commentr/StutterJune 7, 2021

Content

54 year old stutterer here, and I have a 13 year old son who stutters. When he was in elementary school teachers often asked for a short bio of him at the start of the year and I always mentioned his stutter so they knew about it and how it affected everything he did. I've stopped doing it now that he's in middle school, but I wonder if it's not a good idea to tell the teacher at the beginning of the year. Look, like it or not our stutter is a disability, but an invisible one until we speak. Imagine a gym teacher telling a student in a wheelchair he needs to dig deep and do some laps on the track. What your teacher is doing to you is no different. There is a real lack of societal empathy for stutterers because a lot of us try to hide in the shadows so the public at large still react the way people did decades ago. Some folks on here advocate for going after the teacher with a complaint. I'm in that camp too. Until there are consequences it will continue to happen. Schools are on the hook for violations of federal and state discrimination laws. Believe me when I tell you that if faced with even the possibility of a lawsuit they will start to address the problem. I'm not saying that litigation is the answer to these problems, but the one place where kids should be nurtured and built up is school and if they are failing you then they need a swift punch in the face. The downside is you may become a pariah for people who think litigation is the root of society's problems, but unless you speak up you will never be heard, and if they think less of you because of your actions then they are jackasses whose opinions are useless. The one problem a lot of us had/have as stutterers is we can't speak up for ourselves. I'll bet you can write a book on how you feel as a result of your mistreatment. Take a stab at it and email it to your counselor or principal. Tell you parents about this so they're not caught off guard if this gets heated. Finally, I'm sorry you're going through this, but at this stage in your life you're surrounded by immature kids, and apparently an asshole for a teacher. Life will get better.

Themes

Parent & CaregiverIdentity & DisabilitySchool & WorkCoping & Advocacy

Subthemes

School/Clinical AdvocacyStigma & BullyingAccess & RightsSelf-Advocacy & Boundaries