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JavierModeratorHi Gábor. Great job with that phone call. Remember that conversation the next time you have to make a phone call. Remember that, and realise that if you’ve been abel to do it, you can definitely repeat it, and even improve it!! You’re expanding that comfort zone!!
JavierModeratorHi Derek,
I’m glad that you’re already feeling like that. You certainly can do it, we have no doubt about that. Please do keep us posted with your progress, and don’t hesitate to use this Forum to ask questions.
You can learn a lot too if you attend to the SAM meetings on Saturdays at 10am NY time (go to “Community” –> “Speech Club”; if you scroll down you’ll find the Zoom invitation). You will be able to meet us, other PWSS and PWS, interact with them, ask questions, learn how they stopped stuttering…. It’s very motivating, entertaining, and you also learn a lot.
Have a great day!!JavierModeratorHi Derek,
As promised, I emailed your post to Lee Lovett, and he asked me to send you this reply, as comments to your first message. So, Lee’s comments are in bold:Derek, this is Coach Lee writing. I put my comments in bold in your email below. We can and will help you and your son.
“Hello to all,
I am new to the forum and am currently starting to learn the Lovett Method. I am a mild stutter with occasional flare ups when in pressure situations or upcoming speeches. Welcome, Derek. You ARE in the right place. If you master our methods, you WILL beat it and soon – and your son will beat it in due course.
I grew up stuttering with memories of my dad looking at me in the review mirror with annoyance/disappointment while saying “just say it son, get it out”. To non stutters it may not sound like a big deal but to us stutters those situations amplify the negative impact stuttering has on our lives. To this day I have the worse fluency around my father. No level of FEARED stutters (FS) should or needs to be tolerated. Everyone does NON-feared stuttering, and it should be ignored and forgotten. If you allow FS to continue, it well may follow you to your grave. Don’t allow that. Join us and stay on our programs until you stop all FS and teach yourself to LOVE to speak in all venues and can stay, “I converted stuttering into a blessing in my life.”
I now have two boys oldest just turned 3. His general practitioner has casually mentioned speech therapy not for a stutter but for pronunciation he does not speak very clearly. We see no evidence that professional therapists (PT’s) are able to help PWS of any age stop stuttering, because those PT’s either never stuttered or still do and simply don’t “get” stuttering. Would you take golf lessons from someone who had never played or who shot twice par?
As a stutter (my wife does not) I am over analyzing every word he says and am dreading the possibility of my son having to go through stuttering as a child at minimum. Don’t blame you. Last night my wife mentioned she has picked up on a few “stutters” he has recently made as I have as well (but kept it to myself). I didn’t sleep much as I have been fearing these potential roadblocks he may face. It is not “genetics”; it is monkey-see-monkey-do. He’s picking it up from you. First order of business is to get your speech to the highest possible level. Simultaneously, do as Javier suggested; take the Parents Course on WSSA, while you master my book and the 20 video-lessons that I did on it for WSSA.
Should I bring him to speech therapy for the pronunciation hoping that will help with his overall speech or just let him continue to grow etc. I would not do that. At 3 years old it maybe difficult to being teaching him the Lovett Method. I just want to do what’s best for him in minimizing/squashing a stutter. I have helped kids his age, but not many. One, Marley, posted a Success Story some time ago (). Kids under 15 are harder to help. I generally coach the parents to coach the child. Strange adults can intimidate children, as school teachers generally do however well-intentioned. I spent very little time with Marley, and only with his mom and/or dad present. The good news is that stuttering is no longer a life sentence (contrary to what SP’s preach). We help PWS of all ages beat ever single day!!! Join us. Beat your own stuttering while you help your son. I will coach you, if you wish.
I welcome all thoughts and appreciate your time in reading this post.
Derek” “All’s well that ends well,” (as said the divine WS), Derek, and stuttering problems should and can end well. Join us and get to work. Coach Lee
JavierModeratorthere are also some videos from a boy from Macedonia. This boy is 11. If you go to the Videos section and use the search filters of country, click on Macedonia, and you’ll find those.
About your speech, Derek, I’m glad to see that you just received the 3rd Edition of the book. As you said, you need to stop creating stuttering memories if you want to get rid of the stuttering habit, and therefore become a Person Who Stopped Stuttering. Since your case seems to be pretty mild, if you work on this method 24/7, you should beat it in no time.
I’d suggest you to start reading the book (aloud; do it in a whisper if you don’t want to bother those around you). Once you finish reading a Section of the book, watch the corresponding video lesson. That’s the best approach, in my opinion. If you need any help trying to figure out which video lessons correspond to which sections of the book, send me an email to [email protected] and I’ll gladly help you with that.
Once finish reading the Sections about the Crutches (and watching the video lessons), know that there is a video course dedicated to the Crutches (one video lesson per Crutch). Watch those videos too.
