Filed under: Elective Mutism, Mute, Selective Mutism, Shy, family, health, shyness | Tags: Elective Mutism, family, health, Selective Mutism
This is very unusual foar me, but due to a cold, virus or stress for the past two days I have completely lost my voice. I am now living in the world my son was living in of selective mutism.
Wanting to speak , but can’t. I had to do a speech to 40 persons attending a seminar and they had to give me a microphone and I spoke in a whisper voice. In the office, I have had to listen more and whisper. I am not able to interrupt and give my opinion. It is very interesting and the silence is quite comforting. But also know I will get me voice back. At a meeting today, a co worker said, oh do you have a frozen vocal cord? I frozen vocal cord… I could be like this forever? Driving home tonight, my throat felt tight. I rubbed my throat, tried to yell in the car. Nothing totally mute.
Then I began to think, is it stress or trauma, or a reaction to revisiting these times in writing this blog about my son and selective mutism.
At home my older son who is a teenager was not doing his home work. My normal was to get his attention is to call out or yell to check in on him, in some form or another, as some parents have to, to even get his attention.
This night I couldn’t and he had to come to speak to me. ..Nice
My neighbor came to the door and I she could not hear me saying, I will be right there.
I tried to call my dearest friend for her birthday. I bet she will not know who it was. My husband just laughed and said, they will erase that message even before they figure out it was you.
A person called to back out of a charity event they had signed up for and I had to email her back.
The world is different. Today I am seeing what it is like to be selectively mute. But I hope not by tomorrow.
Filed under: Elective Mutism, Mute, Selective Mutism, Shy, family, health, shyness | Tags: Elective Mutism, family, health, selective mustism, shyness
Months went by and no progress. I thought we could wait him out. In fact we could not. So we tried some experiments. If he would not talk to children in class and would talk to neighbor children, if we invite the child to our house, would he speak to them? No.
OK, then lets try it at their house. No.
OK, lets try the teacher coming to our house. No.
But there was a small win, we took the teacher into the other room to talk to her and he must of thought she left. What do we hear and what does she hear for the first time. His voice! She was shocked and said, you were not kidding he is articulate. He speaks in full sentences. Yes, we told you that was the case. She said, I know, but I just did not understand the level was as high functioning as a 1st or second grader. I have never heard him speak a word. I didn’t know.
This made this teacher, Miss R, even more determined to get him to speak in class. She felt he was missing out on so much and so did we.
When we arrived in school the next day, she had a butterfly key chain with all sorts of old funky keys. She gave it to our son as a gift and said these are your keys to speaking. I give them to you to unlock your talking. She told him it was to be used when he wanted to speak. Just open the door of his mind with the key. It was a wonderful gift, one my son has to this day. I had such hope it would be just the key needed to open up his world.
Unfortunately, it did not open the door to his speech, nothing changed. The school year was winding down and we knew we could not send him to kindergarten this way. There must be more options. We must be more open. What the keys turned out to be were more of a symbol for us, to open our minds to the keys that may solve the silence.
We stopped going to the Dr. for the play dates which is what it had become. He was still spelling S.O.R.R.Y , but he had return to his bad, instead of sleeping on the floor at our bed.
Medicines must not be our only option, but yet what.. what is the next step? How blind we felt, going on gut and faith that we would find an answer.
Filed under: Elective Mutism, Mute, Selective Mutism, Shy, alternative medicine, anxiety, family, health | Tags: Elective Mutism, Selective Mutism, shyness
The verdict came back from the doctor, there was not trauma, no illness. But is was selective mutism. How do you cure it? How long would he have it? Would it just go away? None of these she could answer. It depends on the child. It may be anxiety and with play therapy it may clear up. There were a lot of May’s in our lives at that point.
So week after to week, we would come and he would draw, play games staged by the doctor. He would chat up a storm with her and she would tell us how bright he was. We would meet after to get a down load on what they did that day. I asked if she had spoken to the teacher and she indicated they kept missing each other. This went on for many weeks.
My husbands sister came to town and was finishing her masters in education and asked if she could go to the pre school and see it for herself. Since he chatted up a storm with her, she heard of it and wanted to see it for real. She came back amazed that this chatty kid would become another child when he entered the school. He would not speak to her or the teach or the students. She saw his lust for play doe. Perhaps he uses it to manage the stress? Perhaps he just liked it since he looked busy and did not have to interact with anyone. He looked withdrawn and passive. She took a few photos so she could show us what he looked like. The minute he left the building and got into her car his chatty self came back like a switch was turned on.
