O has been doing amazingly. I am so proud of his bravery. Only a parent of a child with Selective Mutism will know the joy even the small wins bring. Last week I took my son to the playground. His brothers started playing with two young boys younger than him. At first, he hung back and then joined in the games silently and by the end of the visit he was talking during play certainly in front of and I think with the young boys. He then came up to me while I sat on a bench and asked for some bread sticks. I nearly fell off the bench as I was chatting to a man next to me on the bench at the time and he spoke in his normal voice not whispering like he normally would. Of course, I remained calm and acted like this was a totally normal thing, nothing out of the ordinary. At that point I thought to myself wow he really is making great strides in progressing to overcome his Selective Mutism. I thought back to the days when he would shut down completely and not speak look or interact with anyone in a playground and would pull my head tightly towards his so he could whisper tensely in my ear.
Recently my husband took O to the playground also and he came back and told me he had made a new friend. This is enough to bring joy to my heart as many parents with children with Selective Mutism will understand. Selective Mutism as many experts say is a social communication anxiety disorder not just an inability to talk so making a friend with a child, he doesn’t know is amazing in itself even if there was no verbal exchange and O has never been shy so it can be even more challenging for other people to understand his Selective Mutism. O told me the child’s name I said, “ah great I wonder did he know your name?”, being very careful not to say, “Did you tell him your name?” (Something I have learnt after I educated myself on Selective Mutism, is that the words we use can make a big difference to how something is perceived and we don’t want O to perceive my question as pressure to speak or my expectation and questioning about if he is talking or not), and still even with choice words to ask him I was a bit nervous about asking the question at all, sometimes its better just not to ask but I gauged the mood and took a chance this time. He replied, “yes I told him "My name is O”. How wonderful is that? It just lifts my heart. Something so normal for another child is a huge achievement for my son with Selective Mutism, an act of bravery and one I am very proud of him for.
We were invited to a communion party at the weekend, and you never really know how O will react in these situations where there can be meltdowns or distress or cheeky silly behavior as a reaction to his anxiety. There was a trampoline and a bouncy castle at the party. Exercise has always been great for lowering O’s anxiety many a time outside his appointment with his SLT, I ran him up and down the road before we were due to go in. He has said many of his first words to children while jumping on a trampoline, often starting on it with a screaming noise or some other verbal noise as a warmup before he actually speaks. I had to leave the party for a while and when I returned, his sister came to me to tell me he was talking to a girl who was a year or two younger than him. Another huge step for him and I started to think it appears he may be slowly overcoming his fear with children or certainly well on the road to it.
The hope that fills you with every step no matter how small. These steps were not small they were huge, and I know each time he takes a step like this it builds his confidence, he realises he can do it, he realises the world is not going to fall down if he talks. This girl had never met him before so he knew she would not say “Wait, what ? O you’re talking but you don’t talk!” and every time he speaks, and somebody does not say that it is a bonus and a means for progression. On the flip side last week, a child he knows but hadn’t seen for a while asked; “Does he talk now?” He silently shook his head, and this reinforces in his brain the idea that he is the child that does not speak. This is a maintenance factor in fact. Maintenance factors are referred to in the Selective Mutism Resource Manual linked in the resources section of the website. We try our best to avoid maintenance factors by educating everyone around him but it is difficult to do this with young children so you can only do what you can. We had been at a party a few weeks back while he played with the other children, he did not speak to any of them, so this step was great progression for him.
I will never forget the day he spoke to a child outside of our family for the first time, I was so emotional and really that was the start of him taking the first step on the road to him overcoming his Selective Mutism. He has not overcome it yet, but he is on his way he is getting braver by the day, and I am filled with hope, and he is filled with hope and motivation. He wants it and we are at the stage now where he is pushing his boundaries, widening his comfort zone and doing it all by himself. After a few steps forward in a short space of time I joked with him. I said to him O you are being so brave lately that I am going to wake you up one morning and you will be in the bed in full knight armor, and you will just have turned into O the brave knight because you are so brave. He loved that.
Even being able to say this to him shows how far he has come. There would have been a time I would not have been able to praise him in any way without it getting a negative reaction or to have a conversation about his bravery and progression steps I would just silently smile and pretty much ignore them, because for him at the time I had to as he would have perceived any type of praise as an expectation to speak and reject any type of praise no matter how subtle. Now we talk about how brave he is we never mention “wow you spoke that was great” but instead always a casual “that was brave” and he accepts that praise better. It took time to get to that and see what kind of praise he was comfortable with and understand the benefit of taking the focus away from the talking itself. Parenting any child is always a learning experience, we are learning about our children every day and we won’t always get it right and that’s ok too.
We did all we could to follow the advice on Selective Mutism. We are participating in sliding in with an adult in the school, I have been doing lots of playdates and creating opportunities by bringing him to the playground and we speak often about bravery never about talking or speaking but always about how brave he is being. He had to write some sentences in his copy with words his teacher had given him for homework. When it came to writing a sentence with “I” in it he wrote “I am brave” and it moved me. It moved me because he is so brave and this experience will make him stronger when he comes out the other side, whenever that may be and I know he will one day, and if he always carries a little bit of his Selective Mutism or just the underlying anxiety throughout his life that’s ok because together, we will manage it and he will learn the tools to manage it himself. Stay brave parents, our kids need us to be brave so they can be!
“Every day is a new beginning. Take a deep breath, smile and start again.” Unknown
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