[mesmark]

My oldest is five and he's doing just fine. My 3 year old is doing even better and they both can speak Japanese just as well. However, my wife speaks perfect English and I've asked her to speak only English to the kids. I also have to get on the kids from time to time about speaking Japanese to each other.

Since, I'm not around enough, I rely on a lot of help from my wife, books, videos (not the best,) and songs. I have tried to read only English books. The key though for us is their mother.

The oldest goes to a Japanese kindergarten and my wife takes the others out to different social groups where they interact with other kids in Japanese.

Like Susan's son, I assume someday soon their Japanese will be stronger and they'll prefer to use that over English, but I'm trying to hold out as long as I can and hopefully they'll be old enough to be able to see the benefit of trying to maintain their English.

Also, try to take them home as much as you can. That's a really good place for them to see the need to speak English, since their family and cousins abroad can't speak Italian.