Being a parent is a phenomenal task and being a parent to a child with special needs makes the job even harder. Children who stutter can experience a range of negative emotions. They may feel frustrated at the loss of control over their speech. Later on, they may feel guilty or ashamed about not speaking like normal children and may go to great lengths to hide their difficulty.
Dealing with cases like these may be difficult and challenging just as they sound. Because anything that interferes with someone’s emotions and physicality needs the best of approaches to correct them. Similarly, parents of stutterers often battle with their own feelings and anxiety about their children. A parent can want to pretend and believe that the child’s situation will go away, but the sad truth is that it never goes unless with robust solutions.
Generally, everyone finds it very hard to watch someone they care about having the worst moment of their lives. It gets worse when the child is the victim, and the best every parent can do is to look for a solution. Despite the pressure from other people, helping a stuttering kid is challenging yet very necessary. Ultimately, this article suggests a few ways parents of stutters can help.
Interacting With Your Child
Interacting with the kid helps find a solution, but it can help in understanding the real backbone of the problem. One of the many things that could bring stuttering to the child is how they interact with them. Once a parent realizes that the kid is developing somewhat tendencies of stuttering, it is only logical to act in the coldest and yet helpful possible ways.
Rebuking or talking the kid down to how they can improve their speech is essential. However, proceeding with caution will come a long way to help. While some children will heed to advice to slow down while talking, others will take it negatively, and this can only make things worse.
Talking About It
Keep in mind that slowing the child’s manner of speech down is a very reasonable goal, but a parent can achieve this more effectively by modeling a relaxed, unhurried way of how they address the kid. Children tend to follow what their parents do. While telling a child to slow down while talking rapidly, the kid will assume that it is normal and only continue with the habit. Speaking to the kid about their situation in a polite yet authoritative and supportive way will help them realize that their problem is different, and they only have to change. It is also suitable for stutters’ parents to understand that this situation can never change overnight, and it will only change with time.
Creating a Safe Environment
A safe environment for stutters spans the freedom to speak even when it is least needed. They need that opportunity and having them take it by themselves on what and how to communicate will make them feel loved, if not cared for in the end. Having a safe environment with open and free communication between stutters and their parents is essential.
