Any experience with Selective Mutism?

In My Humble Opinion
21

That strategy works very well for a child who is simply “stuck in a rut,” as it sounds like you were, or a kid who is trying something out for size. And I agree that sometimes we have a tendency to pathologize things when we shouldn’t. But sometimes things are more complicated than that, and in those situations being told to just snap out of it is neither helpful nor effective. That’s what I meant above when I said that selective mutism is not simply being shy.

A reasonable analogy would be the kid who starts eating very little at age 14-15. We could say “knock it off, start eating,” and that might be successful for some of them. But we know that others can’t or won’t (especially because anorexia is believed to be in a very large part about control). Telling them to eat, even telling them to eat OR ELSE, isn’t going to get you very far. It’s likely to backfire, in fact, and then you wind up at worst with a dead kid.

I’m not saying that selective mutism is anywhere near as problematic as anorexia. It isn’t close. But there are kids out there who cannot, will not, do not say hello to their teachers, and no amount of simple threatening or cajoling is going to make them able to do it. In fact, to the extent that the disorder is about control, it’s likely to backfire.

(I didn’t know any of the parents of the kids I described earlier especially well. The parents of the K kid struck me as people who would’ve done what your parents did, Sal Ammoniac, and something the classroom teacher said to me once suggested that they tried, but the girl simply could not or would not do it regardless of how hard they pushed. I wouldn’t hazard a guess about the other two families. I would say that my impression of those two kids was that they fit right into the category I’m describing–the kids who can’t/won’t do it no matter what.)

And to the OP–again, I have no way of knowing whether your kid has a disorder, or whether she’s just shy, or adjusting, or what. I’d just reiterate that those are different things.

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Ulf the Unwashed: nods emphatically - I don’t know if it’s the problem either, but I can say for certain that forcing her to do things she is reluctant to do doesn’t work. At all. I mean things like asking her to guess, which is another thing she has trouble with (probably related to control). Not things like cleaning her room, which she also doesn’t want to do, but it’s much more clear there that it’s a normal “I don’t want to do this because I’m having more fun doing something else.”

Sal, I’m glad it worked easily for you! My kid will say hello when prompted to (although for some reason she won’t use names), but that doesn’t seem to have helped. I agree, though, that I’m not going to do anything drastic in regards to therapy or anything, as it seems like she may just need some time.

nate, ha! I’m not your wife (unless you have changed your SD moniker :slight_smile: ) but it’s nice to meet someone else who has a kid who’s socially behind. At this age, six months to a year is a really noticeable gap, at least to me, and yet most adults who just see her casually don’t see that, they just see that she’s really good at academic stuff and don’t see what I’m worried about. But yeah, I really get that.

Yeah, a lot of the selective mutism stuff seems to match my kid as well, although not quite as well as yours; she’s not very artsy and her empathy is… interesting. She is empathic once she figures out what it means, but it takes her a while. Like when she was two I was having to tell her things like, “Your friend is crying. Does that mean she’s happy or sad?” “Happy?” In that way she fits an ASD-spectrum-y profile a bit better, I think.

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I am actually 14 and I suffered from selective mutism from the age of 4 (when I started school) until I was 12/13. I never spoke to teachers, strangers or even various family members and I am still anxious now which means I don’t always speak to people I have known for years because it would be the first time I would have spoken to them and there would be a big fuss so ew no thankyou. I never had help for it, I originally didn’t speak when a teacher could hear me but now I will speak to most people (although I’m extremely anxious a lot). I suppose the main reason I overcame selective mutism was my teacher who I had during year 8 and 9 (I’m in year 10 now) because she encouraged me, always said ‘well done:)’ when I answered the register and was just the best teacher ever. I guess she understood me? And she basically made me feel good about myself, she teaches french and french is my favourite subject. It’s also the only subject I feel confident in doing speaking exams in (no doubt down to her) and she makes me feel comfortable idk. I have a different french teacher this year (most of my friends have my favourite one:() but to this day she still comes up to me and tells me my work is ‘magic’ and that I’m doing very well in french, she is literally the only person I will accept things like that from and believe them so this is just my life story right now I’m sorry

24

That doesn’t necessarily mean she thought her friend was happy: it can be that she was overwhelmed by “whyamIbeingaskedthis?”, that she wasn’t sure what you wanted her to answer (something kids figure out pretty fast is that what they understand something to mean isn’t necessarily what it means), or that she did indeed interpret some of the words in your question in a different way that you meant them.

