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From: Retz
Date: 11 Oct 2004
Time: 11:24:46 -0500
Remote Name: 206.40.121.216
As a person who stutters, I must say this......It is truly wonderful that there are support organizations out there for children who stutter, teens who stutter and their parents. I'm getting to be an old man (did I say that?), and I do wish my mother and father had had the opportunity to be part of organizations like FRIENDS or the NSA when I was a child/teen. I look at Russ and Ro, and I think how lucky their daughter is to have them, and how fearless they were as parents in trying to help their daughter. There is no cookbook for being a parent, and certainly none available for being a parent of a CWS!!! Education is the Key, and parents must be relentless in their pursuit of knowledge regarding successful treatment for their CWS. No one knows the child better than the parent, and they must become the best therapist their child ever has. The Self-Help groups are tremendous vehicles for this. So many professionals say the following to kids who stutter "IT'S OK TO STUTTER" and yet,as those same professionals go out and train other professionals, they will say "IT'S OK TO STUTTER BUT..." and then share idea's implying the CWS must use Fluency Training/Shaping techniques or Stuttering Modification Techniques emphasizing an "Easy Relaxed Approach with Slow Movement" or "Light Articulatory Contacts, Easy Onsets, Pausing/Phrasing, Cancellations, Pull Outs/slide outs, etc." to have any success in therapy. When I hear these types of things...you know, "It's OK to stutter BUT..." I often wonder if the professional thinks the child/teen doesn't recognize the double message. From what I know about CWS and Teens who Stutter, they are not "stupid" in regarding identifying this message...They may not tell you that they recognize the double message out of respect for adults, but they do know it. They--CWS/TWS-- share that they know this double message at the conferences very easily with adults who stutter. To me, in many ways, this message insults the child and sends the message "HOW YOU TALK IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY." A terrible position for a CWS to be in...A field planted with seeds of fear will grow fear, and it doesn't take a lot of "water" to make it grow.... It is so wonderful to attend a NSA or FRIENDS convention cauz no one I've ever come in contact with at the conventions over the course of my 20 years involvement uses any of those "tools" or are ever encouraged to use those tools at the conventions.....If only the real world would allow us to stutter!!!!! We who stutter, I believe, would much rather be who we are, even if we stutter. I definitely encourage any parent of a CWS/TWS to explore FRIENDS and the NSA and becoming active in the groups. The experts there -- by that I mean the Adults Who Stutter that are brave enough to attend the conferences and share -- are so giving of their experiences and knowledge, and most feel they owe it to CWS/TWS to do this so that CWS/TWS have a better life experience than what we may have had growing up. This truth I know - It is OK to Stutter. There is no BUT. And If you engage in a therapy that leads you to believe and know It's ok to stutter, and that there is no BUT - I KNOW you will talk more. I don't know if you'll stop stuttering, but you will talk more. Stuttering is easy is easy too "cure"...Just don't talk....Choose silence. Unfortunately, life will be quite miserable and fearfilled when this choice is made. This truth is from the Retz--It is OK to stutter. There is no BUT. And if anyone says there is a BUT, Turn and run as fast as your feet will carry you! It is your speech...no one else's. You can talk....even if you stutter! Educate yourselves, and by all means, Parents should not just go blindly along with whatever the "professional experts" recommend. That's my two cents....Look forward to seeing you kids and teens at the next conferences we meet at. Music is my love.....