There already exists ample evidence that family plays a crucial role in forming the child’s (multi-) linguistic competence and, as such, it is critical in language maintenance and preservation. However, in our presentation we posit that there are multiple agents that influence a particular family’s language policy and they are not limited to parents and children only. We argue that schools and school staff exert a fundamental, yet often unnoticed, influence on the awareness level and language maintenance practices which families display.
Parents speaking minority languages often experience insecurity and doubts concerning their language use when their children enter preschool or school proper. What aggravates their situation is that often they are offered conflicting pieces of advice by schools. By some they are advised to speak at home the mainstream language, even when not all family members are proficient in the mainstream language. Another common advice offered is the implementation of a strict one person-one language approach.
We argue that raising a bi/multilingual child, competent both in the heritage and local language, requires tight informed cooperation between families and educational institutions. For instance, school teachers can make migrant children, and indirectly their parents, understand the way in which they contribute to family language policy and empower them as active agents in the process. To this end, schools can plan activities or issue materials which can foster children’s and parents’ understanding of the importance of FLP, its dynamics and strategies.

Based on this assumption, this presentation will discuss examples of best practices of how migrant or multilingual families can be supported in their efforts to strike the balance between maintaining linguistic heritage and fostering plurilingualism, especially by making parents aware of how their language practices, ideologies and management affect their children’s language development.