Getting the words out

Poor little Q has trouble saying what he needs to. He has been stuttering for several months now, but it was something we thought he would outgrow. He was a preschooler after all, and often excited or frustrated. His words would get jumbled, and he would repeat one word or part of a word over and over and over. Like Mama. He would say, "Mama, mama, mama, mama...."

At first we would often rush him, or tell him to slow down. Finally, his stuttering was not going away and was even getting worse. His doctor referred him to a speech pathologist, and we went a couple weeks back. She determined he stuttered, had a slight lisp, and tongue thrust. She said he definitely needed speech therapy.

Then she said some scary things like, "We might not get rid of it completely, but we can help it a lot." Ugh. The last thing I want is for my little guy to struggle with this is whole life. So far he doesn't seem aware of it, other than sometimes being frustrated when he wants to tell us something and can't form the words as quickly as he wants to. I hate to think of him being teased or being extremely shy or afraid to speak. I really hope we didn't wait too long.

Neither T nor I ever stuttered, and speech problems often have a genetic component. The odd things is, R is now starting to stutter! We thought he was just copying his older brother, but the speech pathologist says it doesn't usually work that way.

Now I am paranoid that we are causing this in some way, though the therapist assured us we are not. Still there are things you can do to aggravate it or make it better. I am reading up on the materials the therapist gave us about how I can help him. I am trying to listen very patiently to Q and wait for him to say what he is trying to say. (He talks a lot so this can be time-consuming!) I repeat back what he said to me, and I am speaking and reading slowly to him.

We tend to fly around the house whenever we are going anywhere, and especially in the morning. We are endlessly telling the boys to hurry up. We are usually running late. That hectic atmosphere also can contribute apparently, because kids can feel pressure to get out what they want to say. So now T and I are trying to leave some more time and not be constantly rushing the kids. We don't want to operate in that emergency mode all the time. Since this is a pattern I have been following for 32 years, it's not going to be an easy one to change. But in the long run, it will probably be good for all of us.

--MM