The doctor did say if play did not work then we need to look at a medicine for him to try…try.. I want givens not try. She indicted she wanted to put him on Prozac. When I asked what the medical protocol for a then 4 year old was she said there were none. it would be trial and error and it may or may not work. We said no thanks we will look for other alternatives. Plus has had a year before kindergarten and he would grow out of it before hand.
Filed under: Elective Mutism, Mute, Selective Mutism, Shy, alternative medicine, anxiety, family, health, self healing, shyness | Tags: Elective Mutism, family, health, Selective Mutism, self healing, shyness
The big day arrived and there we were going up the elevator near the local hospital to a Doctors office we had never been to. It was exciting and scary all at the same time. The waiting room was large and filled with toys. The parents sat and the children played. Well this look pretty normal to me, why is everyone else here? What would bring all these people to see a child physiologist? I was pondering it, when when a booming voice interrupted my inner voice with Mr and Mrs K , yes.. please come this way. We filled out the paper work, found out insurance did not pay and it was going to be over $250 for the first visit and $125 for each follow up.
We finally met Dr. E, she was well referred and seemed very dry. She asked a series of questions and asked us to explain what we were seeing. It sounded more like she was asking us if we were to blame, then hearing what we had to say.
She said, we will do tests and see if he has been abused? Abused?? No he is mute at school. He may have a medical condition such as brain tumour. No he is mute a school.
Have you ever dealt with this condition before Dr. E. Well I have only studied it and it is very rare. I saw it in a clinic when I was in my residency. What did you say… the woman was well in her 40’s, so 20 years ago.. my brain was about to burst.
More questions about my and my husband relationship…what does that have to do with it…his older brothers relationship, our relatives, his teachers. I was exhausted and still has not clear understanding of what was next. Next …. oh I will take your Son and do a series of test and drawings with him. You two go sit outside and leave him with me.
So we did, leave the little guy with the doc to have her do an evaluation. After it was over she returned him to us. Said said, do you know how bright he is? he is really of the charts and quite charming. He talks perfectly fine. I do not see the issue you are describing.
What… do I need to video tape it for you? I guess you will have to, since she thought we not representing the situation correctly. I jumped and and said, I will call the teacher, let her tell you what she sees. What you see and what she sees are two different children..
And thus the phone calls from teachers and us taking photos and videos to prove we where not crazy began. He still didn’t speak at school, but we where more convinced that we were not being believed.
The next meeting is in two weeks and I will give you my diagnosis. The spot light seemed more to shine on us as parents and not on the selective mutism that she could not see or find.
Filed under: Elective Mutism, Mute, Selective Mutism, Shy, alternative medicine, anxiety, family, health, shyness | Tags: Elective Mutism, family, health, Selective Mutism, self healing, Shy, shyness
Six months went by with no change at school, not a word. It was just the strangest thing. In the house playing with his brother or with friends, it was the son we knew. Chatty, happy and engaged. A far cry from what we were told and what we were not observing. A child in school so removed, so withdrawn, it would break my heart everyday.
I had thoughts that he was just stubborn and that it would pass, but as the months went on. We slowly began to ask our family members if this was something that was in the family that we did not know. Still having no idea that there was a name for this randomness. It was faceless, perplexing and as new parents, not prepared for.
It was an email from my Aunt B that gave us a direction and a course, or at least something to follow up on. It was an article describing things very similar to what we where seeing and experiencing with our son. They called it Selective Mutism or Elective Mutism. It described the silence or called it shy, it also said it was a form of anxiety and very rare.
OK … what we were expericenting with our son….it had a name Selective Mustism. but does he have it? How do we find someone to tell us if he has it? What is is and why does he have it?
The first place we turned was to his family doctor who gave us the name of a child phycologist and suggested we start there, since he had never heard of it. Something our Doctor has never heard of??? Something we did not know if is was short term or long term or life long?
We called the next day… an appt in 6 weeks. … 6 weeks.. I could not think to wait that long, but we did not know where else to turn. Would the new Doctor believe us? Would he talk with the doctor? He liked to talked to his own doctor. Which made it look like we were really over the top parents, since it was like your car with an engine ping, when you bring it in you cannot get it to do it in front of the technician. Since the Doctor saw a perfectly normal child who could speak, and I suspected he thought we as his parents where just too high strung.
