Mommy Madelaine is a French illustrator, Daddy Richard is a German author. Being an american kid with a "complicated" past, there's a lot Ben can learn in his new environment, and he's expected to try his best studying two new languages, for starters.
Not an easy task, he was never exactly the A+-type of student, languages are weird out of principle, and he's starting all the way at the bottom, on square one.
Fortunately though, Mommy and Daddy have written and published a bunch of children's books that'll surely help him get the basics down! Eventually. Maybe.
Perhaps he should just focus on being able to say "I need a change" as quickly as possible, that appears to be one of the most useful phrases overall for him.
Until then, he'll just have to deal with Mom's and Dad's randomly occuring selective inability to understand english, and their odd conversations behind his back. Humph.