“My husband and
I are very happy with our baby of nine months who is beautiful and lovely and
progressing at a normal rate. I enjoy him enormously except for a deep worry I
have that is gradually beginning to cast a shadow. Both my husband and I
stammer. A while ago, I listened to a speech therapist on the radio discussing
a hereditary factor in stammering. I am worried about this. I know that
children mimic and that many go through a normal stammering phase as they are
trying to master language. Penelope Leach and Miriam Stoppard both state that
parental or adult anxiety about this phase are detrimental and can largely
contribute towards turning the phase into a lasting problem. I want to know how
I can dispel the shadow and deal positively with any speech problems if they
occur. If I can guide him towards fluent, articulate speech it will be the best
thing I can ever do for them.”
Mrs
D.C.
When a famous
beauty suggested to George Bernard Shaw that a child of theirs would be blessed
with beauty and brains, he apparently commented “But what if the child had my
beauty and your brains?” As parents we hope our children will inherit only the
best of our inner and outer qualities but this is almost impossible. Now there
certainly are a small number of children noticeable for their rare ability to
pick out and develop positive attributes from largely unloving parents. Other
children, again a small sample, are noticeable for their unerring accuracy in
selecting everything destructive or damaged in largely loving parents.
Individual personality, noticeable from birth, plays a large part.
However, for the majority of children, the
good and bad is taken in indiscriminately. For babies and small children are
not born with the ability to sift out what is healthy or unhelpful. They take
in everything through love and identification and struggle to make sense of
their inheritance. As they grow they make additions and subtractions of their
own. This task takes a lifetime and is shared by every human being! As parents
we certainly have a responsibility for trying to check repetitions and
characteristics of a hurtful kind that we have transmitted or are in danger of
transmitting .
Because of the
long time it takes for the human infant to grow up there is time for parents to
think about the next stage and how their vulnerabilities will affect their
parenting. A parent with an eating problem might be either excessively
permissive over food or extra punitive, not knowing in themselves the healthy
medium. If the other parent does not share the same problem their support might
be particularly valuable. This requires openly discussing and sharing the
problem. Otherwise, insights can deteriorate into “Your daughter sulks all day
like someone else I know” or “Your son can’t make any friends. Guess where he
gets that from?” The unshared problem can then be hated in the adult and the
child who shares it. Where the parent cannot bear a certain characteristic in
themselves the sight of it in the child is like a raw wound and this inevitably
leads to serious problems.
Sometimes, the
feared characteristic is timed to appear at a certain stage, a stammer when
learning to talk, a feeding problem at 2, a social problem at 5, an academic
problem at 9, a problem with aggression at 13,a sexual problem at 17.
Characteristics have their own expected dates of birth and it is very important
that like Mrs D.C. parents think carefully about these so they can prepare themselves.
Now Mr and Mrs
D.C. have the problem that they both share a particular characteristic that
they don’t want to pass on. Where two partners have a difficulty and therefore
cannot compensate for each other it is not surprising that they are anxious.
Books that tell people not to be anxious are not helpful as they imply people
have the choice as to whether to be or not! There is a further problem with
books. Parents wanting to be punished for a difficulty will seek out a book
that blames them. Parents who are uncertain will seek out books with
conflicting advice. Mrs D.C. has already done some reading. However, it is
still worth pointing out that Dr. Fay Fransella conducted a major review on
stammering research at the Institute of Psychiatry. She found no evidence that
there was any major genetic determinant and her twenty years of work on
stammering and stuttering since have not changed her mind. At her Centre for
Personal Construct Psychology she welcomes referrals from concerned parents and
knows, as do all psychodynamic workers, that emotions and fears can be
transmitted as powerfully as genes.
Mrs DC feels
that having her baby speak fluently will be the best thing she can do for him.
Her fear about this shadow in her life is so powerful that her love for her
baby and what that will give him seems secondary to her hope for his fluent
speech. This is indeed a burden for her, and as her baby begins to make more
sounds, the worry could pass on to him. It may well be that Mr and Mrs DC do
not have time for enough personal treatment that could affect their stammering
dramatically re their baby talks.
However, they do
have time for some exploratory family meetings to discuss their fears. For the
personal difficulties we have and may (or may not) be able to deal with at
different stages in our parenting lives are one thing; but our awareness and
understanding of them are another. Mrs D.C. does not say if she has referred
herself to her local speech therapist. As well as checking for any rare
neurological difficulty, speech therapists are growing more aware of the
emotional issues connected with speech problems.
Individual or
family therapy is also worth considering.