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Learning one language is a marathon, not a sprint, this principle also applies to bilingualism. Monolingualism is certainly the less messy and less complicated choice; however, we think that you would agree that the long-term benefits outweigh the intentional hard work and the many challenges that accompany the work of fostering bilingualism.

Further Reading

Input and Language Development in Bilingually Developing Children, Erika Hoff & Cynthia Core.  


The Bilingual Family - A Handbook for Parents (second Edition). Harding-Esch, Edith and Riley, Philip (2008) Cambridge University Press: An accessible handbook with numerous case studies especially concerning French and English families.


A Parents' and Teacher's Guide to Bilingualism, Baker Colin (2007). A very practical guide in a very accessible question-answer format.


Growing Up with Two Languages Cunningham-Andersson, Una and Andersson, Staffan (1999, 2004). Very French-English focussed with numerous case studies.


Four Words for Friend, Marek Kohn - this has lots of fascinating information on what being bilingual (or multilingual) means to people. It's based on academic/peer reviewed research so it's very informative but it's also very readable. 

Some interesting links regarding parenting and bilingualism

Here is a 2.33 minute video presenting 12 things parents raising bilingual children might consider.

You can read the same information here in French.

A guide for parents of bilingual children.

This particular article addresses different approaches to minority language use.

This site is aimed towards preschool and primary school-aged children.

Here is an article written especially from the point of view of an English-speaking family in France.