Story told before, after his first chess tournament my nephew was telling me about all these things he’d found out during the tournament and which he didn’t know before and “I wish I’d known that before!”… but as soon as his father, looking like a younger and frownier version of Zeus, walked into the room, he froze. “SO! What did you learn in the tournament?” “…nothing?”

He’d learned lots of things. But he’d been taught that “learning” involves “being taught”. Nobody had taught him where the bathroom was, or that he could ask for a bathroom break, and one of the things he wished he’d known was that he could do such a thing when he needed one so much he’d lost a match on purpose so he could go pee. His father was pretty sure the kid had lost that match purposefully but had no idea why. And paternal disapproval is a very scary force in a child’s life, even when your Dad isn’t as much of a moron as my brother can be…

heartbreakerju, welcome to the Dope.
When I tried to sign up for Catalan adult-education lessons as a “non-speaker”, the Admissions lady asked “do you understand it?” “yes, I’ve been hearing and reading it my whole life, but I don’t speak it”. “OK, you go to ‘speakers improvement’ then.” “But I don’t speak it!” “:rolleyes: You don’t speak it because your Catalan-speaking acquaintances are idiots. If you so much as say ‘hello’ in Catalan they make a huge fuss, don’t they?” “God yes, I’m convinced that the main reason children learn to talk is that there comes a point they have no other option! It’s a CIRCUS!” “It’s the same for everybody in that course. You know the language, but the same people who badger you to learn it are making you anxious about it. You’ll do fine.”

So yeah, I sure understand the “not wanting to speak with some people because it will be such a fuss” part.

And I’m curious, how did you communicate when you needed to “say” something that was too complicated for “point at object I need someone to get for me”?

25

Well, I lurk this message board from time to time but when I saw this topic, I felt compelled to reply.

I grew up with Selective Mutism. Unfortunately for me, the problem went undiagnosed until adolescence. My childhood was absolute hell. It was so bad that now, twenty years since the first SM symptoms began, I suffer from PTSD because of it.

It began in kindergarten. I had previously attended preschool at another institution and I was able to communicate normally there. Everything was fine developmentally. I actually learned to speak early on and I could already read at age 4. Then in kindergarten something changed. I don’t know what triggered it. My belief is that it’s biologically based but I have no evidence to back that up.

Selective Mutism is very much an anxiety disorder. I was literally too afraid to speak. I’m not sure exactly what it was that I was afraid of. It doesn’t really matter. Anxiety is irrational. At school, I quickly gained a reputation as that girl who never talks. As a result, I was mercilessly bullied by both peers and staff. The bullying only intensified the anxiety I was already feeling. My mother couldn’t help me. She didn’t know how to. She didn’t want to believe something could be seriously wrong. When I tried to communicate how distressed I really was, she told me she did not want to hear it. Teachers told her that I was “shy” and that I would probably “grow out of it”.

I never grew out of it. Fueled by my terror, I was having suicidal thoughts at the age of 6. At 11 after more than half a decade of enduring the anxiety I had developed full blown clinical depression. At 13 the anxiety strengthened to the point that I could not leave the house without having panic attacks. By the time anyone realized how sick I truly was, I was entering my teenage years and too much damage had already been done.

My point is, please take this seriously. If your children are displaying symptoms of this disorder it is crucial that they get evaluated by a mental health professional. My case was obviously on the extreme end of the scale but it all could have been prevented if I had gotten treatment for the selective mutism in the first place. Early detection and treatment can make a huge difference. No child needs to suffer the way I suffered.

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heartbreakerju, welcome to the Dope and I’m so sorry about your experiences. I’ll try my hardest to make sure my daughter doesn’t have that kind of experience (the more I hear about SM, the less I think it’s what she has, but I can certainly imagine situations in which she was miserable).

Nava, I see what you mean. I mean, I think she was actually slow either to understand these kinds of things or to process them? There are other data points I have as well. All the other kids I know started doing imaginative play around age 2 1/2 or so, whereas she was almost 4 before she started doing that kind of thing… and same with recognizing and pointing out facial expressions in books, which all of her peers started doing much earlier. These are things she started doing on her own, so I don’t think my input had a lot to do with it.

CoastalVagrant, thank you for sharing your experiences and I’m very sorry you had to suffer that way. I am lucky that the preschool she is at believes strongly in not shaming or bullying kids, and are teaching the kids explicitly and regularly that it’s okay to be different. I will definitely be monitoring her and her environment, whatever happens.

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Just as a counterpoint to some of the stories: my sister is absolutely 100% fine and not even remotely shy!

She was exactly the same at 4: didn’t speak at school at all. She was fine at home and with other friends. We used to car pool to school with 2 other families, and with one of the other mums she also wouldn’t speak, with the other she would. She also whispered to one teacher. With other teachers she would rather wet herself than speak up.

