When you unwittingly receive the gift of a second language, you kinda take it for granted. Or at least I did. It turns out I had no clue how hard my parents worked to make that happen. I was brought up in London by two French parents. We spoke French at home. When I started (English) pre-school I had no idea what was going on. I don’t really remember those days I spent incommunicado, but I do know that ever since I got the hang of English, I haven’t stopped talking! I also remember that when my little brother started school facing the same predicament, he tried to overcome by standing on a desk and speaking louder since he clearly wasn’t being heard. He’s a judge now. He sits on a raised dais and people listen! Many kids, as I’ve come to realise, achieve bilingualism as we did. The real parental challenge arises when said children realise that one language is preferable/less work and that language ought to be English. I reckon that passing on your native tongue is important, not just because language and culture are so intertwined (and you do want your child to know their heritage), but also because it turns out that languages really enhance brain function. Some child development experts back in the day decided that parents were impeding their children’s development by teaching them their native language. Now we know that having an extra language is vastly beneficial, but the damage had been done. I have friends who cannot communicate with their close relatives ‘back home’ because of this improvident attitude. The thing is, passing on your language isn’t easy because, once the child has figured out that you do in fact speak English like everyone else, they quickly stop speaking the pesky other language that you lovingly taught them from birth. My parents were having none of this refusenik attitude from us. We were basically ignored if we didn’t speak to them in French. We had extra French lessons to teach us grammar. I can’t say that was oodles of fun, but grammar wasn’t a thing at English school (you can, I’d argue get away with it provided you never learn another language, but that’s hardly forward thinking) but you can’t write French without having a basic grasp of the concepts of how language works. I suspect that’s why English is so popular: you can pretty much write is as it sounds, you don’t have to know why. In French, you have to know because there are so many silent letters which make sneaky appearances only when you are writing it. Like so many difficult and boring things, grammar is a mega useful skill to have acquired young, and the effort more than pays off in later life. But while children’s brains are hardwired to learn, they can be very selective about what and how much. And they do not score highly on the forward thinking front. If you sit an average child in front of a sweet and explain to them that they can have that sweet now or two in five minutes, you can be sure that only a few will earn that second sweet. (There’s a whole book on the subject called The Marshmallow test, fascinating!) Try telling the child who’s scoffing his solitary sweet that he could, with quite a lot of effort (albeit less effort than it would take when he’s older) maintain the second language that he has so fortuitously acquired thanks to his non-native parents. Or not. Kids live in the present and future proofing isn’t a concept they can easily get on board with. That’s what parents are for, obviously. From enforcing good nutrition despite kids’ natural aversion to anything healthy, to promoting good sleep hygiene although no child loves bedtime; from encouraging physical activity to promoting reading, all the things you need your child to learn for the sake of their future health and happiness are a drain on parental resources. Having seen these language transmission hiccups occur, I was keen to avoid the pitfalls for my children. I may have mentioned that my kids are slothimules (stubbornly lazy) and, as the only French parent (their dad is Australian, cool but unhelpful in this instance), I didn’t rate my chances. I knew I could teach them French as a first language because they wouldn’t know any different. But I also knew that if I sent them to English school all my efforts would have been vain. I knew it was a matter of time before they would be speaking to me in English, and that eventually I’d respond in kind. I knew that whatever I might achieve with Firstborn Son was not going to be possible for Middle Child, let alone Only Daughter because the older kids have usually broken their parents’ resolve before the younger ones have even mastered the would-be first language. I took a big gamble and sent them to French school. I’m not going to lie, I was cheating. I’m not sorry, obviously. I did my bit and they all spoke frog before they started school, but I didn’t have to fight quite as hard to keep it alive. Better still, I didn’t have to get involved with Saturday school without which grammar just gets left behind. It has indoctrinated them with French culture. They know their Charlemagne (French roman emporor, invented school, you’re welcome!) from their Charles de Gaulle (our WW2 hero). The grammar has permeated their bones, it circulates in their blood, it haunts them in their dreams at night! . Not only do they know what a verb is, they can conjugate one in any tense. It’s a work in progress and it hasn’t always been easy. Are they fluent? Almost. Can they speak to their French cousins? Yes, just about! Will they thank me for it someday? I’m not holding my breath! They’ll probably just take it for granted.