The younger children are when they encounter these assimilative forces,
the greater the effect on their primary languages. It is especially problematic
for children in the preschool period, that is, under the age of 5. At this age,
children have simply not reached a stable enough command of their native
language not to be affected by contact with a language that is promoted as
heavily as English is in this society. English is the high-status language; it is
the societal language. Although young children neither know nor care about
prestige and status, they do care about belonging and acceptance. They
quickly sense that without English they will not be able to participate in the
English-speaking world of the school, and so they learn it, and they give up
their primary language.