And of course, watching videos of coaching sessions is pretty much like being coached directly by one of us. And right now we have +1200 videos of coaching sessions. So, if you use the searching filters you will be able to find the videos best suited for you.
Please do keep up posted with your progress and your son’s! And ask us any questions that you might have, that’s why we’re here 🙂
JavierModeratorYeah, that used to be my case too. Unless I talk about it with my family, they rarely talked to me about it. I must say that I didn’t like to talk about it either.
But the improvement in your speech is very evident, Gábor. You know it, and I’m sure you must be feelinga lot better, more confident, less worried, happier (I’m sure you might even be sleeping better), and that’s what matters.JavierModeratorHi Derek!!
First of all, welcome to WSSA! Sorry for replying so late.
I’m one of the Certified Speech Coaches of WSSA and a PWSS.I can imagine that having a child that might start to develop a stutter must be dreadful.
Have you watched the video course “Parents of Stutterers”? We also have some videos of coaching sessions of Lee coaching kids and their parents. If you haven’t watched them, you definitely should. You can learn a lot from those.Kids are much more insecure than adults. And as they grow older, they get more and more confident. So, teenagers, for example, have a lot more insecurities than the ones you and I could have. And the same happens if we compare an 8 year old kid with one of 15, and so on.
So your 3 year old kid is learning to speak. This is something new to him. And the last thing we want for him is to start fearing words, speaking. So, now, I think it is quite normal that me mispronounces some sounds or words. Most kids do it.
The thing that we must NOT do is to correct them, for what I said about their insecurities and fearing speaking. So instead of correcting, why don’t we teach them by example. Speak more slowly, pronouncing all your syllables and words, smile… Instead of correcting them when they, for example, mispronounce a word, reply to them, saying the word correctly.
Try to be as loving to your son as you can, read to him aloud, passionately, ask him to repeat some of the sentences that you read to him, so that he can imitate you. He’ll enjoy it very much too, I’m sure of that.These are some tips, Derek, that come to my mind now.
And, Derek, how is your speech going? Have you finished reading Lee’s Stuttering book?
By the way, I’m going to forward this message to Lee Lovett. He has way more experience than me coaching kids, so I’m sure his advice will be very helpful.
JavierModeratorHi Adam,
I agree with what you said about Crutch 4 and hesitations.
As you know, you have many other options (do it smiling and, if you want, handing your ID while you say it, or showing the appointment):C-1: you have several options here: “am-Adam”, “footAdam Playfoot”, “ayfootAdam Playfoot”, and other combinations…
C-2: if you have a nickname, use it and then say your name.
C-3: “A-D-A-M-Adam”, “P-L-A-Y-F-O-O-T-Adam Playfoot”
C-4: WeeeellAdam, SooooAdam, MmmmAdam, AaaaandAdam, etc
Try a mixture of C-5 and C-6: try something like “hello, so I have an appointment at 6 o’ clock, I’m Adam by the way.
C-7 or soft voice, or a combination of both: you can always say that you have a sore throat.
C-8: how about modulating it? I’m sure you’ve heard Prathusha speak. She speaks almost like singing. And we all love it. Give it a try, be as passionate and excited as you can about going to the gym.
And of course, the last option is to simply show your ID…
I’ve always tried to be as friendly as I can with everybody. Now all the workers of my gym know me, they know my name, and I get along with them very well, which is great! The same thing happens with other places I go to, such as bars and restaurants I go quite frequently.
Hope you found this helpful.
One last thing, in case you don’t know it, the Crutch Mastery Series video course is available here in WSSA. Feel free to watch those video lessons. Even as PWSS, it is always good to refresh the Crutches, just in case. These videos are rather short (around 15-20 minutes), and there’s one video lesson dedicated to each Crutch.
I hope you find this helpful Adam. Have a great day!
JavierModeratorHi Gábor,
you are right. Everybody stutters. But it is perfectionism what made us become PWS. So we have to stop being so perfectionists. We will never be perfect, we are human beings. But this doesn’t mean that we should not try to do our best in everything we do.
So the difference is in the point of view. Are we seeing the glass half empty or half full?For example, yesterday, at the SAM meeting, as you said, you spoke for 2 minutes and you did it pretty well. Is there room for improvement? Yes. I also talked there for almost 2 minutes. I also did a good job, I think. But can I do it better? Yes, and I am going to continue working to get there, but always knowing that nobody can speak perfectly.
