Children will speak a language, any language, only if they have a reason to, in other words if they are motivated, and one of the trickiest parts of raising a bilingual child is to understand what motivation is and how to trigger it. Praise and reward certainly stand out among the tools most used to motivate children at present, just as punishment was until some time ago. However praise and rewards are not always effective, and can even become counterproductive, particularly in the long run. This doesn’t mean that praise is wrong, but  certainly it needs to be handled with care.

The good news is that if used properly praise actually becomes quite powerful, only, what does “use properly mean”? There are a couple of theories on this, and they all make perfect sense, in fact they are very closely related, so keep reading and try to find what will work best for you and your family. These different theories, or methods, all have the same objective: find a way to praise that will enhance the positive effect, Encouragement, and limit the side effects, Judgment. In fact when we praise someone, as well as when we criticise them, we are judging them and claiming the right to decide what is right or wrong about them. And this can be very disturbing, the idea that anyone, even Mom, can say whether I am right or wrong is not necessarily a pleasant feeling.

So here are few alternative ways to praise without judging, they have been described to promote a balanced education of children, but apply just as well to the education of bilingual children. •

• Active Listening This is one of the most powerful tools described by Gordon in his book PET and is widely utilized in any environment, from family therapy to business training. Active listening basically means to step in another person’s shoes, make a real and sincere effort to understand what they feel (anger, frustration, fear, etc) and say it. The last passage is the key one, it’s not enough to think what the other person feels, you have to spell it out loud (you might be wrong, in that case you’ll just give it another try). BILINGUAL CHILDREN: say the child doesn’t want to speak German, or insists that Mom should speak German to him, then mom could just say: “you don’t like me to speak German to you because you don’t understand everything I say”. This technique is explained very well in this article, based on a really book I strongly recommend: How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk by Faber e Mazlish
• Praise effort, not results : if a child doesn’t believe in his ability to learn and overcome difficulties he won’t have enough confidence to try and put some effort into it. Funny enough this happens quite often to high performing children, who grow up hearing that they are good and have a natural gift may be, but think they know and they don’t know that they can learn. See this article. BILINGUAL CHILDREN: don’t praise them for what they say and how they say, but for their improvements and for how they are learning
• Descriptive Praise this comes from the Montessori school and the teaching is that instead of evaluating what children do we should just describe it. This has two implications: the child can accept praise without embarrassment, because it is not a judgement but the statement of a fact (you did this and that), secondly this way the child will learn to observe what he has done and elaborate his own judgement. see this article on Descriptive Praise. BILINGUAL CHILDREN: Mummy spoke to you in French and you answered in French. You sang the whole song on your own. This sentence you just said was correct, remember last week you got it wrong? 
• Reflective Listening is very similar to Active Listening, in fact the only reason I list it here is because I find this article very well written, and if you still have the energy definitely worth a look.

As you can see these techniques are very similar, they all point at avoiding judgment and helping the child understand and evaluate what he has done , boosting in self confidence and ability to decide. Punishment and criticism are different issues, we’ll come back to that.

BILINGUALISM STEP BY STEP

Your homework today, I’m sure you guessed already, is to think about these alternative approaches and analyze your own behaviour at the light of these info. Is there something you’d like to change in the way you praise your children? What? Make few specific examples of situation you would now address differently. As usual don’t make vague statements about how you will change everything, clearly identify few specific situations and decide what you will say when they arise.

Picture by A Journey Round My Skull

Related posts:

1. Pro and Contra of Praise
2. How to I brought my child from crying real tears to a happy smile with one question
3. Is praise always a good thing?

 We have already seen that praise, like punishment, is a means of external control. That is, I parent do this because I then expect the child do that. But the ultimate purpose of education is to help children develop a form of internal control, i.e. to do certain things because they’ are right and don’t do others because they are wrong. (See article by Gordon on forms of control). Different yet is the case of bilingualism, we do not expect a child to make a moral decision about speaking one language or another but we would like them to speak them spontaneously, without even thinking about it and and certainly not “to please mom” (this is what I think at least). Is praising the child the right way to go to achieve this? That’s for you to decide. But I would encourage you to think about it, because Praise is a tricky thing.

