By Perhaps this is biased because I stutter. But maybe not because I have experienced both sides, even if my onset was over thirty years ago, I know how the story goes.
Being a kid who starts to stutter and being a parent of a kid who starts to stutter can be a challenging reality to face.
Onset and what we do about it, sets the tone for the child’s quality of life. So how we, as parents, react influences your child’s sense of safety at home, pursuit of and eventual acceptance of the way they talk, and the degree of resilience they will need to make it in life. As mom or dad, the same goes for you but it is within your power to create an environment that alters the course of what could become a rather bleak trajectory if it starts off on the wrong foot.
This is what happens when your kid started to stutter, and, again, huge caveat for what follows because I had an idea it was coming due to the genetic nature of stuttering.
You send a look of fear to your spouse, catching their attention—what was that? No, it couldn’t have been. You wait as he keeps talking. There it is again. Why is he prolonging the vowels? You are tail-spinning, immediately sent to the dark corner. The moment ends. Later, after you put him to bed, there is a discussion, “do you think that was stuttering?”
A week goes by. You get back from swim lessons and he’s filling the time with his imaginative stories while you make him a grilled cheese for lunch. He begins to repeat the first syllables of words he typically says without doing so. You give that same wide-eyed look to your spouse, as if to say, “did you hear that?” After he goes down for nap, you have the same discussion, “that is stuttering, right?” Tears come this time.
Before you know it, you are off on a twisting and turning, ascending and descending rollercoaster of a highly variable stuttering pattern, with your emotions and thoughts doing the same. On edge becomes your new baseline. Many nights turn into a feeling of “OH MY GOD, what are we going to do?”
This is where the most important decision lies for every parent of a child who stutters. You will be able to hold it together in front of them for a little while but you will eventually break. I broke. My wife broke. And we knew it was coming. Imagine the shock-and-awe feeling for parents who don’t because that is what it still felt like for us.
It was a fill-blown freak out. Suddenly, we had to try to process the sight, sound, and physicality of his stuttering while figuring out how best to be there for him without really knowing what the heck we were supposed to be doing. Eye-to-eye with his struggle…we didn’t blink (even though we broke).
And I’ll say it again—we knew it was stuttering. But what if you don’t and have no idea what to do too?
We let him stutter. We were the problem.
As parents, we knew from the beginning that the way we reacted to his stutter would be the way he reacted to it.
I’ve written before about how hard onset was for us. Stuttering in all its forms can be a shocking experience, and, for parents, one that levels you. I stutter, know what it feels like to be judged, and how horrifying it can be for a child. The same is especially true for a parent who knows nothing about the neurological difference. Imagine if you didn’t know what to call how your child was struggling to talk or how to react. For this reason, a giant helping of grace is needed to allow and endure the freak out.
And yet again—even though I stutter and know all the intricacies of it, I was shocked and awed by it. And, I needed some time to find my footing to desensitize to the chaos it created within. Almost two years in I can make it through my days without even thinking about his stutter. His pattern ebbs and flows, literally from week to week, accepting that he is figuring it out in many of the same ways we are.
In reality, that’s all my wife and I have done. He still doesn’t even know that the way he talks is different. He doesn’t know he stutters and we’re becoming fine with that.
Welcome the freak out. It will be a phase that comes with onset. There is nothing to do but keep showing up for your child as they figure it out too.
For more on my experiences of being a parent who stutters of a son who stutters, see the following posts I have written since onset two years ago.
Thank You For Sharing A Wonderful Day
Day One: He Noticed His Difference
The Wince: ‘Holding Space’ For Our Son
Letting Go of Control: My Reaction to His Stutter in Public
I Have A Son Who Stutters: Acceptance as a Parent Who Stutters
Every Waking Moment 