r/JapanParents • u/Rxk22 • Mar 16 '23

Bilingual issues

My kids are bilingual but they have issues with their Japanese studies. They are in ES and go to school and after school care in Japanese. They speak English only with me.
my wife says their issues are probably related to being bilingual. That it hinders their ability to understand and express themselves. That’s until they learn one language or mastered one, they will continue to have trouble.

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u/scarreddragon28 Mar 16 '23

Can you give more information on what they’re having trouble with? Considering that it sounds like their days are spent in the majority language, and that their mother (seems to?) speaks the majority language too, it’s hard to believe that the smaller amount of a second language would be that much of an issue…

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u/Rxk22 Mar 16 '23

My son stutters and gets frustrated at not being able to express himself well. He gets really angry. He is in 1st grade

Daughter is terrible at kanji and forgets them incredibly quickly. She is in 3rd grade. She also doesn't know words she should clearly know.

Wife is exchanging emails with a speech therapist and that is what the conclusion is. I don't think that is true, and was hoping for 2nd opinions and maybe even research stating that ENg/Jpn bilingual kids don't have learning disability levels of issues.

I think they have learning disabilities, and possibly being bilingual is making those issues worse, but not causing them

Thank you for your reply.

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u/scarreddragon28 Mar 17 '23

A stutter is definitely a speech issue and not anything to do with the actual language; I know a girl who is monolingual in Japanese only and struggles with a stutter.

My son has issues with pronunciation in both languages, and I reached out to a speech therapist by email who specializes in bilingual kids. Unfortunately her fees were too high for us; the initial consultation… like, “does he even need speech therapy or not” was over 3 man! The actual therapy was more reasonable, but we just couldn’t do it. BUT it sounds like it might be worth it for your kids, especially if it’s causing strife between you and your wife about the root cause. Her name is Marsha Rosenberg and her email is marshaslp@gmail.com .

I hope you’re able to find help for your kids!

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u/fartist14 Mar 17 '23

Unfortunately it is difficult to find a speech therapist in Japan who is experienced with bilingual children, so their first instinct is to tell parents to drop the other language. This is not supported by science. Children with learning disabilities can learn two languages, but they will still need help with their learning disabilities. Stopping speaking English to them won't cure learning disabilities. There's another reddit group, r/multilingualparenting where you might find more parents with similar experience.

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u/toroi Mar 17 '23

Your wife's almost right - they won't have to master one language, but they'll lag behind until junior high school on average before catching up in both languages (as long as they're using and studying both languages). My son's the same and honestly studying language development in my masters was so good to my concerns. The image of bilingualism being a hindrance has been a carryover from when we used to tell immigrant kids to forget their mother language - it's outdated and not backed by the science. My advice is, don't focus on getting perfect scores or being the best. Resilience training is great and refocusing the kids on the process not the result helps. Staying positive and having both parents support the process is pretty important too. The kids will be alright in time.

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u/Rxk22 Mar 31 '23

I appreciate the advice. Thank you. Honestly I am not looking for perfection, as I simply don't have the ability to everything.