Explaining Stuttering

Alright, so as mentioned on Twitter, I need to explain stuttering to my kid. I haven’t been able to find anything online about how to talk to your kids about stuttering — if you’re the one doing the stuttering. I thought this was a pretty interesting oversight, actually.

I wonder if we educated our own children more about stuttering, then maybe they can go into school and educate their own friends. Or at least be the one to stand up for someone who stutters and say, ‘well, my dad does that, and it’s not a big deal.’

Some quick background on the kid (my kid) being interviewed: He’s 8, he goes to an American school here in Saudi (and has been in English-only schools his whole life) and is pretty typical for someone his age. Lots of television, falls off his bike once in a while, somewhat picky with eating, likes donuts, up for adventure.

He’s seen me work on this site and look up stuttering pages. But never asked me about it.

My idea was to interview and maybe educate at the same time. I wrote down a few questions and wanted to see if anybody had something else they wanted to know from this 8-year-old.

What I’ve got so far:

1. Do you know what stuttering is?
2. Do you hear me stuttering around the house?
3. Does it bother you?
4. Do you think you stutter at all (he doesn’t)
5. Does anybody in your class stutter?
6. Have you ever heard anybody on tv or in movies stutter?
7. What do you think causes stuttering?

Interestingly, I hadn’t stuttered around my kids up until about a year ago. I’m not sure what changed. When I speak to them, I had never avoided or changed things out. I still don’t, but now I’m stuttering.

When I read books to them, though, I don’t stutter at all. (this is awesome, by the way).

Let me know if you can think of anything else to ask. I’ll probably interview him by this weekend.