 Pros and Cons of Praise

PRO

• Praising a child shows what he did is evaluated positively by the adult, gives him the clue that he’s on the right track and is making mom or dad happy
• Praising a child makes the adult feel good too. It’s a means to express their consent and satisfaction (when my son says a new word in English I’m really happy, and to be honest I am pleased with him and ME, praising him I’m actually celebrating my own success)

CONTRA

• Praise can motivate as a prize, but it works only as long as the child wants this reward. It works very well with small children, but when they grow up and become less dependent, or even openly rebellious or independent (sooner or later it will happen, oh dear…), they might not think much of parents’ praise or even dislike it. See article by Gordon on the mechanisms of reward and punishment
• Praise can cause a child (or an adult for what matters) to feel uncomfortable. Most likely you know the uncomfortable feeling of hearing “You are so beautiful!”, “you are so clever!” and the like…
• Praise is addictive. If you praise me every time I say a word in English I actually expect you to praise me every time I do it, and with increasing enthusiasm, else it just won’t cut it. How creative you can you become in praising a child?
• The absence of praise is perceived as a punishment. If you praise me every time I open my mouth and today you don’t I must have said something wrong, but what?
• Praise creates pressure, the child may feel evaluated on the basis of his performance and forced to do even better. Imagine that I always said to A., and others in his presence, that A. and is a really good boy because he speaks really good English. This would put him in the position of having to speak really good English to meet the mom’s expectation. It’s not the same as speaking English because he likes it or because speaking it is natural to him. Definitely not the same thing…
• The child does not learn to evaluate his actions and abilities and to be proud of his achievements, but rather to depend on an external evaluation.

Well I guess what you’re thinking here, the same I thought at first: “What the hell! I just said “Well done” to my son, it can’t be that bad!!” It certainly isn’t, but there is some truth in all these points. For example it is true that being praised can be annoying. Or that praise often seems a unsincere and manipulative. However do not despair. There are ways to praise a child and at the same time avoid all these problems. More than one way in fact, we will see them later and you can receive them automatically by clicking here.

BILINGUALISM STEP BY STEP

Here is the task today: look at the dynamics of praise in your family. Behave in an absolutely normal way, do not try to change your behavior, and observe: How often do you praise your children? In which occasions? How do they react? Mom and dad have different behaviours? How children react to each parent? And above all, what function does praise have in the development of bilingualism in your family?

Related posts:

1. Is praise always a good thing?
2. How to praise to boost motivation
3. 7 Strategies to use when a bilingual child doesn’t want to speak a language

Your 3 year old says a whole new sentence in …. (fill in with your minority language), what do you do? Jump with joy? Open a bottle of champagne? Head for the toy shop to buy him a reward gift?

I bet most parents, like me, would at least be very happy and proud and praise the child, just so s/he knows s/he did a good thing. But actually… is this the best way to go about it?

I started a very light-hearted post, just few thoughts about the importance of praising children for their results, and before I knew I realised I had hit one of the single most critical yet underestimated factors about bilingual education and upbringing: the impact of praise on children’s motivation. There is much more to praise than we might think, and actually praise might not be the smartest way to motivate a child, or an adult for what matters. I think these are very important points, they certainly are for me. I know the reflections I’m doing writing these posts will have a dramatic impact on my parenting style and on A.’s bilingual education. And I think you should all take some time to think about it, and not because I say so, but because some of the brightest minds spent really a lot of time (and money) researching and exploring the dynamics of reward and punishment, so most likely they had some valid points to make.

Who are these minds anyway? People like Thomas Gordon and Maria Montessori to start with.

Thomas Gordon was an American psychologist who developed a model for relationship management based on effective and non confrontational communication. Initially he elaborated a model for optimizing family dynamics and communication, which developed into the Parent Effectiveness Training courses and later in the best seller Parent Effectiveness Training book.  Later the same concepts and techniques have been exported to all areas of communications and relationship management, particularly in professional environments, think topics like team management and leadership and rest assured that they are built on his work. His work had such a major impact that he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

There two things I find slightly disturbing about the PET thing: that it is based on the assumption that parenting can and should be taught and that today it is really a big business. That said, these two factors don’t alter the fact that Gordon had some brilliant and powerful ideas, and that familiarizing yourself with his techniques is more likely to make you a better communicator, hence a happier person, parent, friend, professional, name it.

