The Best Stuttering Tips for Parents to Use Now
In this post, we share some of the best stuttering tips for parents to use at home. With these expert tips, you can help your child speak more fluently. Many of these tips focus on how you can change your own speech to help you child.
The words we use and how we talk affect children’s speech. Especially true for kids who stutter, the speech models they get from us make a difference. By reducing demands on your child when they speak, you help them become more fluent.
We give you 5 expert tips you can use right now to help your child be more fluent. The focus of this post is mostly for school-age children. Now let’s get started!
1. Give Praise for Fluent Speech
One strategy you can use now is giving praise for fluent speech. By occasionally praising your child when they speak fluently, you help them speak more fluently. What do we mean by praise? We mean making positive comments about speech.
2. Speak More Slowly to Your Child Who Stutters
When you speak to your child, you give them a model. The speed of your speech and the pauses you take all change your fluency. Hearing slow speech with pauses helps kids change the way they speak too. It also helps reduce the pressure around saying words quickly.
When you speak to your child, try slowing down how fast you talk. Pace yourself and avoid making rushing with your speech. Also, try to add meaningful pauses. What do these pauses look like? Well, we can add pauses in our speech in a natural way. Try pausing at the end of sentences and when you finish part of a sentence.
For example, you might pause right before words like:
- And
- But
- So
- Or
3. Never Tell Your Child to “Stop stuttering”
One of the worst things that any person can do with a person who stutters is to tell them to “Stop stuttering.” This only makes things worse. It also make it harder for the person to speak fluently. It makes speaking an even more stressful situation for them.
We could say that telling a child to “Stop stuttering” is the opposite of our most helpful strategies. To help your child speak more fluently, reduce pressure around speaking! Make your environment safe and comfortable for speaking.
To help with this, try not to bring positive or negative attention to your child’s stuttering. Instead, make positive comments when your child is fluent.
Persons who stutter can’t control stuttering. They can use strategies to be more fluent and to help them get through moments of stuttering. So by telling them to “Stop stuttering,” it only increases pressure and makes the speaking situation harder.
4. Don’t Pressure Your Child to Speak
Just like we don’t want to tell persons who stutter to “Stop stuttering,” we also don’t want to pressure the person to speak. If your child stutters, telling them to speak faster or to “Get their words out” only increases pressure which makes them more disfluent.
Some parents may feel upset, frustrated or worried that their child stutters. However, only by reducing pressure and giving good speech models, do parents help their child speak more fluently.
Also, we want to avoid telling a child who stutters (and any person who stutters) to “Hurry up.” This also creates more pressure and makes it much harder to speak. The expectations of others also make speaking situations harder. This is especially true when there is time pressure.
We share some high-pressure situations below that can be challenging for persons who stutter:
- Phone calls
- Speaking in a classroom
- Ordering food at restaurants
- Meeting new people
5. Wait for Your Child to Finish Speaking
This is one of the most critical tips for parents. Parents may at times feel the need to finish what their child is saying when they stutter. They might also interrupt their child and answer their question if they knew what they would say. This should be avoided at all times.
Interrupting can significantly worsen pressure around speaking. It can also make them stutter more. However, by being patient and waiting until your child finishes speaking, you reduce pressure and help them feel more comfortable. This in turn makes them more fluent.
Kids who stutter may stutter more if they know their parents, siblings or friends will interrupt them. This is because they may try to compensate by trying to speak faster.
By giving your child plenty of time to speak and waiting for them to finish talking, you reduce pressure and help them be more fluent.
Conclusion – Expert Stuttering Tips for Parents
To summarize, we shared 5 of the best tips for helping children be more fluent. Out expert tips focused on how we can change our way of speaking to help the way kids speak. When you reduce pressure around speaking you help your child be more fluent.