[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Anita
Date: 08 Oct 2010
Time: 04:36:13 -0500
Remote Name: 217.209.3.225
Hi Katie Thanks for your kind words. I would emphasize three things: 1) to not (only) focus on stuttering, but to learn to focus on all the things you CAN do. Your skills and qualities. Write down 10 things you are good at. Hang the list somewhere you are regularly (bed, toilet) and have a pen nearby to add things to the list and ask others to do the same. 2) Stop hiding. As long as you're not talking about it, people will think it's weird, to be compared with poop, sex and death, other items we don't talk about. And how can we expect others to understand if we don't talk about stuttering? 3) Is stuttering really that bad? Would life really be perfect if you would not stutter? Doesn't stuttering make you special and why should being different be all that bad, instead of being a cool person, often stronger than others, doing all the things we do despite our stutter? Bring it out in the open instead. I can get funding for trips, get in the newspapers regularly, no longer have to hide as everyone in my village know me, and last but not least get to celebrate the ISAD as yet another day to get presents! Stuttering sucks, life doesn't. "I stutter, because what I have to say is worth repeating" Make them talk! Tell them about the national stuttering associations where they can meet lots of people their age. And... get the parents to do all of the above. "Sure I stutter. What are you good at?" Keep talking! Anita