms we heard in utero.
Between birth and first words there is a long receptive period. Babies are not “producing” language, but this is actually a time of intense neural activity. We can see it in eyes that gaze and follow attentively, lips that move in sync with ours, hands that clap, and legs that kick.
As parents, we often mark the first “words” (mama, baba, papa, dada) as milestones around the first birthday, perhaps forgetting everything that led up to those first syllables.
In the first months and years of life, it is therefore essential to offer a rich, meaningful language environment, tied to quality time with loved ones. Children learn, after all, within loving relationships.
Book antidote: A Face Is a Poem by Julie Morstad
Parents’ faces are the first objects that babies study and learn to read, the maps on which they will base their exploration and discovery of the world.
This book is a hymn to the poetry in every face.
Myth #2: Multilingual Children Get Confused Between Languages
This myth is stubborn. I hope we’ll hear it less and less, especially among teachers and professionals who work with children, such as pediatricians and speech-language pathologists. Yes, sadly, even they aren’t always up to date.
Bilingual and multilingual children are not confused between languages: they know very well what belongs to which. Research on multilingualism consistently shows this, and it is well established among those who work in the field.
There are, of course, phenomena specific to multilingualism (such as code-switching) that may sound, to an untrained ear, like a failure to separate the languages. They are in fact common and widely studied. I unpack this topic further in Are Multilingual Children Confused?
Book antidote: Pasta, Pasta Lotsa Pasta by Aimee Lucido and Mavisu Demirag
A family prepares a big meal of fresh pasta, adding new ingredients as various relatives join the party. But something goes wrong and a quick solution must be found to satisfy all those hungry mouths.
I love this book, written in rhyme and built on the mechanism of varied repetition. The rhyming words are often Italian words, but the rhymes only if pronounced in American pronunciation.
The fun, creative fusion of two languages and two cultures makes this book a beautiful example of a multilingual book.
Myth #3: You Should Only Speak Your “Mother Tongue”
This is another myth that concerns parents and teachers alike: an adult should speak to children only in their mother tongue, native language, L1, or whatever we want to call it. What they usually mean is the language (assuming there’s only one!) the person spoke during their first years of life.
In reality, there are many reasons why someone might choose not to speak their L1 with their children. These may relate to the person’s relationship with their own language and culture, which may be complicated or even traumatic. Or someone who learned a language as an adult may want to pass it on to their children.
I’ve worked with many families in which neither parent grew up with Italian, yet they are all doing a wonderful job passing it on to their children.
What matters to me in my work with families is that decisions are made consciously and with peace of mind. Sometimes this means looking inward and discovering motivations or emotions that we hadn’t looked at closely or named. Once we become aware of our attitude toward the language we want (or don’t want) to pass on, we can make conscious, informed choices.
Book antidote: La La La by Kate DiCamillo
The book antidote to this myth is actually a whole category: silent books. You can read in any language you like!
La La La is one of my favorites: a little girl discovers her own voice, and a wonderful world, through this single syllable, “la.”
Myths like these stick around because they sound reasonable, and they can make parents doubt choices that are working. The good news is that raising multilingual children doesn’t require a perfect plan, only conscious, informed decisions that fit your family.
If you’d like support figuring out what that looks like for you, that’s what I help families with through my multilingual family consultations. Reach out and let’s talk about what could work for your family!
