I've /heard/, only, mind, that Chinese reading/writing is so hard that kids spend up to 5th, 6th grade on it. Sure, schools in countries with Western languages do too but, my impression from where this info came was that it ate up a few more years of schooling all by itself.
I really doubt that learning a hard language would be detrimental to their education.
In many countries kids study 2 or more foreign languages and they are much better off because of it. The more you learn, the easier it is for you to learn more.
Plus, I've been studying Chinese writing and I don't think it's as hard as it looks to an outsider.