Maria Montessori made a quite but long lasting revolution. She put the child, and the child’s skills and needs, at the center of her pedagogic approach and laid the foundations for a scientific pedagogy, i.e. a pedagogy based on scientific methods and rigour, not on opinions. She brought attention to the importance of freedom (certainly an innovative concept at the beginning of XX century). The child’s freedom according to het is important not only to stimulate and nurture his/her creativity, but also, in less obvious ways, to help him/her gain self regulation and eventually discipline.

So the first interesting thing is that both Gordon and Montessori address the issue of praise (reward) and punishment as one. But one’d normally think they are very different things, aren’t they? Let’s see…

What is Praise?

When a child does a good thing we make sure he knows, we reward him with our praise, we are sincerely happy about his success and share our happiness with him and with others. This way, we think, he’ll feel good about what he has done and will be inclined to do more of the same.

So what is punishment instead? Let’s change few words…

When a child does a bad thing we make sure he knows, we punish him with our disapproval; we are sincerely disappointed about his failure and share our disappointment with him and with others. This way, we think, he’ll feel bad about what he has done and will not be inclined to do more of the same.

Well, there isn’t so much difference between praise and punishment then! Praise and punishment are two sides of the same coin and they share very similar mechanisms. I had never thought about it and I personally find the idea quite shocking, or at least thought provoking. Because I was under the impression that punishment is bad and praise is good. But if they are so similar may be their effects are similar too and I have to reconsider my assumptions (and trust me, I am).

I want to explore this topic in depth, and I will do it on the next few posts so if you want to receive them just click here.

BILINGUALISM STEP BY STEP

This is thinking time more than action time, and I would encourage you to spend some time thinking about these issues to, because you can’t overestimate the importance of praise and reward in children’s education, and in bilingual education specifically.

So today’s homework is to spend some time to think about what impact praise has on YOU, not on your children.

Have you ever been praised and:

• Felt embarrassed or annoyed?
• Felt they were making fun of you?
• Didn’t believe what you were hearing?
• Had a poor opinion of the person who was praising you?
• Felt pressure to deliver or perform above your abilities and capabilities?
• Felt manipulated?
• Thought there was no need to put more effort given that what you had done was already good enough?

If you answered yes to at least one of these questions you start to see that praise can have drawbacks too. We’ll see later all the pro and contras and how subtle changes can make our praise more effective, in all senses. To receive the updates click here.

Picture by annthrop

Related posts:

1. Pro and Contra of Praise
2. How to praise to boost motivation
3. The Importance of a Social Context (think Playgroup) for Bilingual Children

 

 Leonora asked for some advice via Facebook because her partner refuses to speak his mothertongue with their daughter. Her question is very interesting and far from unusual, so let’s think about it together.

Leonora is Italian, her partner is from Angola hence his mothertongue is Portuguese. They met in London but now live in Italy and have a 3 year old daughter. Leonora would like her child to grow up bilingual, but her partner doesn’t speak Portuguese to her, saying it doesn’t feel natural to him.

This is quite a common situation, it’s astonishing how many people refuse to speak their native language to their children and opt instead for the majority language, in this way the child is deprived of the opportunity to grow with a strong connection to his/her origins, to start with, and of being bilingual too.

However none can be forced to speak whatever language with his/her children, this is a very personal decision. So although I perfectly understand the frustration of Leonora and other mothers in her situations, the fact is that this is largely outside her control. The only thing she probably could, and should, do, is speaking with her partner to understand why he’s refusing to speak his language with his own child. Most likely there are very deep motivations behind this decision, and only by understanding them and discussing them she can help her partner reconsider his decision.

Obviously none but the person concerned knows why he is doing what he’s doing. However one could start by generating few options, from which Leonora and her partner can take inspiration for some good thinking.

