| Summary: | The aim of this work is to provide future parents and teachers of bilingual children with a theoretical survey of bilingualism. In the theoretical part I introduce bilingualism as a more general phenomenon and then in connection with raising children in a bilingual family. I also cover linguistic issues, biculturalism and effects of bilingualism on children. The practical part is presented in a case study of four siblings aged three, five, seven and nine who come from a Czech-American family living in the Czech Republic. On the basis of my observations and study of appropriate literature, I came to a conclusion that besides the conflict of two cultures, in which bilingual children grow up, these children go through specific stages of their language development, which is accompanied by particular mistakes in either of their two languages. Teachers at schools do not know about these points at issue and, therefore, do not consider the developmental mistakes of bilingual children when assessing them according to the 'monolingual norms'.
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