Advice for parents of young children who stutter?

[Anonymous]

I would say my NUMBER ONE TIP for parents of children who stutter – Do not, and I mean ever, correct their speech. If they stutter, ignore it and carry on. Correcting them brings attention to their speech, and this is the worst thing that can be done when trying to self-cure. Instead, attend the coaching sessions with them and assist them when they are completing their assigned tasks they received from the coaching session.

Most of us have watched or heard of “The King’s Speech” starring Colin Firth. It highlights how his father used to tell him to “spit it out”, “just say it”. This does not help. I know that parents think that they are helping, but it is doing more harm than good.

When my father used to tell me to “calm down” when I started stuttering, I know it came from a good place. But all it did was make me feel worse about my speech because I knew that I was not stuttering due to not being calm. I felt powerless because I was calm and yet I still stuttered. When people ignored my stutters, the incident was forgotten a lot more quickly.

Does anybody else have some tips? What do you think would have helped you as a child when you stuttered? What could your parents have done differently? My honest belief is that if stuttering is not drawn attention to when a child is very young, it will not carry on into their adulthood, do you guys agree or disagree?

[Doug Nelson]

Tasneem,
I am a lot older than most of the other PWSS. I was born in the early sixties and there wasn’t much knowledge of how to help the parent or even a person who stuttered. Plus, the little knowledge that they did have did not work.
My parents were great parents but terrible parents as far as my speech journey goes.My mother would apologize to people when I spoke. She only let me speak when someone asked me a question and when they did I always looked at her for permission to speak
My Dad would always walk away whenI spoke. It was embarrassing to him.Things changed as I grew up because I had a little comedy act where I did impersonations and made up characters. I made people laugh and didn’t stutter at all. I would do the act if front of family and friends at first then graduated to do it at churches and some events. They were proud.
I didn’t know at the time what I was doing. I just loved to make people
laugh and I finally got the attention and approval from my parents?
My advice to parents is please to not make a big to do about your child’s stuttering problem. The incident will be in their mind for a very longtime. I still have the thought of my very first day of school and the kids laughing at me when I couldn’t say name. The key is getting rid of the negative and having mostly positive memories. Drawing attention like Tasneem says will make it worse.
Another suggestion is to give your child love and support. Get them in this program. If they stick to it, I promise you that they will beat stuttering.
Thank you,
Doug Nelson
Coach in Training
dnelson@worldstopstuttering.org

[Anonymous]

Hi Doug,

Thank you so much for that thoughtful response. I am sorry that you had to go through that as a child. That sounds terrible. I urge every parent of PWS to NEVER walk away from a child that is stuttering. That will not only destroy your child’s self-esteem regarding their speech, but it will have a domino effect on other aspects of their lives. They will always feel that they are not good enough as if their own parents are embarrassed by them, why should they or anybody else be proud of them.

Stuttering is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. PWS and PWSS have just been misinformed their whole lives. They do not know that there is a cure, so they spend their lives suffering from anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. They do not need the added pressure from their parents. When a child stutters, ignore it, move on, make it seem like you did not even notice at all. Do not tell your child to “calm down” or “relax”, trust me, if it were that easy, we would have no PWS in the world, and a whole lot of calm people.

Try it and let me know how it works out for your child. Comment below! I would love to hear if you think our advice helped or hurt.

[Anonymous]

My parents used to tell me “calm down or relax, or they will finish the sentence for me, sometimes they were irritated by having to wait for me to talk or like Doug said, they will just ignore me, to every parent that read this, please love your kids specially if they stutter, let them know that they can train their minds and stop it is better while they are still young, save your kids from a bank full of stuttering memories, if you can, read aloud with them, and slowly let them take over

[Doug Nelson]

Thank you Claudia. You are 100 percent correct. Stuttering an at early age is tough. Please if any parents of any children who stutter are reading this, please reach out to us at WSSA. Let’s get rid of this problem now.

[Clifton]

The worst thing you can do as a parent is let your child think you are embarrassed or annoyed with their stutter. Children will assume you don’t want to hear what they have to say and fall silent. I always disengaged and removed myself from the conversation, not when I stuttered, but when other people started acting annoyed with me.

[Anonymous]

Clifton, I also removed myself from the conversation when people got irritated with my stutter. Obviously, I did NOT want to stutter and I did not know how to cure it AT THE TIME, so it is as stupid as getting irritated with somebody for moving slowly in front of you because they are in a wheelchair.

I had a friend who would start singing the word I was stuttering on (random, I know) and everybody would start laughing because she made it SO much less awkward as it took the attention off of my stuttering and moved it on to her being a clown. I then calmed down and would continue without stuttering. I never feared stuttering around her, and what do you know, I actually stuttered much less around her.

