Stuttering as a child

As you may have read on other pages from this website, I developed a stammer/stutter when I was four years of age. It came as quite a shock for my parents, hearing their youngest child struggling to say certain words.

There is no history of stuttering in my family and there was no particular trigger which caused the stutter to commence.

At school I became frustrated as I was the only child in class who needed to attend speech therapy classes. I just wanted to be like everybody else - fluent.

There were, of course, a number of people who would laugh at me, when I did stutter, this was especially the case in the classroom. As an example, I found it very hard to read out a loud from a book, in front of the whole class.

This was a situation which I dreaded and would ultimately lead to a certain stuttering situation. Hate is a strong word but I really did hate school.

Socialising as a child was made all that more difficult because of the stutter. I did not have anywhere near the levels of confidence as most of the other boys in my age group. Where as most of the children from my area would go to the park, to play, I would stay at home.

As I am writing this I am in a way making it sound like I felt sorry for myself. I have to say however that I soon became very comfortable being on my own as that is where I felt the safest, for some strange reason I never had a problem with stuttering when talking to myself.

Even now after being fluent for the last eleven years, I love to spend time on my own, having two young children can however make that some what difficult.