• Bilingualism is normal, the child will learn the language(s) in due time. For most Europeans bilingualism is the exception, but for most people in the world it’s normality. Most countries, including most African countries, are bilingual because composed of different ethnic groups and because they have one or more colonial languages. People who grew up in this kind of societies regard multilingualism as the most natural of things. They speak 3 or 4 languages without any effort and can’t quite picture why learning a language should be so difficult for someone being raised monolingual.  So they genuinely think that a child can learn a language at any moment in his/her life just like that.
• I leave here, always speak this language, can’t be bothered speaking my mothertongue. Watch out, don’t dismiss this argument as nonsense, most likely there is much more to it than it looks like. It is extremely painful to leave one’s own country, cut the bridges, and settle down permanently abroad. None can understand what this means unless s/he had this very experience (which in a way implies that your humble writer doesn’t know what she’s writing about either).  Nor can one compare the experience of an Italian living in London (a mere two hours flight away from home and still in a very similar society- no matter what you think of English cuisine) to that of someone who leaves a whole continent behind, with different cultures, traditions, values and lifestyle. Moreover, we all know that having a child is a life changing experience, among other things  it moves us to remember our own childhood and to reflect on it, it brings to life the child we have once been.  Well, most likely speaking one’s language to one’s child might lead people to question their choices and face painful memories. In a way, refusing to speak the language could be just a defensive measure.
• Child’s education is mummy’s business.  This line of thinking is still extremely popular, in all type of societies. For instance, 99% of the people who follow and comment on this blog are mothers. Right or wrong, that’s the way it is. And by the way, Daddys you are more than welcome to prove me wrong. I’d be delighted to take these words back!

These are just few ideas. May be the reasons why Leonora’s partner doesn’t speak his language have nothing to do with this at all, may be there are many more drivers we should have considered. If you have an opinion, please share it.

Did you like this post? You can receive free email updates from Bilingual For Fun, you’ll find it very helpful!

Picture by lepiaf.geo

Related posts:

1. 7 Strategies to use when a bilingual child doesn’t want to speak a language
2. Pro and Contra of Praise
3. How to praise to boost motivation

The importance of reading to rchildren cannot be overestimated. Reading is critical for language development, but also for children’s personal development, for acquiring the ability to understand oneself and the world and to elaborate experiences. It goes without saying that for bilingual children reading is also essential to stimulate language. However the link between reading a language can be made stronger by associating reading with language stimulating activities.

I recently read a very interesting article on language stimulating techniques. The article has been written by a speech therapist on her blog Tinyeye, and was initially meant to address techniques that can be associated with video or computer games, however they work very well with books too. When interacting with the games or videos, but also when you are reading, make a point to use some language stimulation techniques. For example:

• Wait and watch: Look at your child to see what he is looking at – then give it a name. i.e.) Rocket! You see a red rocket!
• Describe: Be the commentator who occasionally says, WHOOSH! … Ohhh bumpy ride!…That’s a big dog!….You picked blue!. If you are consistent with what you comment on, your child may start to automatically comment on the same types of pictures or actions. For example, if you say 1 2 3 BLAST OFF or GO every time the rockets flies, your child may start to do that on his own.
• Silence: No need to talk all the time – leave space for the child to make comments, to process information, or to just enjoy. He is learning by doing.
• Copy Cat and Expand: To grow language, imitate what your child says. (He says, doddie – you day DOGGIE!). Then take one more step by adding one more word, as in BIG DOGGIE!
• Repeat x 3: If you were learning a new language, you would need to hear a word over and over again to really understand how to say it and what it represented. Keep this in mind when you are naming objects and pictures. For example, if the picture or object is a bus, you might casually say bus…bus… bus!… hi bus!!!
• Earn it to Learn it: Help your child learn that his listening ears and words are magical because when he listens or uses his words, cool things happen on the screen. Maybe the magic word for making the rocket fly is GO! Each time, your child is encouraged to say GO (before you click the mouse to make it go). Pick a word or sentence that fits your child’s success level.
• Helpful Word: Use the activities as an opportunity to learn useful self advocacy and social words such as: hi, bye, help, again, more, done, yes, no, my turn, your turn, please, thank you…

Did you like this post? You can receive free email updates from Bilingual For Fun, you’ll find it very helpful!

Picture by Neeta Lind

Related posts:

1. Why some parents don’t want to speak their mothertongue with their children?
2. How to praise to boost motivation
3. Is praise always a good thing?

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!

Did you like this post? You can receive free email updates from Bilingual For Fun, you’ll find it very helpful!

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1. Linda and her international, and multilingual, family
2. Lisa's recipe for trilingualism
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Does your child start a sentence with one langue and finish it with another? Yes, that happens a lot, but what this really means strongly depends on how you react to that. If you think you just react normal, keep reading, there are at least 5 different ways of reacting normal, they are all normal, but not all the same.