So thanks to Aunt B and her Internet search the puzzle pieces fit. It felt good, if only for a moment. He was finishing up the year at preschool and still not a word, still blank in the face while there. How and if or should we send him next year to kindergarten? Is it better to send him next year… mute, or wait and sit him out until he can speak someday? Perhaps he would forget over the summer and just start talking? Perhaps he would never speak. I felt very alone.
No one else I knew had a child that was doing this. Why would he be different? Still not able to talk to the teacher or point to colors like all the other children. Not making friends except for one boy who did not care if he did not play with him or speak to him. The other children knew he was different. At a time when we did not want him to be different, he was. We wanted him to be normal and speak. He was not speaking in preschool and we would have to wait 6 long weeks to find out if this was what was happening.
Filed under: Elective Mutism, Mute, Selective Mutism, Shy, alternative medicine, anxiety, family, health, shyness | Tags: Karen Kallets blog, Selective Mutism
But the phase did not pass… he looked sadder and more withdrawn. We worried. So great at home and no improvement in school. Is he sick?? Brain tumor?? Trauma at school? It was just so strange. We showed up a school early to peak in the window to see if he was OK. He played well, but as parallel play, not interacting with other children. He loved to play with play dough all day long we were told. The rest of the year just was the same with no progress.
But there were a few areas that we noticed at home. He could not say he was sorry. You could see he felt it, but could not say it. Frustrating for him and for us.
He would not sleep in his bed. He came and slept at the foot of our bed on the quilt. If we tried to put him down to sleep in his own room , he cried and screamed. He wore us down and we did not want him to get into bed with us, since we felt he would never leave. It broke my heart to have this little boy sleeping on the floor at the foot of our bed. It was perplexing.
Ultimately he would say things like, I did not mean to do that or he would spell the word…S,O,R,R,Y, mommy, but no I’m Sorry from his lips. My husband and I would discuss and worry, not knowing what to do. We spoke to his Dr. who said it was just a phase and many children go through this type of thing and it will pass once he gets use to school. But never naming it as a condition. So we just kept thinking it would go away.
Filed under: Elective Mutism, Mute, Selective Mutism, Shy, alternative medicine, anxiety, family, health, shyness | Tags: Karen Kallet Blog, Selective Mutism
It came as a shock after having my son in preschool for 3 months at 3 years of age to hear the teachers words. You do know your son is developmentally delayed? I looked at her like she was from the moon. What ..no …what do you mean? He does not talk in school, not one word. What do you mean not one word? For how long has this been going on. Did something happen? No nothing…
From day one, we thought you knew? He does not speak to us or the other children. We don’t think he knows any words. She said. Does he? I was so thrown off and said of couse he speaks.. he is so bright and chats up a storm and plays with all the kids in the neighbor hood. How could this be? He had been a school for a whole three months and not spoken one word….
She looked at me with a look of..boy lady you are so fooling yourself if you think this child is normal, … oh this poor parent is in deep denial.
My thoughts where, I can’t believe they know so little about my son that they would think he does not talk. They must not be paying attention. He had been telling me he did not want to go and there were too many kids. I figured he just had seperation anxiety.
Now …I knew he was so bright and smart and controlling, so hum.. so bright and now so stubborn as not to talk to make his point. Yes that must be it. He is stubborn and will not talk until he gets his way. It is a phase it will pass….
Filed under: Elective Mutism, Mute, Selective Mutism, Shy, alternative medicine, anxiety, family, health, self healing, shyness | Tags: anxiety, Elective Mutism, family, health, Mute, Selective Mutism, self healing, Shy, shyness
After reading the People magazine on Selective Mutism and having a son who not only had the disorder but overcame it due to a particular event that I will tell you about that caused a break through.
He did not speak one word while at pre school. He is now 13, a champion speech contest winner, straight A honor student and very popular.
Thinking back, I only wish I had heard such news when we first found out that he did not speak at school when he was 3 to 5 and diagnosed with Selective Mutism which was also described as elective mutism.
I plan to cronical through this blog the many paths we took, the dead ends we were lead into and what ultimately happened to have the break through we hoped so badly for.
