I’m talking with Lisa. Thank you very much for participating in this conversation. I’m sure that your information is going to help a lot of people. Would you be kind enough to describe the situation initially with your daughter when you initiated treatment? Sure. My daughter, Kelsey, had always been very quiet in any type of social situation, any kind of environment where there was a lot of people around. And I always attributed it to her just being shy or not being in a daycare setting. She was just with a babysitter. So I just figured she didn’t have that socialization aspect. So we had started her in a pre-K program, thinking that that would help. And in the pre-K program, she got along with all the other kids.
Was social, but she was very quiet and would play with them, but really didn’t speak a lot. And again, I made some excuses thinking, OK, it’s just an adjustment for her. This is new to her. And then she would get invited to a birthday party and she would tell me, I really want to go to this birthday party. I really want to go. And we would get there and she would absolutely freeze up. I can’t go in, really, really get panicked over it. And I couldn’t understand what was going on. And I would say to her, why don’t you want to go in? And she just couldn’t even express herself because she was so worked up that we would actually wind up leaving the party because she was just too upset to even go in. So that’s when I realized there’s something more than just being shy. And about that same time is when she was then going into kindergarten.
And very soon after she started kindergarten, the teacher had asked for me to have a conference. And I knew exactly what it was going to be about. So I had just started to do some research and stumbled upon selective mutism. So I went into this conference, ready to talk about selective mutism. And the teacher said, you know, Kelsey doesn’t speak a word in class, which I knew she was quiet, but I didn’t realize there was nothing being said. And she said she would participate in classroom activities. But again, there was no speaking to anyone, not even the teacher. So that’s when through the research, I had found you, Jonathan, and reached out to you. OK, now she was what age when you reached out? She was five, almost six. OK, we’re going to jump now.
So you had this problem. Five, six years of age. She’s how old now? Eight. OK, where is she at now? Completely different child. She, this past Christmas, where the school Christmas show volunteered to be in the eighth grade play and got up in front of 200 people. She didn’t have a speaking part, but she got up in the play because she had volunteered and got up in front of everyone and had this huge smile on her face. In class, she gets up and does her book reports out loud. She goes to birthday parties and is one of the loudest kids there. She’s somewhere I never thought I would be. Do you feel more comfortable with the word term that she has resolved the problem or that the selective mutism has been cured?
I would say that it’s been cured. OK, now let’s do the work. OK, now the goal is to let the listeners understand how you achieved this success. OK, so step one, you come to me. We do a basic educational piece around selective mutism. It’s a variation of obsessive compulsive disorder, the obsessiveness being the thinking and the worry at different levels of consciousness, the compulsion being the verbal shutdown. Obviously, it’s an example of social anxiety, social phobia. So can you talk first very briefly, team approach, mother and father, did that happen? Yeah, I think it has to happen because you both have to be on the same page and delivering the same message to your child so that they have a very clear message from both of you.
So yes. OK, now next, non-enabling. Talk about what that was like. Non-enabling was tough at first because it was changing Kelsey’s world. But it started with the freeze the moment where somebody would ask Kelsey a question. And normally, my immediate reaction would be to answer for her because that’s what we did. And I would freeze the moment by counting to 10 and giving her the opportunity to answer the question. And then once I got to 10, I would answer as the first step. But even prior to that was communicating to Kelsey and letting her know that this was happening. So she understood that mommy’s not going to answer for you, you need to communicate.
And so then the freeze the moment got, as we saw progress, we made progress with that as well, where we got to a point where I said, listen, mommy’s not going to answer. And I would get to 10. And instead of giving the answer, I would say, well, I guess Kelsey isn’t going to tell you today. And the answer wouldn’t actually get relayed. But it was always managing those expectations for her too. And letting her know and nurturing her along the way. OK, now building on the definition of non-enabling as any behavior on the part of caregivers that inhibits the growth or potential of the child, can you give other examples of how you put into effect non-enabling? Sure. So another thing with Kelsey would always need me to lay with her at bedtime, lay with her to go to sleep, and so what I started to do is I said, you know, mommy’s not going to lay down with you, but I would sit in the room.
I would sit with her, again, just reassuring her that she was OK, and taking those small steps rather than just changing everything all at once. So everything from, again, not answering for her to just reassuring her and sitting in the room quietly, letting her fall asleep, but not having to be there right next to her. It would even be as much as she wouldn’t go upstairs by herself, you know. And just talking to her about why don’t you want to go upstairs and then waiting halfway up the stairs for her, and then not going up at all and waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Just so small steps to not enable her. OK, so I think that’s very important. The small steps, what I want to listen is to understand here is that it’s a methodology, an incremental process of steps.
You’re non-enabling. You’re stopping to overthinking, to over-anticipated her needs. And as you put into effect the non-enabling behavior, that does create a degree of adaptation or stress from the child. And what we’re doing is we’re working as a team to monitor the stress and to help support her through it. That brings us to the process of processing, which is the most daunting piece of treatment, at least my treatment, the Berrent methodology for parents. But I think it’s the most profound. It is the process of identifying thoughts and feelings. Can you talk about that, please? I agree with you 100% in that. It is definitely the most daunting, but it is, I think, the key to it. Because if I did the non-enabling and then didn’t follow with the processing, I don’t think it would be effective.
