New research undertaken by the company Startrite into internet usage by tweens was released this week. Their aim was to speak to the kids directly, without the influence of their parents, to find out how kids use the internet.

The survey of 698 children was conducted in primary schools in England, with 17 schools selected to give a good geographical spread.  Almost all of the children surveyed own some kind of digital device, and 45% of them said that their parents don’t set rules on how long they can use it.  20% of the children aged 7 – 8 years old use their devices more than 4 hours a day, and almost half admit to using their device in secret.

Does your family use more than one language? Or does your child speak a different language at school from the one spoken at home? This is the first in a series of three posts by Millie Slavidou – today looking at 7 good reasons to raise your kids bilingual.

In the past, bilingualism was often discouraged, and parents were advised to use only one language with their children. Non-native speaker parents would be encouraged to use what was for them a foreign language to communicate with their children. An awkward and false situation, especially for parents without a strong grasp on the dominant community language.

These days, things have changed. Studies have proved that bilingualism is not only possible, but beneficial. Children can easily cope with more than one native language and soon learn to sort out which vocabulary and grammar structures belong to which language.

“My Mum reads my texts”, is the digital age version of “My mum reads my diary”. Did you write a diary when you were younger? If you did, you may remember the fear of your parents reading it, finding out all those private thoughts, spying on you.

Then the similarity between the diary and the smartphone ends, because a diary is kept private, while social media and text updates are shared with others.