My son, Grey Bennett, has always shown some small indicators of anxiety. From the ages of 6-8, he saw a therapist to work through some of his anxieties. Additionally, he was diagnosed with a stuttering disfluency when he was five years old. Since then, he has received speech services through his school and through private providers. Thankfully, over the years , these services have greatly reduced his disfluencies.
However, over the last several months our family has been going through some personal struggles related to a neighbor boy we took custody of about 18 months ago. These struggles have greatly impacted Grey, as he is no longer sleeping well, he is often very anxious and his stuttering has become much worse.
A few examples of his anxiety include: Constant worrying about grades and the need for constant affirmation from his teachers/parents. Grey sometimes cries at school, when he is unhappy with his performance or when a teacher/friend makes a remark that upsets him. A few weeks ago, Grey was asked to take off his hat during the Pledge. He was so upset over this, he had to leave the room. When I spoke with him about the event, he said he was scared that his teacher thought he “was like Colin Kaepernick.”
Grey’s homework often takes three…show more content… He struggles with blends such as CR, DR, PR, TR. For example, Grey quit trick or treating, because he could not say the words “trick or treat” Last spring, Grey stopped going to see his speech therapist, because he was not experiencing disfluencies. However, with the newest turn of events, we have decided to send him back to his speech therapist and he is now seeing her once a week. Unfortunately, we are worried that Grey’s anxiety is at the root of his disfluencies, and the problems with his speech are only causing him further anxiety and loss of confidence. For the first time in his life, Grey said to me: “I should just stop trying to
