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Many parents who choose to worldschool do so in hopes of raising bilingual children. After all, studies show bilingual kids reap many benefits both academically and socially; and there’s no better way to learn a new language than through immersion. Studies show that surrounding yourself with a new language helps you become fluent faster than any textbook or app can.
Of course, not all of us can jet off to South America to help our kids learn Spanish — and to top it off, many parents don’t speak a foreign language fluently themselves!
Despite these challenges, monolingual parents who aren’t able to travel can still raise bilingual children.
“If you’re excited about it, they’re excited about it,” Kaila Diaz told The Cultured Kid. Diaz is bilingual, but she was raised by two English-speaking parents. They introduced her to Spanish at just 10 months old. She now runs a Spanish immersion program and says parents’ attitudes can go a long way.
“[If you] treat learning a language like it’s a chore or just another boring subject, your kiddo is gonna catch on to that and feel the exact same way.”
Benefits of raising bilingual children
The last 20 years of research have shown overwhelmingly that bilingual children will reap both academic and emotional benefits later in life.
For example, bilingual children tend to have a higher degree of executive functioning skills since they have to constantly switch between two languages. Going from “Goodbye mom!” to “Hola amigos!” takes an incredible amount of focus! Bilingual children also tend to demonstrate more empathy at a younger age, likely because they rely on social and emotional cues to figure out which language is appropriate to use in different settings. There are plenty more benefits that bilingual children can reap, too — like being more academically engaged and even scoring better on English reading tests.
“Children who are exposed to different languages become more aware of different cultures, other people, and other points of view.” Antonella Sorace, professor of developmental linguistics and director of bilingualism matters at Edinburgh University, told Readers Digest.
“They also tend to be better than monolinguals at multitasking and are often more advanced readers.”
The ripe time to start learning may be before three years old — that’s when our brains are in their most flexible stage.
Just how young do children need to start learning to reap these benefits? That’s hard to say — but what we do know is that learning a language earlier is easier.
Specifically, the ripe time to start learning may be before three years old — that’s when our brains are in their most flexible stage. According to Michigan State University, bilingually exposed babies can detect a switch in language as early as 6 months old! Even older children tend to absorb sounds, structures, and patterns more easily than adults, who often get tripped up on grammar rules. Kids can just absorb subtle changes in sounds more easily; this is also why kids who learn at a young age tend to have a more native accent than adult learners.
This cognitive flexibility continues until about age 8.
Tips for Monolingual Parents
Raising bilingual children as monolingual parents can be rewarding as well as challenging. Here are some tips on how you can navigate this:
Know your why: It’s important to know why you want your child to know a second language — is it to expand their cultural awareness? To help them engage with kids in their neighborhood? To help improve their academic and career prospects later in life? All of the above? As with any academic journey, you’ll have challenging moments so it’s important to be able to go back and remind yourself why this is important to your family. Write it on a chalkboard or have it as a post-it note on the fridge — whatever gives you the motivation to keep going!
Start young & just play: As we mentioned earlier, starting at a young age can be easier. And with young kids (and even adults!) play can go a long way in engaging the brain to learn a new subject.
“You could hold dance parties or fun little activities for them to participate in. There are no hard and fast rules here. Just avoid being strict and too rigid about it and see what’s resonating with your kids,” said Diaz.
“You could hold dance parties or fun little activities for them to participate in. There are no hard and fast rules here. Just avoid being strict and too rigid about it and see what’s resonating with your kids.”
Kaila Diaz
Online resources: There are a ton of learning resources available online…it can be hard to choose! Many times your library will have more structured programs, like Rosetta Stone, available for free. There are also more play-based programs that are geared toward children. For example, The Cultured Kid is a membership-based curriculum that teaches through interactive videos, read-alouds, digital games, and printables. It’s a community designed specifically to give monolingual parents the confidence to raise bilingual children.
Another favorite is Duolingo, an app-based curriculum that has a version tailored for kids as young as 3.
Create a language-rich environment: Make language a part of your child’s everyday life. Label objects — like chairs, tables, TV, etc — around the house to help your child learn vocabulary. Encourage your child to speak the language whenever possible — for example, during meal times you could have a rule where only that language is spoken. (Plus, this helps you learn it too! Having an engaged parent learning with them will go a long way). This brings us to this point…
Be vulnerable and learn with them: As a parent, you may not have the time to learn everything they do, but you can at least show them that learning is a lifelong process! Having an adult model what it looks like to not get discouraged when challenges arise can go a long way.
Find a language partner: Look for opportunities for your child to speak the language with a native. This could be through enrolling in a part-time bilingual program or camp, intentionally making friends with native speakers, or hiring a native-speaking nanny or tutor. You can even find great conversational partners online.
Take a trip: You may not be able to worldschool full time, and that’s ok! Not many people can, but you can still be intentional with your family vacations and use it as a way to engage your child academically. Got a week or two over the summer? Find out the most feasible place to go to allow your child to practice what they’ve learned! You can use family meet-up apps like It’s July to find local families that would be willing to connect with your family while you’re there — a great opportunity to practice speaking the language in a relaxed environment!
Raising bilingual children is a lifelong process — if they don’t take to it right away, keep at it. While it’s not recommended to force it on your child, if you’re creative and look for learning methods that resonate with them, chances are eventually they’ll start to understand and start to speak it fluently.
If you’re looking for a fun, online program designed for kids, you may want to check out The Cultured Kid. You can get a 7-day trial for only $1! Then if you really like it, check out their Spring special: lifetime access to the curriculum for all 6 languages that they teach!