So the processing is when you’re in a situation of non-enabling later that day or soon, sometimes soon after, I would process with Kelsey and say, tell me about how you felt when I didn’t answer for you. Or tell me about how you were feeling when you went up on the stairs on your own, getting her to really talk about how she was feeling, what her emotions were, so that she could express that. And that was, again, just be part of it. And in the very beginning, it was always, I don’t know. how I was feeling, but it was really the processing of getting her to talk about it that was key and also communicating the nurturing of Kelsey. You know, Mommy’s doing this because I love you and we want to fix the problem.
So the processing really started off slow and got better and better. And she would start to know when we were actually processing. She would say, are we doing our homework again? And she understood that this was going to be a time that we talked about how she was feeling. Talk a little bit more about how you negotiated the, I don’t know, disease. Yeah, I don’t know, it was her famous words. I don’t know how, I don’t know how I’m feeling. I would have to say, well, sure you do. And one of the key things was defining different emotions for her. So we would take different emotions each week and I would define it in children’s terms, what the emotion was. So we may do frustration, anger, and happy all in one week.
And I would define it and I would give an example of how when I felt that way. And then I would get her to talk about a time that she felt that way. So really getting her more aware of what the different emotions were. So when she would give me the, I don’t know, I would go to the emotions and say, okay, well, what about the emotions that we’ve learned? Tell me what emotion you were feeling. And I would just keep going with it. I would just have to say, I know you do know, we have to think, you know, I need you to tell me about how you’re feeling. And I would just keep pushing on it until she would then talk to me about it. As you were going through this process of not enabling and the processing, there were times that you observed Kelsey being really, really uncomfortable, if not in substantial emotional discomfort, am I right?
Absolutely. And I have worked with so many parents who say to me, it breaks my heart. I can’t see my child in this situation. So they even negotiate it and they get through it or it’s the break your heart syndrome that really shuts down the treatment process. And obviously there are very few people who really know what they’re doing in the treatment of selective mutism and most of them do not engage in the process that I am teaching, but I have found over time that it is so profoundly productive when the parents can pull this off. Can you talk about how you negotiated this break your heart piece? Sure. It was absolutely tough. I mean, break your heart is a perfect word for it because when your child looks up at you with these eyes, like, why aren’t you answering from me?
You literally feel your heart break. And I just kept that end goal in sight. Like, I want to help her. I want her to feel okay. And I always tried to think about that anxiety that she was feeling and how we were going to overcome that. And that, you know, whether it was that I had to talk to Jonathan, you know, you about just how much it hurt, but, you know, to always keep that end goal in sight. And then again, just nurturing her and saying, reassuring her, tells him, doing this because I love you. I’m doing this because we want to fix it. So, you know, always having that constant nurturing and keeping that end goal in mind. And I actually had listened to, you know, some CDs that you had provided. And I heard this mom in the beginning and I felt like she was describing my child from the issues.
And at the end, she talked about the progress her daughter had made and how she was. And I just remember listening and saying, gosh, that’ll never be me because I couldn’t even imagine it at that time. And as we started to make progress, I envisioned that being me and that Kelsey could make the progress. And that’s what kept me going was the fact that she could actually overcome this. And that was the end goal. And just had to constantly remind myself of it. It’s for her. Last question, and I thank you very much for doing this. It was hard work. It took some time. The full course of treatment with the selective mutism for you was around the year from beginning to end, maybe a little longer. What’s the payoff? Oh my God. Because what happens is with the psychology of a lot of parents, it’s really, okay, look, if we can’t get this done quickly, if we can’t get this done in a handful of sessions, it’s not worth it.
So what was the payoff? What is the payoff? It’s absolutely worth it. It’s everything from when she went into first grade and still really wasn’t talking and the teacher coming up to me at the end of the day when I went to pick her up and going, I feel like she read three words in front of class today and just and going like, wow, and for a parent in this situation, three words is huge. And within days later, her coming up and going, I feel like she read three pages today. It’s just amazing. And then to see her now in that same environment where she used to run with her friends, but not talk, running, talking, just this huge smile on her face, the payoff is just, I mean, it’s priceless. And you realize that everything you did in that heart break was for this little child who now just is running around, can’t get her to stop talking.
One more question. Is there any other advice or anything that you would like to share to the listeners? Stick with it. I mean, there were times that I would get so frustrated because your child’s not going to want to do the processing. They just are going to, I don’t want to do this. And you know what? You don’t want to do it either. The last thing, you want to be out playing a game or doing something fun with them. You don’t want to be, but it’s so worth, you have to stick with it and hang on to the little progress. Every little piece of progress leads to that bigger piece and just keep that in mind that any progress is huge progress for your child. Lisa, thank you very much for sharing. Sure, thank you.
