Vol. 12 in the Parents & Teachers' Guides series.

Includes bibliographical references and index;
Includes websites and chat forums as well as a list of recommended books for bilingual families.

Introduction -- Two or More Children -- Siblings in Bilingual or Multilingual Families -- Who this Book is for -- Three Very Different Siblings -- Questions on Family Language Use

1. What Do We Know about Bilingual Families? -- The Lack of Sibling Sets in Academic Research -- Parent Researchers and Diary Data -- Linguists Researching Bilingual Families -- Advice for Parents in Books for Bilingual Families -- Summary

2. The Growing and Evolving Family -- Balancing Majority and Minority Language Use -- Adapting Family Strategies to the Growing Family -- Fine-Tuning Family Language Strategies -- Fine-Tuning Family Language Strategies -- Relocating and Rebalancing Language Use -- In Comes the Majority, Out Goes the Minority -- Special Situations -- The First or Only Child -- Summary

3. The Sibling Relationship -- Our 'Preferred' Language -- Child-to-Child Language Use -- The School Language Effect -- Mixed Language Use -- Siblings Helping to Maintain a Minority Language -- Summary

4. Age Difference, Family Size and Language Orders -- Close-in-Age Siblings -- Wider Age Gap between Siblings -- Siblings as Teachers -- Families with Three or More Children -- Siblings with Different Language Orders

5. Gender and Language -- The Gender Divide -- Girls, Boys, and Language -- Early-Speaking Bilingual Girls -- Foreign Languages and Gender -- The Girl Myth

6. Birth Order: A Child's Position in the Family -- First-Born, Middle-Born or Last-Born Children -- The Birth Order Debate -- Birth Order and Language Use within the Bilingual Family -- Vocabulary and Language Use Linked to Birth Order -- Does Birth Order Make a Difference?

7. Individual Differences: Same Languages, Different Language Histories -- The Nature or Nurture Debate -- Language Acquisition -- Different Language Histories -- Language-Gifted Children -- The Extrovert Myth -- Language Friction

8. Bilingualism and Twins, Adoption, Single Parents and Step-Families -- Twins and Language Use -- Bilingual Twins -- Adoption and Bilingualism -- International Adoptions -- Single Parents -- Siblings with Half-Sisters and Brothers

9. Five Themes on Family Language Patterns -- Our 'Preferred' Language -- Home to School Transition -- A Strategy to Suit the Children -- Same Languages, Different Children -- Inter-Sibling Language Use -- Family Profiles

Appendix 1: Summary of Strategies -- One-Parent-One-Language (OPOL) -- Mixed Language Use: Bilingual and Multilingual -- Minority-Language-at-Home (ML@H) -- Lingua Franca -- Non-Native -- Time & Place

Appendix 2: The Online Survey -- Location and Nationality of the Families -- The Parents and their Language Skills -- The Sibling Sets -- Parent's Opinions

Glossary

Websites and Chat Forums

Recommended Books for Bilingual Families

"How do bilingual brothers and sisters talk to each other? Sibling language use is an uncharted area in studies of bilingualism. From a perspective of independent researcher and parent of three children, Suzanne Barron-Hauwaert discusses the issues of a growing bilingual or multilingual family. What happens when there are two or more children at different stages of language development? Do all siblings speak the same languages? Which language(s) do siblings prefer to speak together? Could one child refuse to speak one language while another child is fluently bilingual? How do the factors of birth order, personality or family size interact in language production? With data from over 100 international families, this book investigates the reality of family life with two or more children and languages." (Book Cover)