Part of the reason this myth persists is that bilingual children sometimes switch back and forth between languages (“bilingual code-switching”). The truth is, b ilingual kids have two language systems represented in their minds from the very beginning of the time they can speak, and possibly even earlier than that. This myth lives on today despite having been debunked by research of the past few decades. Decades ago, researchers (mistakenly) thought that bilingual children under the age of three years have one language system in their minds too, composed of a hodgepodge of bits and pieces of two languages jumbled together at random. Monolingual people have one language system represented in their minds. My child will not know which is the “real” word for an item.Ĭommon concern #1: “My child will not know which words belong to which language.”.My child will not understand that some people speak only Language A, some only Language B, and some are bilingual.My child will be generally overwhelmed by dual language exposure, negatively impacting all cognitive functions.My child will mix two languages together when speaking.My child will not know which words belong to which language.Since different people use the word “confused” to mean different things, I’ll break the responses down into five concerns and address each one in turn. In my experience as a Bilingual Parenting Consultant and Speech-Language Pathologist, a very common concern from parents about raising children bilingual is that the child will be “confused”.

This has contributed to a resurgence of American parents interested in supporting their children in becoming bilingual, but parents understandably still have many questions.

1 In the past few decades, research has revealed more and more benefits of bilingualism. Monolingualism may be the norm in the U.S., but throughout most of the world, kids speak more than one language.

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