Parents often look at their children’s habit of mixing languages in one conversation (a phenomenon called Code Mixing and not to be confused with Code Switching) with some apprehension, fearing that they child might not become bilingual, or, worse, that s/he might end up speaking a language of his/her own, without mastering any language fully (now THAT would be scary, wouldn’t it?). Although these fears are normally completely exagerated, it still is not only reasonable but also sensible for parents to help children separate the two languages, so how do they go about it?

Research has showed that parents’ reactions mostly fit into one of 5 alternatives:

• The parent pretends s/he doesn’t understand and can’t either understand or speak anything but the chosen language, and will wait until the child conforms to that
• The parent guesses (or pretends to) what the child meant, normally asking in the chosen language a question like “do you mean…?”
• The parent repeats what the child said in the chosen language, without asking any question or expecting any answer
• The parent accepts what the child said and continues the conversation in the chosen language, without commenting on the fact that the child had switched to another language
• Code switching, the parent follows the child’s lead and starts speaking the language the child had used

Unsurprisingly the first strategy, pretending one doesn’t understand, yields the best results in terms of bilingualism. The more coherent parents are in sticking to one language, the higher are the chances that the child will speak both languages. Unfortunately this method is also the most difficult to implement, both because sometimes it’s hard to pretend one didn’t understand, and because this can generate some tensions or frustration. For sure this approach requires a lot of consistency and firmness.

An interesting point is that all 5 these methods have been observed in families that reported practising OPOL, One Person One Language. That should make you think. This confirms that OPOL is quite a vague word but in reality OPOL is different in every family. Your family’s OPOL is defined by thousand little decisions you take on a daily basis, like whether you give or not a biscuit to your child who’s asking for a biscotto. Little things do add up and create a trend, so be aware.
This does not mean that some methods are better than others and that you should do this or that, by any means. True some approaches will have a stronger impact on promoting bilingualism than others, but this is not the only thing that really matters. You only can and should decide what is best for you and your family, taking into consideration your specific circumstances, your family members’ personality and sensitivity, how much exposure your children have to either language, your relationships, etc.
What this does mean though is that you should take some time to think about it and decide what is best for your family, because if you don’t take a conscious decision you’ll still be taking many small unconscious decisions (like giving that biscuit or not), which might lead you in the right direction, or might not. And again, you and your family are the only persons who can answer that.

Click here to read more on OPOL and different OPOL implementations.

If you found this post interesting please leave a comment and share it with others.

Also you might like to know that you can receive email updates from Bilingual For Fun for free.

Image by A journey Round My Skull

Related posts:

1. Code Mixing and Code Switching in Bilingual Children (and Families)
2. Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism, April
3. What the OPOL are you saying?

It is commonly accepted that monolingual children learn how to talk from many people: mum of course (that’s where MOTHERtongue comes from to start with…), but also teachers and children they see at school, TV (or rather videos), etc. Funny enough though, what is widely accepted for monolingual children is not really taken into consideration for bilingual children. But bilingual children learn to talk exactly in the same way, i.e. from multiple people and interactions, only they have a lot less opportunities to interact… If this is not factored in, it is very likely that the children will understand the minority language, but won’t speak it, as so many bilingual parents report. When this happens the children are missing out on a great opportunity (relatively speaking though, because let’s never underestimate passive bilingualism, which is already a big achievement!) and all too often the parents feels betrayed and frustrated, if not guilty of “not getting it right”. But the relevance of a social context for the development of a language can’t be overestimated, it is an essential component to motivate children and parents just have to come to terms with he limits of their own role, fundamental in shaping a child, but not sufficient.

Barbara Zurer in Raising a Bilingual Child (to be reviewed on this blog) rightly points out that parents must provide children with “opportunity” and “motivation” for the minority language. However a common mistake is to assume that if the parents is motivated, so will be the child. Unfortunately it is not so… The parents’ motivation is rooted into his/her experiences and projections. Much in the same way, a child’s motivation is rooted into his/her experiences, the language must have a purpose and a meaning according to his/her view of the world. Only in this way will motivation come from within, as opposed to doing something “to make mummy happy” (or daddy of course).That’s why it is important for the child to feel the urge of using the language in some contexts, with people and activities that are uniquely associated to the language.

