Children In Bilingual Households Advantaged or Disadvantaged?

There have been many studies on children from bilingual households. Are they at a disadvantage from other children in that they may be confused by hearing two languages being spoken? In fact one of my assignments in my teaching classes for children addressed this question. We studied that children of these households may seem at first to be disadvantaged in that they take longer to start speaking, and may have trouble expressing themselves as well as mixing the two languages. Later on these children learn to communicate in both languages fluently and actually gain an advantage in that they can speak more than one language.

My study in this came from personal experience. When my children were growing up they had a father (me) who spoke only English and a mother who struggled with the English language and spoke her native language quite often. The children had some problems early in their education and in fact all of them were placed in remedial English classes. Later on when my ex-wife was no longer in the picture and I was raising them as a single father their English improved and they never had problems again. Friends with children who lived in actual bilingual homes where both parents were bilingual seemed to spend a little more time in the remedial courses but eventually they did have the advantage of speaking two languages if the parents promoted it. My children still remember certain words in their mother’s language but have no actual what I would call understanding of that language. What do you think? Are these children disadvantaged or in this global economy are they at an advantage?