Bonjour, permettez-moi de me presenter. Je m'appelle Kathleen.

This is a blog for anyone and everyone who is currently raising (or perhaps I should say attempting to raise...) multilingual children. Or those who think they may want to in the future (I know I often thought about it years before we had our Cilla and before I made my decision to "take the plunge.")

This blog is is for parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, extended family and friends, nannies, au pairs, babysitters, and perhaps language teachers of children. It's for those who are monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual. For those who want to teach their mother tongue to a child who is growing up in an environment where there is sadly little opportunity to gain exposure to this non-dominant language. Or for those speakers of a mother tongue who are fortunate enough to have many linguistic resources accessible in their community, but who understandably still need ideas and support as they endeavor to transmit their language to a child. It's for those who speak a second or third or fourth language fluently, reasonably well, or quite marginally. It's for those who want to learn another language alongside their children.

It's for families where one or both parents is trying to pass on a mother tongue... or a language that simply delights them. It's for homeschooling moms and dads who want foreign language to be a more active or earlier component in their child's education than it would be in most public and even private schools. For parents of public or private schooled children who bemoan the fact that their children are not getting any exposure to a foreign language until it is quite arguably "too late." For the parents who have enrolled their children in an immersion/bilingual program at school and want to understand how to support their child and further his linguistic growth. For the mom who just can't figure out what to do with a child that simply is not interested in acquiring a cherished family language, or the mom with a new baby looking dreamily ahead to her child's future. For people with adequate financial resources, for those in a less fortunate season of life.


Ultimately, this blog is for those who see the great potential in being fully conscious of other cultures and in communicating freely across borders. If we believe that raising children to be multilingual will give them life-long benefits and satisfaction, then how we go about that process is worthy of significant effort and deliberation.

I will be sharing about my background and my current journey to raise my child with the French language in the subsequent posts.