[Gábor]

I’d also talk to teachers, many of them don’t know anything about stuttering and speaking in front of class (or bullying from peers) can be traumatic for stuttering children.

[Anonymous]

Gabor, that is a huge problem. Teachers and school mates are ignorant when it comes to stuttering. They think that forcing a child to speak will help them overcome their stuttering. They believe it will boost their self-esteem and therefore reduce their stuttering. Again, they are not being malicious – speech therapists even learn this and teach it to PWS.

Unfortunately, we have a VERY long way to go to change this belief and to help people understand that the exact opposite is true – the less humiliating stuttering memories which are formed, the easier it is to stop stuttering. To change this belief is going to take years in my opinion. I STILL get asked (even by my hardest working PWS) why we need to avoid saying the words we actually want to say until such time as we self-cure. This shows how deeply ingrained the belief is in society (I too believed this for many, many years).

Luckily, the parents of the school-going PWS we coach are told from day 1 to speak to their teachers and to tell them to NOT call upon the PWS to speak in class unless they volunteer to speak. I am yet to hear of a teacher who has denied this request.

[Anonymous]

Hello to all,
I am new to the forum and am currently starting to learn the Lovett Method. I am a mild stutter with occasional flare ups when in pressure situations or upcoming speeches.
I grew up stuttering with memories of my dad looking at me in the review mirror with annoyance/disappointment while saying “just say it son, get it out”. To non stutters it may not sound like a big deal but to us stutters those situations amplify the negative impact stuttering has on our lives. To this day I have the worse fluency around my father.

I now have two boys oldest just turned 3. His general practitioner has casually mentioned speech therapy not for a stutter but for pronunciation he does not speak very clearly. As a stutter (my wife does not) I am over analyzing every word he says and am dreading the possibility of my son having to go through stuttering as a child at minimum. Last night my wife mentioned she has picked up on a few “stutters” he has recently made as I have as well (but kept it to myself). I didn’t sleep much as I have been fearing these potential roadblocks he may face.
Should I bring him to speech therapy for the pronunciation hoping that will help with his overall speech or just let him continue to grow etc. At 3 years old it maybe difficult to being teaching him the Lovett Method. I just want to do what’s best for him in minimizing/squashing a stutter.
I welcome all thoughts and appreciate your time in reading this post.

Derek

[Javier]

Hi Derek!!
First of all, welcome to WSSA! Sorry for replying so late.
I’m one of the Certified Speech Coaches of WSSA and a PWSS.

I can imagine that having a child that might start to develop a stutter must be dreadful.
Have you watched the video course “Parents of Stutterers”? We also have some videos of coaching sessions of Lee coaching kids and their parents. If you haven’t watched them, you definitely should. You can learn a lot from those.

Kids are much more insecure than adults. And as they grow older, they get more and more confident. So, teenagers, for example, have a lot more insecurities than the ones you and I could have. And the same happens if we compare an 8 year old kid with one of 15, and so on.

So your 3 year old kid is learning to speak. This is something new to him. And the last thing we want for him is to start fearing words, speaking. So, now, I think it is quite normal that me mispronounces some sounds or words. Most kids do it.
The thing that we must NOT do is to correct them, for what I said about their insecurities and fearing speaking. So instead of correcting, why don’t we teach them by example. Speak more slowly, pronouncing all your syllables and words, smile… Instead of correcting them when they, for example, mispronounce a word, reply to them, saying the word correctly.
Try to be as loving to your son as you can, read to him aloud, passionately, ask him to repeat some of the sentences that you read to him, so that he can imitate you. He’ll enjoy it very much too, I’m sure of that.

These are some tips, Derek, that come to my mind now.

And, Derek, how is your speech going? Have you finished reading Lee’s Stuttering book?

By the way, I’m going to forward this message to Lee Lovett. He has way more experience than me coaching kids, so I’m sure his advice will be very helpful.

[Anonymous]

Hey Javier,
Thank you for the lengthy reply. Yes I have watched the video with the 9 year old boy (Texas) and picked up on some of the information you just mentioned. We do nightly readings and I am trying to make his experience as enjoy as possible, I like the smiling tip thank you.

I just received Lee’s 3rd version last night and began reading it. As far as my stuttering goes I get by day to day pretty fine, I do wish I was smoother and their are definitely instances that arise once or twice a month that reinforce that I am a stutter. I need to stop those instances and cleanse my memory bank of all the past experience negative experiences. I feel like I have so much more to say and offer the world but…
My thought is to focus on the book before starting the videos, is that the recommended approach?

