Today my 2 year old had a tantrum, or rather I thought he had a tantrum, until I read this definition of tantrum.

Ok so let’s say that today my 2 year old made a fuss, and I don’t like fussy children, and at first I got a bit annoyed, then I ignored him, then I got rid of it with 1 question! It was the first time I ever tried this trick and it worked wonders… So what did I say? Bear with me and let me explain…

I was giving him his yogurt, he had a toy in his hands, a duck. He threw the duck up in the air and the thing landed on the floor. I stopped and said quitely he should pick the toy up, NO. I talked to him to explain that he can’t throw things in the air and expect others to pick them up… , NO. I then refused to give him the rest of his yogurt and the thing started.

He started to cry and scream and wouldn’t stop, eventually I allowed him to reach for the yogurt and said he could help himself with it, but he kept crying holding his yogurt…

And then I remembered about Active Listening, and I thought to myself, ok, let’s try it…:

Mum: You are angry, aren’t you?
A.: Si (yes), crying
M: and why are you angry?
A.: crying some more…
M: are you angry because mummy is not playing with you?
A.: Yogurt, crying..
M: oh you are angry because mummy is not giving you the yogurt?
A.: Si
M: and do you know why mummy is not giving you the yogurt?
A. stops crying… looks at the duck on the floor…: Duck
M.: right, mummy was angry because you threw the duck and you should pick it up, shouldn’t you?
A.: Si’. now calm, he goes, pickes the duck up, puts it on the shelf (a step I hadn’t even requested), and comes back happy and smiling.
and then Mummy and A. happy again start eating yogurt together in full armony.

So simple! All it took was one question: You are really angry, aren’t you?

WOW!

Many people talked about Active Listening, I learned the trick from this book which I highly recommend: How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk, by Faber and Mazlish. By the way, Active Listening works at any age, in fact it is widely used also in professional environments.

Image from A Journey Round my Skull

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Something special happened today, and I want to share it. I think that for the first time I saw A. switching language, in a way that was both conscius and contextual.

Fact: we were reading a book, The Snail and the Whale.  In the drawings figured also a boat, A. pointed to it and said Baca (i.e. Barca, =Boat in Italian), then right after (before I could say a word) he said Boat.

This might have happened by chance, it might be him playing with the words he knows, but I like to think that he realised that Barca was not the word to use in that context, because I was there (mummy=English) or because we were reading in English. We shall see…

Picture by <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/wili/233623990/” target=”_blank”>Wili Hybrid</a>

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So, how’s bilingualism going in my house? Suspence…

Actually, it’s going really well!

Let me say it, I’m really happy! A. is a fully bilingual little boy. He understands everything in both languages, acts to instructions given in either language, and most of all, he speaks both languages! He was quite a late talker, so now that he’s 23 month old neither the quantity nor the variety of his speech are astonishing, and this is perfectly Ok. Every child has his/her own pace, and being male, a single child and (may be also) bilingual does not help.

However in the last month or so A. language skills improved considerably, although I can’t quantify by how much… (One side of me would like to know exactly how many words my boy can use actively, another side of me though is quite happy that I’m not the kind of mother who counts every single word the little one says. It’s a fierce battle. However the second side has a strong ally, lack of time, so it wins. Just in case lack of time is not a problem for you first please let us all know because it’s almost unheard of, secondly you might want to know that monitoring a child’s language development can be interesting and is recommended by some experts. Although I’d humbly add: please make sure you don’t overdo it, for your own good.)

There are few things I find rather interesting about this language development. The first one is that neither language has emerged as dominant, not yet. There still is a very good balance between Italian and English, he has added new words in both languages and even uses (very) few words in either language. This is far from obvious, considering that:

• I’m the only person who speaks English to him
• We are now by the seaside, where we actually spend very little time me and him alone, most of the time we are with other people
• I am not a native speaker

I’m obviously tempted to give myself a good tap on the shoulder and celebrate my success; oh how good am I at implementing OPOL consistently!  Hmm… may be, most likely though I’m lucky that quite a few things are turning in my favour… A.’s own character to start with, the support I’m getting from family and friends (everybody says Car and Bye Bye like there was no equivalent in Italian!) and not last the fact that English is an easier language, with those nice and simple one syllable short words like car, down, sea, beach, etc.

Quite frankly, I do pay a lot of attention at speaking only English to him, but there are few Italian expressions I can’t help using (like Bravo! Now I know why everybody around the world uses this word…) and the occasional sentence in Italian does happen, but it’s really rare, and when it happens I bit my lips and make note of it, i.e. by now I have an automatic control system that helps me minimizing exceptions to the rule.