So what I’m trying to say, Gábor, is that since the first time you and I met in that Q&A session, some months ago, you HAVE IMPROVED A LOT, and you should be very proud of it. Most likely, if you had to give that 2 minute talk some months ago, you would have not spoken like you did today. And that something to celebrate! Count your blessings and keep on working, trying to improve.So, to break this habit of perfectionism you have to celebrate all your speech successes. So, after speaking (even if you just said something as brief and simple as a “good morning”), ask yourself: did I appear clearly speech disabled? If the answer is “no”, celebrate it, congratulate yourself, because as I said before, probably some months ago you wouldn’t have said it so fluently.
And to be able to improve, the next question to ask to yourself should be: “how could I have done it better?”. But see this from a constructive point of view instead of destructive.But, again, the most important thing here is learning to see the glass half full instead of half empty.
I hope I have been able to explain myself clearly.
JavierModeratorthank you John.
You are very right about how we should perceive the SAM talks when we are the scheduled speaker. We shouldn’t view it with fear. Nobody is going to harm us, so why have fear and anxiety? Instead, we should view it as an opportunity to continue improving, to learn, to have a good time, get to know new people, etc.
And, as you said, we all have to keep on improving, no matter where we are. You, I, all of us still have room for improvement. And like Lee says in his books: nothing is stationary. Either we improve or we get worse. So, why should we choose the latter?JavierModeratorHi Gábor. What you said abour Reddit, sadly it has happened to several of us. I gave it a try, and got the same results. Some other PWSS have had the same result….
The sad thing is that these people who say that we are liars have not even bothered to fact-check what they are saying about WSSA and Lee Lovett. So there is no point in arguing with such people.
Only time will open their eyes, when WSSA gets hundreds of Success Stories. When that happens, if they open their eyes just a little bit, they’ll admit that they were wrong. If not, well, they’ll be ridiculing themselves. This reminds me of Copernicus, when everybody believed that the Earth was the centre of the Solar System, and he proved them wrong, saying that the Sun was actually the centre, but a lot of people didn’t believe him.JavierModeratorHi John!
you gave a fantastic speech. I really had a great time listening to your speech, just like all of us there.I always tell to my students, when we prepare their speeches for the SAM meetings, that, believe it or not, they are going to have a great time being the speaker of the SAM meeting, for various reasons:
– You are going to prove to yourself that you are going to be capable of giving a speech, fluently, smoothly, in front of 20 or 30 people, or maybe even more.
– The hardest part might be the beginning, when the pressure is at its peak. So thta’s the critical moment, when you have to focus completely on using the Crutches, on exaggerating them, on trying to be enthusiastic, showing passion.
– Once you’ve started, it will get gradually easier and easier, and then you’ll really start enjoying it.
– But the best part is when you’ve finished giving your speech, and you see all those raised hands, wanting to say something.
– In all the SAM meetings that we’ve had, all the people who have volunteered to make comments to someone’s speech, these comments are all very positive. They praise how well you delivered your message, how you used the Crutches, etc. It feels great to finally, after all that we’ve gone through, to hear somebody say that you’ve spoken really well.
– So, all these compliments are proof that you’ve become a very good speaker, even in front of a large group of people (I’ve given a few speeches in the SAM meeting; before SAM, I would have never thought I’d be able to do such thing). I stopped fearing these situations some time ago. I know I can speak pretty well in these situations too.I consider giving a speech in SAM as a another test for the PWSS. A test that all PWSS must take at least once. They owe this to themselves. The proof that they can do it.
So, John, congratulations again!!! You’ve come a long way!!
JavierModeratorAwesome! Please do keep us posted with your progress!!!
JavierModeratorHi Adam,
When I had just become a PWSS, I felt exactly like you. I still had fears, and sometimes my speech was choppy, or halting. So this is very normal.Have you read Lee’s “Speech Anxiety to Public Speaking” and watched the video lessons of that book? If not, please do it. It will help you a lot.
As a PWSS, your next goal is to get rid of the fears, and get to love to speak in all situations. So, mind training is key here. There are very useful affirmations in that book.
The other thing you need to do is to, step by step, expand your comfort zones. Speak a bit more (+10%) than you’d normally do in different situations. After doing this for a while, doing mind training, speaking passionately, smiling, etc., your comfort zones will have expanded so much that you will realise that you no longer feel pressured in situations in which you did some time ago. You will even realise that you enjoy speaking in those situations!!
Attending to the SAM meetings and making comments, asking questions, and even being the speaker of that day, will help you a lot.
Why don’t you challenge yourself, and decide to become the scheduled speaker of one of our SAM meetings? Speak with your coach about this. Maybe you can ask to be the speaker any Saturday, let’s say in Arpil or May of this year? There’s plenty of time to work on it…
JavierModeratorThanks for sharing, Gábor. I’m sure that more than one PWS will be mindblown with your post.
JavierModeratorAbsolutely! It is definitely harder if we are depressed. Thanks for creating this post, Adam, I’m sure a lot of people are going to find it very helpful.
By the way, I’ve just ordered the book. -
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