Why S.M.I.L.E. to help ? What is Selective Mutism Ireland Learning & Education ?
S.M.I.L.E to help (Selective Mutism Ireland Learning and Education to help). Is a website set up my a mother of a child with Selective Mutism, that remembers how overwhelming it can be when your child is first diagnosed with Selective Mutism. I remember trying to read Maggie Johnson’s manual while looking after a family of four and working at the same time. It was a struggle to find the time to sit down and study the manual. I ended up taking a career break and I used the time away from work to gather information and educate myself as best I could on Selective Mutism and how best to help my son. Even not working there is never enough time in the day! I am still learning and still on that journey, you never know everything there is to know, and learning and putting things into practice are two different things! There is always room to grow and so this website will grow as I learn, discover and grow with more experience and time.
I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be good to be able to share the links of websites, podcasts, training courses and social media groups that I’ve found useful with someone else. Word documents are clunky, and everyone likes to access things on a phone these days. On more than one occasion people I knew had asked for help or a steer in the right direction for one of their friends who suspected their child had Selective Mutism, so I decided to create S.M.I.L.E. to help. The information I had and the links I found were not always easily thrown back through a google search but I’d gathered them over time, so I thought I’d put them in one place so that if I ever met a parent of a child in the same situation, I could share the link to some of the resources and information that I came across. I also wanted easy access for myself to refer back to.
As for the blog, well I enjoy writing I find it therapeutic, and it is part of my own self care. Maybe there might be someone out there who might draw comfort that they were thinking the same thing that I was or feeling the same way and by sharing there maybe someone out there would not feel as alone on their journey as a parent of a child with Selective Mutism. For Selective Mutism Awareness month in October I wrote a parents journey of Selective Mutism. Then I thought to myself, what do I do with this now? Then I reread it I was a bit bored ! Not a good start, it was too long and detailed to post on a parent social media group most parents don't have time to read long articles.. So I thought a blog would be a better forum to raise awareness of Selective Mutism in Ireland and sharing it with interested people. I edited the post as best I could while juggling family life and endeavored to post shorter blogs in future.
Sharing is great but of course, every child with Selective Mutism is different so approaches that worked for my son might not always work for other children, and it is important to note that some of the resources on my page can have advice that might be slightly at odds with each other. Approaches to Selective Mutism differ in various countries around the world. In addition, individual therapists may not always agree on specifics. However there appears to be fairly consistent overall advice and it is for every induvial to figure out what best suits and works for their child. I have got some great tips from parent groups and reading the resources I have linked, if they have helped me, then perhaps they might just help one other person.
Why the name S.M.I.L.E. to help? Well I wanted Selective Mutism Ireland in the acronym, and I liked the positivity of the word SMILE. I have learnt that positivity is so important on this journey and when we are positive and push our anxieties about our children not talking away, our child will start smiling with us and we are all in a better position to move forward. The wonderful thing about smiles, they cost nothing, they make us feel good, they make others feel good and as the acronym fit and the word S.M.I.L.E was not available for a domain, S.M.I.L.E. to help was born!
Keep smiling!
"Nothing shakes the smiling heart" Santosh Kalwar
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