Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Family language policy (FLP) is an important field of enquiry in applied linguistics, as it plays a critical role in children's bilingual education and their multilingual experiences. Because families do not live in a vacuum, they are often influenced by a variety of forces in and outside their homes. These forces become the bedrock on which families make decisions about how to raise and educate bilingual children. This entry begins with a brief overview of the field by introducing the definitions and key concepts. It then discusses the theoretical foundations of FLP, followed by synthesizing the key ideological factors that influence parental decisions on raising bilingual children and providing linguistic measures for bilingual education. It then traces the developmental phases of the field and outlines the features in each phase. By discussing some of the long‐standing issues faced by transnational/migrant families, such as language shift, language status, and language policy in schools, the entry reviews how the field has entered a new phase with critical approaches to both new and existing challenges.</jats:p>