The Foreign Service Journal - December 2017

68 DECEMBER 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT struggle when family and friends fail to understand or respect how they are raising their children. Katherine Reilly, who is raising two bilingual children under age 10, says other parents warn her that her children “will have a speech delay,” and that I am causing them “unneeded stress.” Parental lack of fluency. Parents also struggle when they can’t fully communi- cate in the second language or when they have limited resources. Laura Paulus Guinn wants her children to speak Spanish. But, she says, “my Span- ish isn’t good enough to really continue the foundation for both my children.” Still, she persists: “With the availability of cartoons in all languages on YouTube and multicultural friends, our children will always be exposed in some form.” The father of two girls, Joseph Zadrozny also struggles with his lack of fluency. “As someone who grew up monolingual, I’ve tried to be as supportive as possible while recognizing that I have relatively little to contribute personally,” he says. “The biggest burden falls to the minor- ity language-speaking spouse. That person needs support and encouragement for it to be successful.” Potential speech delay. Although researchers claimmultilingual children develop their language skills at a similar pace as mono- lingual speakers, some parents say they’ve seen a delay in language acquisition. “We definitely saw a big delay in speech with our second child,” says Cath- erine Pierce. “He was almost mute until age 3.” Despite the initial delay, Pierce says everything worked out in the end; her son eventually caught up and even graduated a year ahead of his class. Yvette Hulsman had a similar issue: There are numerous approaches for children to learn multiple languages, and no single approach is best for everyone.