Selective mutism, toileting and nursery

[SecondRow]

Hello, hoping for some advice from parents or nursery/preschool professionals with experience of selective mutism.

DD is 2.10 and in the last week has enthusiastically dropped nappies and used potty at home, toilet out and about - stickers were involved :) Practically no accidents.

Now wondering what to do about kindergarten tomorrow. DD basically does not speak to her carers there, nor to the other children. We speak English at home and KG is all in German, she is picking it up, understands everything but doesn't speak it in the KG setting. (She does join in activities and sing and dance and play happily). We have an appointment in a couple of weeks with the early years support services to see if they recommend psychologist/play therapy/SALT or whatever.

So if she goes in in pants but is unable to attract attention when she needs the toilet, the "accident" may be very distressing for her. But even when she has a nappy on at home now (bedtime), she still insists on getting up and doing wee in potty when she has one.

Was wondering if we should give her some kind of signal she can use to non-verbally communicate with carers - laminated picture or something - or is that prolonging/enabling the selective mutism? If she is really motivated about potty training stickers could this be an opportunity to learn why it is important to overcome her inhibitions about speaking?

(Just to say I understand the "can't" not "won't" aspect of SM. Not looking to pressure her at all. Trying to work out which approach will give DD the most feelings of success and comfort.)

What would you do?

Good going, little row - and very good that you re thinking this over really well.

I would personally recommend giving her either a sign (Makaton or whatever) or a card to carry so she can communicate her needs with her carers until she is independent in toileting. Not giving her the means to communicate her needs will not force her to speak, particularly with the "humiliation" factor of wetting/soiling herself, but COULD undo all the positive progress that has been made in toileting.

Hmmm. Depends on the extent of the mutism. Cards never worked for my DS (who is now 11 and they still don't work, lol) because his mutism covers any sort of initiation, and going up to an adult and handing over a card is a communication inititiation, so he was unable to do that. Things that might work in that case is a potty alarm that goes off every 2 hours, for example, or the staff asking your DD every couple of hours if she needs to go to the toilet. Or a very clear message that she may go to the toilet whenever she needs to.

A lot of children are SM in an immersion language environment as far as I know, it doesn't necessarily mean that she would be SM if she were in a UK school being taught in English, so it's possibly more contextual than innate - does that make sense - so it may be that the mutism is more open to change over time than a child who is SM in their home language environment, esp if she is joining in with aspects of the setting :) which would be a good thing if that were the case.

Thanks so much for these replies! Bee, yes, any feeling of humiliation or helplessness is what I'm hoping to avoid for her.
zzzz, what do you think has helped with your daughter's progress so far? Is just getting older and more accustomed to her school setting part of it, or are there particular people she will or won't speak to?
ilike , the initiation thing is a very good point. They say she does come to them with certain needs, like when she wants some closeness or cuddles, but then again until now she also wasn't telling them when she'd done a poo in her nappy for example, so she may still not be ready to initiate about certain subjects. I think you are right that some of the signs are good, the SM may well turn out to be shortlived or "mild". The Kindergarten people are very caring and of course know their stuff but not hugely experienced with the bilingual/immersion aspect of things (small village, not very multicultural!) so they are probably erring on the side of caution with the referral.

I think DD may want to wear a nappy in tomorrow and we will send in pants as well so they can ask her if she wants to change into them at her normal nappy change time. I'll ask them what they think of the card idea as well and see how it goes.

Thanks again for your thoughts, I am really proud of how well DD has done with the potty thing so far! :)

That sounds really tough zzzzz, trying to juggle between managing the epilepsy and causing anxiety. Plus school doesn't sound entirely supportive, as from what I've read you going in could be a very good thing?

Does your DD have awareness of what it is about eg. the classroom versus the playground that makes it different for her to be able to speak outside but not inside? My DD is younger of course but she has said something along the lines of "I can't talk at Kindergarten because all the children will hear me". So that's making me think she's saying she would talk to the adults, but not if any other children are too close by or something. And of course it's interacting normally with the children that they want to encourage, not only with the adults.

Ah the poor little thing - how awful to have to realise that turning a year older doesn't necessarily make you feel stronger or invincible!

Thanks for the point about vulnerability. This is why we are trying to act on this now even though as I mentioned, if it is mostly connected with the second language issue there is a chance it will resolve when DD's German catches up with her English. From September she'll be moving from her creche group to the Kindergarten proper where the carer ratios are less favourable and not being able to, well, call for help basically, if someone or something is bothering her, would be really awful. I mean, she does a good line in bursting into tears at the moment, but I would also hate it if that was just considered to be whinginess, when it's really fear/helplessness.

Oh yes, the chattiness at home is great - never shuts up!

Not sure what the solution is to weird hair boy, though...

Hi merlincat. Yes anxiety is probably there all right, DP and I would both have been shy as children and in some ways as adults!

I was probably a bit naive initially as I was under the impression that immersion was absolutely the way to go, you know the way people say all the time "Oh that's great, she'll pick it up in no time". And she is, we know she knows lots of words and phrases, but there must be something scary about it at the same time.

Recently her keyworkers have changed tack a bit and started using English with her as much as they can, to see if they can encourage her to speak at all, and then worry about the German later. This may be helping but one of the three main carers is possibly not on board with this - DD told me last week that "Jane said in the playground we only speak German" or "must speak German" - so if they are not all on the same page with this it's giving confusing messages. (I do respect Jane's experience as well and I certainly can't insist on anything, she may be strongly of the immersion school of thought and until recently so was I!)

What help did your DD get merlin or how did things turn out?

Thanks Merlin, it's good to hear your DDs are out from under the SM fairy's spell now anyway, although I'm sure those felt like looooong years at the time.

Did you find much difference in the support offered by the Swiss and UK education systems? I don't know much about the Swiss system but I imagine Kindergarten level at least is similar to Germany. I have heard very good things about the early years services we've been referred to, but that it will take quite a long time to get the ball rolling from initial assessment to plan being put in place.

I have good German myself but Schwizerdütsch is a whole other kettle of fish :) I'm sure your kids are far from thick!