That said, I am well aware that things, might change, Italian might become clearly dominant and I might have to fight disappointment. I promise I’ll let you know…

Finally, A. is also producing two words sentences, happily mixing languages like “Shoe Anna”, or “Car Nonno” (Nonno=Grandfather). Again, this is totally OK and doesn’t worry me in the slightest. As we saw earlier Code Mixing is normal, but it’s also one more reason to avoid Code Switching on the parent’s side.

I realised I have so many things to say in the topic, so I’ll continue with more posts in the next days. Where I’ll talk about:

• A.’s language development and gestures
• A.’s language development and songs

See here for Bilingualism at 23 months, II and Bilingualism at 23 months, III

Before closing let me introduce you to a new idea:

BILINGUALISM STEP BY STEP

I realised the obvious: that it’s important not only to think about change but to act it, to make things happen. So I though a gentle invitation to act might help you too…

This is today’s recommended step: Find someone who’s not a family member and talk to them about your and your children’s experience of bilingualism. Just tell them how it works, what works best what needs improvement, how happy are you with it, etc. It’s amazing how many things we realize and understand just by spelling them out and trying to explain them to others. And, of course, let me know how it goes please…

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Phd Sabine Pirchio says:

Is it advisable to introduce English as a third language in the life of a child? Introducing a language in the life of a child is always a very delicate matter. Whether the child will learn the language or not depends on several factors, including:

• How often the child is exposed to the language
• Who are the people the child can interact with in that language
• How the language is delivered
• Motivation
• Consistency in the approach used

In fact we know very well that learning a language requires considerable efforts and use of mental resources, although it might seem a very natural and spontaneous process, particularly in the early years. Both adults and children go through this process only if they deem it useful or necessary. What children really care about is relating and communicating with people they like and love, and of course engaging with them in interesting and pleasant activities. If they need English in order to accomplish this they will learn it, if not, they won’t. So really it’s up to parents to make a decision and behave accordingly with consistency.

As a psychologist I perfectly agree with what stated in the previous post: English can wait, there’s no hurry! However this is not a hard rule, there are exceptions or way to work around it, here a couple of ideas:

• The child could learn English at day nursery and/or kindergarten. Nowadays this is a widely available option in most countries, often even in state owned schools. At home parents can support and reinforce what the child learns at school, without actively teaching English the parents can help the child’s learning experience by acknowledging and praising him.
• English is now part of our lives, wherever we live, to the point that we often forget that words like T-shirt and computer are foreign words for most of us. This is very similar to what happens with writing, which is everywhere around us even before children know how to write. One option then is to take a similar approach, children are encouraged to “read” and “write” well before they are actually able to do so, similarly they can be encouraged to play with English words.

A key point though is to have realistic expectations about efforts and results: if parents expect children to actually speak English they should be ready to invest a considerable amount of time, identify suitable methodologies and implement them consistently over time, they should also be aware that they are asking a considerable effort of their children and factor in that they might be frustrated if things don’t turn out as they wish.

On the other side a light, a playful approach would do no harm. Things like “gimme five”, counting “one, two, three”, singing “jingle bells” or watching English cartoons has no negative impact on the child’s psychological health, on the contrary it can even be positive if the whole experience is pleasant and loving. However in this case one can’t realistically expect the child to learn the language, not even to familiarize with it, unless these experiences were frequent and both consistent and diversified.

A last point. Parents might consider the early introduction on English because they would like the child to have a positive attitude towards the language before they are taught it at school. However if the school environment will be good and supportive there’s no reason why the child should offer resistance to learning the language, the association English=Good and fun will easily happen in due time. However if the school environment or the way English is taught at school will be negative or demotivating, this will unfortunately but surely overwrite any previous, positive, experience.

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*PhD. Sabine Pirchio does research in Developmental and Education Psychology at La Sapienza University (Rome- Italy). Her work focuses on language acquisition and use, particularly on second language acquisition is infancy; relationship between gestures and language in the development of normal, bilingual and special needs children; relationship between abstract abilities, bilingualism and cognitive development as well as integration of immigrant children in primary school. Sabine is French-Italian bilingual and is raising her child, 21 month old, bilingual.

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Antonella Sorace is professor of Developmental Linguistics at the University of Edimburgh, and together with her team created Bilingualism Matters, whose objective is to bridge the gap between research and the community.

Federica asks:

Hi,

Thank you so much for this blog, it’s been really useful and is helping me finding my way in the complicated world of bilingualism… Myself and my husband are Italian, we have a daughter, who will be 4 in September and we both speak English.

Last year my husband moved to the US because of his job, and with my child we moved between countries spending about 4 months in the US. Initially she refused the idea that we would speak a different language with other people, but eventually came to terms with it, although she never tried to speak English herself. Things will change soon, we’ll join my husband in the US for good, so we’ll all be together. Once there I’ll start working too, so my child will go to childcare, which of course will be in English only. I’m worried this might be a shock for her and don’t know how to make things easier for her.