Obviously there are many way to create and nurture a social context for the minority language, the extended family is a great resource in this direction (creating not only a social but also an emotional environment and bonds), friends can be of great help too, more difficult instead – at least in Italy- is to identify a child centered social context, what we mean by that is Playgroups, or other forms of children get-together.

Related posts:

1. More information about Playgroups. What, When, Where and most of all Who
2. 7 Strategies to use when a bilingual child doesn’t want to speak a language
3. What are the cons of Bilingualism?

To start with let’s clarify the difference between active bilingualism (i.e. talking two languages- and possibly reading and writing them too), and passive bilingualism (i.e. understanding a second language without speaking it). Passive bilingualism should not be underestimated, being able to understand a second language is already a great achievement, particularly because the second language can easily become active in few days when the right conditions arise, typically a holiday back home.

That said it still helps to try to understand why the child is behaving that way and how to help him/her. There could be many diverse reasons for refusing to speak a language:

• The child could be making a pragmatic decision to speak the language s/he masters best and it’d be difficult to argue against such a sound line of reasoning…
• The child could be making an emotional decision, deciding to speak or not a certain language could become a way to express feeling for a person, for instance s/he could choose to speak the language spoken by someone they feel very close to
• Children don’t want to stand out, they want to be like the others. This could lead them to refuse a language that differentiates them
• For the same reason, i.e. that they don’t want to stand out, children don’t feel comfortable with being shown off as bilingual. Asking them repeatedly to show their linguist skills off could have the opposite effect
• It could be that a language has less social prestige that the other or that it is used to identify a social group, like immigrants for instance. Children are very sensitive to these nuances from early on
• May be the second language became part of the life of the child only recently, for instance the family moved abroad. In this case what we see is not quite a refusal of the language but rather a “silent period”. During the silent period children are all busy learning and taking new input in, something quite similar to what a newborn baby does, spending the first year listening before s/he talks. This is a very normal and active learning phase, although it doesn’t show, children are really busy processing stuff!
• May be people who don’t speak the second language are around, children are very sensitive to such things and don’t want to cut others out, and this is a very noble thing to do
• Children might feel under pressure, if they feel they HAVE to speak the second language they might refuse this pressure all together

So what can parents do?

1. Keep talking in the minority language! Your child might refuse to speak the language for a variety of reasons, but this solution applies indistinctively. By insisting in talking the minority language you’ll allow your child to keep learning, even if at first it could just be in a passive way. As we mentioned, a passive bilingualism can easily turn into an active one, it just takes for the right conditions to trigger it. However when this happens the child will quickly start talking and even with complex expressions, because s/he already masters all the tools s/he needs to do so
2. If you can understand what is blocking your child you might already be half way through. If what inhibites him/her is the feeling that s/he doesn’t quite master the language, all it takes is to give him/her more opportunities to be exposed to the language. If it’s a relationship issue, you might want to address them in however way you believe appropriate. It the problem is identification with what is perceived as a more prestigious society, you might want to propose them good role models belonging to the relative culture. If opportunities to use the language are lacking, you might want to offer opportunities to socialize in that language (like attending a Playgroup) or may be bring him/her back home to visit grandparents
3. In any case avoid by all means to force the child or to put him/her under pressure. Bilingualism should develop naturally and each person will achieve it in their own way and at their pace, embarrassing the child or making him/her feel inadequate won’t help
4. Have fun. Associate the minority language to play or other activities the child loves. Play is an essential component of and means to learning for all children, particularly young ones
5. Lot’s of patience, empathy and resilience will go a long way. And in any case be confident that what you are doing is right, your child might not speak as and when you’d hope, but for sure s/he understands you and is bilingual. When the time will come s/he’ll be grateful for what you have done
6. Look for other bilingual families with whom you can share your experience, you’ll soon realise this is happens quite often and hopefully you’ll feel less frustrated and demotivated
7. Try to understad how you motivate your children, do they feel pressure to performe? Even too much praise can be perceived as pressure, see here for more on the impact of praise.

Related posts:

1. Pro and Contra of Praise
2. Why some parents don’t want to speak their mothertongue with their children?
3. How to praise to boost motivation