[Javier]

there are also some videos from a boy from Macedonia. This boy is 11. If you go to the Videos section and use the search filters of country, click on Macedonia, and you’ll find those.

About your speech, Derek, I’m glad to see that you just received the 3rd Edition of the book. As you said, you need to stop creating stuttering memories if you want to get rid of the stuttering habit, and therefore become a Person Who Stopped Stuttering. Since your case seems to be pretty mild, if you work on this method 24/7, you should beat it in no time.

I’d suggest you to start reading the book (aloud; do it in a whisper if you don’t want to bother those around you). Once you finish reading a Section of the book, watch the corresponding video lesson. That’s the best approach, in my opinion. If you need any help trying to figure out which video lessons correspond to which sections of the book, send me an email to jvalcazar@worldstopstuttering.org and I’ll gladly help you with that.

Once finish reading the Sections about the Crutches (and watching the video lessons), know that there is a video course dedicated to the Crutches (one video lesson per Crutch). Watch those videos too.

And of course, watching videos of coaching sessions is pretty much like being coached directly by one of us. And right now we have +1200 videos of coaching sessions. So, if you use the searching filters you will be able to find the videos best suited for you.

Please do keep up posted with your progress and your son’s! And ask us any questions that you might have, that’s why we’re here 🙂

[Javier]

Hi Derek,
As promised, I emailed your post to Lee Lovett, and he asked me to send you this reply, as comments to your first message. So, Lee’s comments are in bold:

Derek, this is Coach Lee writing. I put my comments in bold in your email below. We can and will help you and your son.

“Hello to all,

I am new to the forum and am currently starting to learn the Lovett Method. I am a mild stutter with occasional flare ups when in pressure situations or upcoming speeches. Welcome, Derek. You ARE in the right place. If you master our methods, you WILL beat it and soon – and your son will beat it in due course.

I grew up stuttering with memories of my dad looking at me in the review mirror with annoyance/disappointment while saying “just say it son, get it out”. To non stutters it may not sound like a big deal but to us stutters those situations amplify the negative impact stuttering has on our lives. To this day I have the worse fluency around my father. No level of FEARED stutters (FS) should or needs to be tolerated. Everyone does NON-feared stuttering, and it should be ignored and forgotten. If you allow FS to continue, it well may follow you to your grave. Don’t allow that. Join us and stay on our programs until you stop all FS and teach yourself to LOVE to speak in all venues and can stay, “I converted stuttering into a blessing in my life.”

I now have two boys oldest just turned 3. His general practitioner has casually mentioned speech therapy not for a stutter but for pronunciation he does not speak very clearly. We see no evidence that professional therapists (PT’s) are able to help PWS of any age stop stuttering, because those PT’s either never stuttered or still do and simply don’t “get” stuttering. Would you take golf lessons from someone who had never played or who shot twice par?

As a stutter (my wife does not) I am over analyzing every word he says and am dreading the possibility of my son having to go through stuttering as a child at minimum. Don’t blame you. Last night my wife mentioned she has picked up on a few “stutters” he has recently made as I have as well (but kept it to myself). I didn’t sleep much as I have been fearing these potential roadblocks he may face. It is not “genetics”; it is monkey-see-monkey-do. He’s picking it up from you. First order of business is to get your speech to the highest possible level. Simultaneously, do as Javier suggested; take the Parents Course on WSSA, while you master my book and the 20 video-lessons that I did on it for WSSA.

Should I bring him to speech therapy for the pronunciation hoping that will help with his overall speech or just let him continue to grow etc. I would not do that. At 3 years old it maybe difficult to being teaching him the Lovett Method. I just want to do what’s best for him in minimizing/squashing a stutter. I have helped kids his age, but not many. One, Marley, posted a Success Story some time ago (). Kids under 15 are harder to help. I generally coach the parents to coach the child. Strange adults can intimidate children, as school teachers generally do however well-intentioned. I spent very little time with Marley, and only with his mom and/or dad present. The good news is that stuttering is no longer a life sentence (contrary to what SP’s preach). We help PWS of all ages beat ever single day!!! Join us. Beat your own stuttering while you help your son. I will coach you, if you wish.

I welcome all thoughts and appreciate your time in reading this post.

Derek” “All’s well that ends well,” (as said the divine WS), Derek, and stuttering problems should and can end well. Join us and get to work. Coach Lee

[Anonymous]

Hello Javier and Coach Lee,
Thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions and concerns. I will sign up for the membership today so I can follow along with the course material and the Parents Course as I read the book. I’m on page 85 and now have this calming yet invigorating feeling come over me that I have the power to take control of my speech but more importantly my sons.

Yes I enjoyed reading Marleys success story, you guys are doing really things here.

[Author]

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