Also, I wonder how we should behave when other people are around, shall we keep speak Italian to her or switch to English?

Thanks and best wishes.

Professor Sorace answers:

All too often in similar circumstances parents project on the children their own fears and doubts, while they actually don’t have any. In this specific case the best thing parents can do is to keep speaking Italian at home. The child will hear and learn English at school, so it will be important to provide lot’s of input in Italian too for her to grow bilingual. She will certainly learn English in no time, there’s no need to “prepare” her in advance, quite the contrary it could well be the case that she’ll end up talking English at home too (in this case it will be even more important that parents speak italian to her).

In my personal and professional experience I’ve seen that children don’t have any linguistc trauma when they move to another country, although they have face some difficulties in adapting to the new environment. If parents are relaxed and don’t transfer anxiety to her, if they provide a bilingual environment (like Italian at home and English outside) the child won’t have any problem.

 A mom adds:

I’m really happy we got Prof. Sorace’s view, I think in Federica’s shoes I would have worried a bit too, while her words are really reassuring.

I have seen something similar happen in my child’s day nursery, a german little girl arrived without speaking a word of italian. The first couple of weeks were hard for her, she cried a bit, but it was soon over and she’s the happiest child now. So I would say you might see few tears, but don’t worry about it; as Prof. says, if you are at ease, she’ll be too.

As for your question about what to speak in public, different families take different approaches, some stick to the minoritày language also outside, unless other people are present, some switch language the  moment the walk through the door. This really is for you to decide, my advice, if you have time and wish to, is to read a book, like Raising a Bilingual Child by Zurer, it’s easy to read and has many practical examples. It might help you making up your mind.

 Please let us know how it goes!

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In order to better answer your questions Bilingual for Fun is hosting some experts on Bilingualism. Today Professor Sorace answers the question Giovanni sent us, Giovanni has a trilingual child and some real concerns about his linguistic development.

Antonella Sorace is professor of Developmental Linguistics at the University of Edimburgh, and together with her team created Bilingualism Matters, whose objective is to bridge the gap between research and the community.

Giovanni asks:

“I’ve been living in London for 10 years where I met my partner, a Swedish girl with whim we have a 3.5 year old child. Sandro goes to kindergarten here in London. His friends speak a good English, but Sandro is not fluent yet.

At home his mother and the baby sitter speak Swedish to him, and I speak Italian, when I can. Between me and my partner the common language in English, so when we are all together we speak English, although sometimes we translate in our languages. This is probably a bit confusing for Sandro.

Sandro doesn’t speak either Italian nor Swedish, but sometimes mixes words from either language into English sentences, he seems to understand well both languages, if I ask him something in Italian he would answer in English, but appropriately. So far we just tried to give him exposure to all languages without sacrificing the communication between us, but now we are noticing delays in his speech development and we are getting worried. We would welcome any advice.

Thanks.”

Professor Sorace, are Sandro’s parents’ concerns justified?

Their situation is not unusual. I know many trilingual children who understand three languages but say little in either language. Delays are normal, particularly for trilingual children. The fact that Sandro’s understanding is good should reassure his parents.

Also it is quite normal for a child to mix languages, borrowing words from other languages. Growing up he’ll normally develop both grammatical and social rules for his code mixing, i.e. he’ll mix more if the parents mix languages too. Sandro will certainly learn English, give that he lives in London, so the parents are right in speaking their own languages, which need more input.

It’s also important to accept that the development of the three languages might differ, because it’s very rare that the child receives the same amount and quality of input in all languages. However he’ll still develop and understanding of the languages, and later on if circumstances change his command of the language might become fluent.

In any case parents can be reassured: trilingualism doesn’t cause confusion in the child.

But when should parents start worrying if the observe a delay?

“I don’t personally deal with speech impairments, but I am in touch with some speech therapists who tell me that before seriously considering the risk of speech problems one should wait until the child is 3 year old and should consider also the mastering of other communication channels, like visual communication. Of course bilingual children can have speech problems too, but the incidence is just the same as among monolingual children, hence speech problems are not to be attributed to bilingualism”

Whom should parents ask for a specialist’s opinion?

“ We are trying to inform speech therapists to help them distinguish normal reactions from pathologic ones, however all too often doctors and teachers recommend to abandon Bilingualism, without really knowing what they are talking about. So it is really important to identify speech therapists that have experience with Bilingualism.”

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Active words in Italian: Mamma (Mum), Nonna (Granny), Nonno (Grampa), Pappa (Food), Acqua (Water)

Active words in English: Mummy, Mimmy (which is still Mummy, only trying harder…), Daddy, Car, Cake, No.

