Hi Kristy, nice to hear from you.

I'm sorry but we have a different system here in the UK and I don't know how
old your daughter is in grade 4 or 5. It really does sound as if the
teachers in your school need a bit of education! When I first found out about
SM I
printed out all sorts of stuff and gave it to the school. As I said,
primary school was bad - they tried to help but unfortunately my daughter just
didn't want to know. It wasn't the school's fault but in a sense they were
trying too hard and she reacted badly to the increased attention.

It's really important for the teachers and parents to understand and accept.
I found an article _http://www.selectivemutism.org/pdf/words.pdf_
(http://www.selectivemutism.org/pdf/words.pdf) which might be quite useful.
It
points out that there should be no pressure on the child to speak, encourage
non-verbal communication, and make them feel safe and secure. As
self-confidence
increases, eventually speaking will happen. For my daughter, lots of other
things had to happen first before she could begin to talk.

My daughter does fine in school. Obviously there are problems with speaking
in English and French lessons but as long as her written work is done and
she takes part in practical activities, the teachers seem to cope with it very
well. They need to check her understanding because she won't ask for help,
but now get a lot of non-verbal communication which they are content with. I
am sure we've been lucky with this school, but their approach is certainly
working.

I would really encourage you to give the teachers as much information as you
can find and tell them that too much pressure could actually make things
worse. They really shouldn't mark kids down because of anxiety problems.

I also encourage my daughter to talk to me about her anxieties and then we
started a "positive things" book, where she writes down any little thing that
she has done and feels proud of. That way she can look back and realise what
progress she is making. Sometimes these steps are really tiny, but what is
important is that they're going in the right direction!

Sorry for the rather long email. Hope it helps. Good luck!
Anne


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