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Forum -> Parenting our children -> Preschoolers
Selective Mutism/Preschooler



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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 3:03 pm
Hi! This is my first time ever posting on Imamother!Smile
If anyone has had experience with a child in preschool who was selective mute I would really
appreciate all advice or recommendations of clinics or a specific person you've used.
I have an intake appointment scheduled with Rambam family health center and I spoke with psychologist Dr. Kurtz. I've spoken to Ezra Medical Center, Ohel(which doesn't take our insurance), and Racheli Shear. My head is swimming with trying to figure out how to help my daughter.

I've been thinking of using Rambam over the summer (they take our insurance) and then possibly Dr. Kurtz during the school year. If anyone has any experience with Dr. Kurtz or Rambam I would really appreciate to hear your thoughts and experience.

Thanks!!!
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amother
Stone


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 4:53 pm
Hi I'm assuming you live in Brooklyn? You did not post location. You will get more responses if you include location. I'm not familiar with the names. However many years ago my child was selectiv3 mute. I will tell you what helped this child greatly. We invited children over to our house even though we knew the child couldn't talk. It wasn't a real playmate at first but I was included in the play date. I never made the child talk we played a board game. Like chutes and latter or lotto match we gave the kids a snack, the kids rode bikes together. First I tried a few kids to see who a match would be. I fou.d a kid my kid enjoyed. She wasn't the loudest or the quietest and she didn't talk for my kid. At one point I upped the game play with a new game the child part of the rules was to make a sound on her turn. But not talk. It took time and patience. The teacher/morah was very supportive. She thought it would be a good idea for my child to give something out from her house. Sometimes a snack or a prize. She made sure my child was never center of attention slowly more my child started talking. Play therapy is a good idea because we also taught the child language skills and social skills.
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amother
Daffodil


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 5:02 pm
I had selective mutism as a preschooler. My mother says she made sure I has the kindest warmest morahs and assistants (assistants are often the ones having more interaction while the morah teaches/over sees). It is important not to comment or discuss the child not talking. Dont make her the center of attention or ask questions forcing her to talk. She should be asked yes or no questions so she can nod or shake her head.
Like the poster above, my mother invited girls over and saw which ones were a good fit and played nicely with me, the morah helped the friendship in school too. My mother says I had friends, and started speaking to them first.
Eventually I started talking, no one made a big deal.
Baruch Hashem I am pretty outgoing and have no issue in social settings at all
Hatzlacha!!!
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613mitzvahgirl




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 5:23 pm
I taught a kid who had selected mutism.. she was a very shy girl, but the way I saw her come out of her shell was through drawing out pictures.. maybe art therapy might help.. her art was truly scary what came out of it.. I had to speak to other teachers about maybe getting the student art and BhBh that helped..
Hatzlocha Rabba.. I’m not chas vsholom bad mouthing, maybe it’s something you can look into, or just you or a close family doing it with her..
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amother
Gray


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 5:26 pm
I'm a speech therapist and Ive worked with older students with selective mutism.
I never force the children to speak, most of the year was spent playing games and me talking outloud, reading to them, having them point
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 6:06 pm
Thank you everyone for responding!
Can't really do a full response on what pp wrote above now, too busy in the house... Just quick question. Did u tell the parents of the children from your childs class why the playdate needs to be by u. That your child is selective mute and you're working on it by having kids come over to your house? Also yes I'm in Brooklyn.
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amother
Pearl


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 7:21 pm
I also had a chikd with selective mutism. The way we helped her was as the other posters mentioned by inviting kids over a lot. The first year she was in playgroup, the morah was very stressed by her not talking and she would mention it every day at pickup. She would also make a huge fuss if dd would make the slightest noise and this made things so much worse.
You should not discuss in front of your child. Selective mutism stems from anxiety and you have to focus on making your child comfortable and relaxed in social interactions.
To make a long story short, dd finally started talking the year she had the warmest morah. I spoke to her before the year started and explained to her how to handle dd.
At this point bh, dd is a social butterfly!
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amother
Stone


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 7:29 pm
Forgot to mention that after we invited kids over for a while. We set up a play date in school. we made sure dc was of the first to arrive to school. Our kid played with first few pickup kids. I found selective mute kids aremore overwhelmed to join in games. In our case our child's bus would come last once freeplay started.
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amother
Steel


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 7:35 pm
amother Pearl wrote:

You should not discuss in front of your child. Selective mutism stems from anxiety and you have to focus on making your child comfortable and relaxed in social interactions.


100% agree with all of this.

Another thing I’ll add is that this form of anxiety isn’t anyone’s fault, it’s not caused by any kind of parenting style. Generally speaking (very very generally ), it’s caused by some kind of inflammation in the body, or by massive trauma (which you’d know about, if that happened). Our child’s selective mutism was part of a larger PANS case and was BH resolved once we figured out the cause of the PANS, but in many cases it will resolve itself simply by the adults being patient, kind and warm with the child.
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, May 22 2023, 8:00 pm
So with my daughter she doesn't want kids to come over. Their is one child from her class that she is open to having over. The reason I asked the question before is that it sounded like it wasn't so easy for that mother to bring her daughter to me and after the last playdate the mother mentioned my daughter coming to her. I also feel bad about not balancing it by sometime bringing my daughter to her.

Its very hard because she is very resistant to having kids over and during the play date will say she doesn't want to play.... The whole playdate requires a lot of creativity on my part. It's fine, that is what's needed but it shows u she is very resistant to play or interact with other children. She is extremely sensitive which I think is one of the root causes.

We've had success with one girl from her class, kid coming over for shabbos party, going to neighbors house with siblings but she recently has become even more resistant because with all the exposure above has experienced kids maybe once or twice saying something mean to her. I was their when it happened at a neighbors house and the mother made her daughter apologize and it was something minor.

I know how to do the playdates I just don't know how to get her to want to have children over.
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