Raising Bilingual TCK Children

Language and Identity

Language is one of the most complex dimensions of the TCK experience. Children who grow up speaking multiple languages have genuine cognitive and social advantages. They also face specific challenges: language loss when a host-country language is no longer used, pressure to be native in a language they only learned partially, and the emotional weight of losing fluency in a language that was tied to a place or a period of life.

• What languages did your child speak at each stage of their development, and what happened to those languages when the family moved?
• Is there pressure — from family, school, or the child themselves — to perform in a language that is not fully developed?
• What does language loss feel like to your child, and how are you supporting the processing of that?
• What is the priority: maintaining all languages, or accepting that some will fade while supporting the ones that matter most?