to think "My child won't speak" is a load of tosh

[bruceb]

My DW is sitting next to me on the settee and she was dictating her version, which included the words "fucking".

Parents pandering to unreasonable behaviour.

Discuss

Probably completely out of order and If I am i am sorry but is that you WWC . Oh well and I just watched that programme and actually thought it was quite genuine but I am no therapist

Its so easy to watch one programme and judge.

Its so easy to think you have the solution to a problem you have never experienced.

I used to think that fussy eaters were like that because they were allowed to be. I am sure there are some children that are so pandered to they eat chocolate and chips because they are spoilt. But after watching that docu about a little girl that wouldnt/couldnt eat I could see how much more complex it was.

I grew up listening to people saying 'they can hear when they want to' about my lovely grandparents - both deaf since childhood. It didnt cross those ignorant tossers minds that my GPs had to be so good at watching and working out what people were saying, they did sometimes 'get it'.

I cringed when a play worker said it about a little boy I worked with a few years ago - not much has changed then.

Just about every parent of a child with a SN has had to listen to comments like the OPs. Just because YOU do not understand a condition doesnt make it bollocks.

My son has Auditory Processing Disorder. The fact that it is medically diagnosed with tests that show the brain is not making sense of language does not stop people telling me its some kind of excuse for not listening.

Or that lovely one 'why cant some parents just admit that their children are thick?'

op - yabvu - and v naive. but since i presume your kids are FLAWLESS and everything you are obviously omnipitent so who are we to question!

mamazon - i can't see any other reason for op's post other than to stir so i dunno why he's fretting about being picked on!

deary me, is it trollnight again?

Or the vastly worst prospect of a couple of bullying cunts thinking that shouting at disabled children will cure them.

Toddle off, the pair of you (if you exist).

How can the OPs possibly judge what sort of efforts and attempts the parents made at the very beginnings of this condition? My daughter has SM - were you here in my family when I was first told she didn't speak at playschool? Were you here when she was first unable to speak to her uncles, to her grandparents, to my friends whom she saw regularly? Did you see that I did absolutely nothing to try and get her to speak? Did you see that we just sat about and left her to be silent without bothering about it at all? No, of course not, because that's not what happened. SM children regularly get enticed, cajoled, encouraged to speak or punished for not responding appropriately before their parents or carers discover what is going on and does it make one bit of difference? No it doesn't, because it's nothing to do with parenting and everything to do with a biological predisposition to anxiety that gets triggered by some everyday event but becomes a big issue for the child, and once that has happened there's nothing that can untrigger it except the slow, painstaking work that was shown in the programme.

I assume that you have completely perfect children then OP?? I have 2 autistic DC's and one that is NT. Is my parenting to fault for that? Did I parent my middle child differently to my other two? Is telling my asd DC's to 'behave themselves and listen to others and show some empathy' going to cure them, or make them more 'normal' to you??

Selective Mutism IS a genuine condition, I have helped out in my primary school with a select mute, at the start of reception, he wouldn't speak at all. I can guarantee you that his parents DID try the 'for god's sake you talk to us, why won't you at school' out of desperation, but to no avail. What actually worked was spending some time, 1-2-1 with him, helping him to gain the confidence to speak in front of others. A year later, he will talk to his class teacher, and to the TA but will not speak in front of any of the other children in his class. In his case it was triggered by the death of his older brother, and his way of expressing his grief. Which young children often find difficult.

You are terribly ignorant to think that a recognised medical condition can be 'shouted' out of a child.

I do not have perfect children, there is no such thing. Far from it.

I simply believe that a phobia of speaking is a learned condition. It can, therefore, be unlearned. If a child develops a phobia of seatbelts do their parents only use public transport for the next five years or do they try and do something about it?

I have never said anything about autism or any other special needs. I have never said that ADHD is simpbly bad parenting or that autistic children just need to be shouted at. I have never said that people who self harm are showing off. I have never said that people with depression should just pull themselves together.

This has turned into a personal attack and words being put into my mouth.

I didnt think that Mumsnet allowed personal attacks. Seems they do.

bbm, you have had your first AIBU (deserved) flaming, there will probably be more

< annoints head with blood >

to me, the most irritating thing about your DH's OP was the presumptious "discuss" at the end of it, the rest was just reactionary wank

let it drop, stop wailing you are being picked on

maybe you should stick to the sex threads for a while, eh

wishes there was a mute button for op .

case of don`t judge op less you have real personal experiance and tried living with it.

Don`t think one tv programme males you a expert , just showing yourself up by how little you really know

*walks away from thread before loses temper

yabu
just because the op doesn't understand something doesn't mean it doesn't exist

i think anyone who does not understand or want to take the time to understand different needs should not have an opinion which is rude and ignorant

as to why you would want to start this thread if not looking for an argument

I have not seen the programm and had actually never heard of SM until last week but have since heard about it three times by different people.

We had a friend of Ds3 (6yo) to play after school and he was communicating with me through Ds. I first thought maybe I was "scaring" him a bit but Ds told me "no, it is not you, X never speaks to anyone exept me, even in school." I did not think about it as a condition until I heard of that BBC programm which I will watch with interest on Iplayer.

Bigbadmummy - do you know how difficult it is to access help from the type of experts involved? Nigh on impossible - trying to get a referral accepted is a nightmare.
How do you know these parents have not been asking for years for the type of support they got through this programme?

Sadly life is not black and white. A phobia is a learned behaviour as you say but getting it unlearned involves child psychologists and services which are not well funded and who take only a minority of referrals. I spend time in work trying to get them to see children on my caseload - sometimes with success but often not. It takes years usually before enough evidence is gathered for them to accept referrals.

Is BigBadMummy also the Op aka brucesomething? Am getting confused.
Either way - OP was daft.
My friend's ds has SM. He has been in my dd's class since nursery. He has made great progress (they are now in Y2) but it has taken time and a great deal of patience. It is not the case that children with SM choose not to speak, something (fear, shyness) prevents them from doing so. Just as extreme fear will always prevent me from bungee jumping. That paralysing fear that stops you dead.
I vividly remember an excruciating moment in preschool at going home time when it was somebody's birthday and the key worker would not give friend's ds the birthday treat from the birthday child until friend's ds had said thank you. - Ridiculous, because the more she 'encouraged' (or shall we say bullied) him into speaking, the more he clammed up.
Friend stepped in and her ds got his treat and I believe words were had also.

BigBadMummy is OP DW the way I understood.

From my own experience of children with emotional problems, I imagine the parents have told the children off, that they have told them this has got to stop, and then watched in dismay as their efforts only made things worse.

So, bruceb thinks selective mutism is tosh and these children could speak if only their parents were more strict with them?

Bruceb, I'm fascinated: why is it you don't consider it a worry that any child should need its parents to force them to speak?

piss off OP my child has SM

BBM at least you are making progress in the right direction: "I simply believe that a phobia of speaking is a learned condition. It can, therefore, be unlearned."

You are absolutely right, once the parents know that it is a phobia they are dealing with!!! It is not that obvious to most people. When a child stops talking, people around them blame it on all sorts of other things - stubbornness, naughtiness, passive/aggressive behaviour, trauma, abuse, autism .... on and on! Parents spend years trying to find someone who understands what on earth is going on and how to help. And sadly, such people are few and far between. It is only when programmes like this go out that suddenly people understand what the problem is and can truly begin to help. And ignorant opinions like those expressed by yourself and your DH only make things worse for those of us struggling with such issues.

I am worrying about the op painting her nails all on her own.
What if her DH tries to help?
[frets]