She says now that it was just anxiety, and finding a small form of control in that anxiety (I thought it was quite interesting that Ulf mentioned control in relation to anorexia.) That’s what my sister mentions now. Children have so little control in their lives, and they will often take what they can get. Some children hold their breath, some children don’t speak.

My sister was offered a huge Barbie house if she spoke, but I don’t think it’s what prompted it in the end. I think she eventually felt less like she needed that control. It did become a habit as well, and thus a big thing, and thus something she needed to control even more.

As I said, she’s absolutely 100% fine, and was right away, really, once she started talking. It took over a year though. She did see a psychologist and it didn’t particularly help her, she says.

I have worked with other children who refused to speak, also possibly as a way of controlling a situation, but those cases always involved severe trauma so they seem quite different. I just wanted to add my sister’s case because it seems more similar to raspberry girl. My sister is an empathetic artist, an observer. She started out at art school and ended up doing a university course that combines art with social work, which was perfect for her. As I said, she’s not at all shy now, she’ll quite comfortably teach a drama workshop.

If you think it might be a control/anxiety thing you might want to look at Love & Logic. There are some ideas there that might help school find ways to help her. They might be able to work on offering her other ways to control the anxiety, by allowing her limited control that she lacks now. (Just to be clear, I’m not saying that school is somehow too controlling or anything, just that the situation might seem out of control to her(=anxiety), and that she doesn’t right now have other tools to control the situation.)

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nods Yes, I do think that control is a Thing for her, whether it is something that falls under the label of Selective Mutism or otherwise, and that this has a lot to do with why she doesn’t talk. Her teacher isn’t the best with giving children a chance to control their environment (she’s great in a lot of other ways, mind you), but her teacher next year will be a lot better with that, so I’m hopeful.

29

When I taught special ed students (grades 7-12, with a 1 year foray into elementary) I dealt with several kids who were identified or suspected selectively mute. As mentioned upthread, selective mutism is not shyness and can be a much more difficult situation to deal with. I don’t have any specific strategies for getting a kid to talk, but I definitely would recommend that you speak to her pediatrician about it and possibly have her evaluated by a psychologist/therapist. (Which at her age may consist largely of you and her teachers filling out behavioral checklists.)
While selective mutism can be dealt with and overcome, if it has several years to become kind of a set behavior (I’m sure that’s not the proper terminology, but you know what I mean), it can be crippling to a teenager. And being a teen is hard enough when you CAN ask for help and talk to your adults!
Good luck with your girl, and good job being proactive and looking for answers.

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Hello!
I am japanese junior high school　student.
My English is very very very not well. sorry.

To become a highschool student in the next year in April.
I can not speak other than family.:frowning:
school,I can smile and Move freely.
But Can not speak is very sad.

I want to speak.
But Reaction is very very scary.

When I go to high school will be able to speak?

I would speak if there are no people I know that do not speak.
If know that do not speak, to me it is necessary courage.

High school enrollment is very very very very very anxiety.

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As a parent of a child with SM, I know how hard it is to find help for this condition. There is a good support group on Facebook called 'Parents of Children with Selective Mutism". There is a organization called “Child Mind Institute” that employs a group of SM experts. They have several workshop videos available for free online. There is a group at Florida International University in Miami that puts on a week-long intensive therapy session twice a year. The tuition is based on your income (or your parent’s income), maximum $1500, which is a bargain compared to some of the other SM workshops like Brave Buddies.

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To add, you may want to consider asking your doctor to be put on a low-dose of prosac or zoloft. A LOT of children with SM have greatly benefitted from it. It helps reduce anxiety in situations where the child/teenager can not talk. It’s not a cure-all, but it does seem to help.

33

Hello and welcome! I don’t know if this school is in English or in Japanese, but often when people are used to someone not talking and then he talks, they are surprised and make a big fuss. It is a stupid thing, but they are not trying to be nasty.

A new school is a good place to start talking more. You are new, they are new, so they don’t know you as “doesn’t-speak”. And if part of the problem is that the school is in English, ask the students to help you. “My English is not very good, will you help me make it good?” There will be some who think that’s stupid… but how many of them speak Japanese?

34

Apparently SM kids have a hard time with letting others hear their voice in certain situations (like schools). They have situations were they use their voice as a typical child would, this is usually at home.

In my completely-non-studied but quite-observant of my daughter, if you indeed have selective mutism if would be a good idea to get professional help (and possibly medical help) before you switch schools, as it will help you in your transition.