Quite frankly Car and Cake are just some sounds with a C in it, and they also sound quite similar, but he does mean Car and Cake, as these are the only times he uses these sounds.
As for No, of course No is just the same also in Italian! But as there’s no way to decide in which language he’s saying No, I made a decision. I’m his mum for something, am I not?

Interesting enough, the only word he really uses in either language so far is Mamma/Mummy(/Mimmy). Which I think is really interesting, only I can’t explain why it should be of any interest to anybody else but me, frankly…

However new words are addedd every day, the vast majority are absolutely impossible to understand, but some do make some sense. For instance, I think today he said Latte (Milk), or rather he said ‘atte. I was happy to hear him saying a new word, but I didn’t know how to praise him… In Italian? But that would break the OPOL rule I try so hard to follow consistently! In English? But saying Very Good, this is Milk, when he said Latte would be a bit confusing, wouldn’t it?

Eventually I decided to praise him in English, he did look a bit surprised and tried to convince me that that was indeed Latte, not Milk, but eventually he gave in. Let’s see how things will develop, I’m pretty curios myself…

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My husband and I are Americans and we have been living in Rome for 10 years. Although all three of our daughters were born here, we have always spoken to them in English. With our oldest child, when she started school at 3 years old – we decided on an international English speaking school. Although we are here long term in Italy, we wanted to be very involved in her education and the environment where she went to school. It was important for us to be able to have a close relationship with the school and in being able to help her with her studies. Although we are fluent enough in Italian (my husband is much more fluent than myself), at that time when we made the decision 5 years ago, I was not that confident that I would feel comfortable with my child going to Italian school.
Now 5 years later – both of our older daughters have been going to this English speaking school (although our middle child is being home educated by us this year). Our youngest who will be 3 years old in March has had a Romanian nanny since she was 6 months old and who only speaks to her in Italian. However, although my daughter’s initial words were in Italian, she now only speaks in English. She recently started at an Italian nido as we thought it would be a good idea and in the few short weeks we have already started to hear her speaking a few words in Italian although her predominant language still remains English.
My husband, daughters and I are now moving to Bali for one year starting in August and so our children will be attending another international English speaking school, but that also teaches the local language Bahasa Indonesia. Once we return, we are not sure how our children’s education will continue as my daughters are extremely resistant to going to an Italian school, but realistically and financially speaking – we cannot continue for all three of our daughters to go to this private school for the rest of their schooling as it is very expensive. So we have some hard decisions to make before we return to Rome in August 2010.
My family background is Puertorican so at some point I would like the children to learn Spanish and my husband is Jewish and would like to spend some time in Israel and have the children learn Hebrew. So our daughters’ multilingualism has just begun!
We do not anticipate ever living in the US again – our daughters have never lived there and are not interested in it. They are, however, interested in living in the UK so that may be a possibility. Who knows what the future will bring. I must say, I am very happy that they are living a more international life than many of my friend’s children in the US and that they are seeing different parts of the world – I think this is important in so many ways. They are used to being friends with and around bilingual/multilingual children as almost every child at their school speaks more than one language.

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I am an American mother of three children, whose father is Italian, and we are living in French-speaking Switzerland.

I am raising my 3 kids in 3 languages and it works fine. My oldest (12) recently did a CILS test in Italian and received a 37/40! We are very proud! He goes to school in French and gets English from me and the TV!

None of the languages are as fluent as a monolingual child. You do notice a lack of vocabulary and a slight accent but they are fluent in all 3 languages.

We are proud of our children and happy with the choice that we made. We stay consistent with our children (I speak English, my husband speaks Italian, and they are schooled in French). We NEVER speak to them in another language. When other children are about we translate everything even though our children understand. We were told by our pediatrician to be ULTRA consistant. There have been times when my husband gets frustrated with them as their vocabulary is small in Italian but he trudges on and it has paid off!

I do admit that it is hard at the beginning but you must stop yourself from switching languages.
Also, if my kids asked me something in another language, I would just say…in English please, and they would repeat it in English. If they had trouble finding the right words then I would help them.

At one point my 2 oldest started speaking together in French (as they go to school in French) and I told them that when we were just us or between themselves, they must speak English together. I felt bad insisting on it but they didn’t bat an eyelash and have never looked back! They are thanking me now as they see other kids where the language is slipping
Geneva is an exceptional place. Everyone seems to have more than one language at home anyway! Switzerland has 3 main languages anyway (4 if you count Romansch) and on top of that Geneva is an international city. I only know a handful of couples where both parents are the same nationality!

I can thoroughly recommend Tracey’s book: Raising multi-lingual children.

Lisa

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