George and Karen, thank you very much for participating. It’s been about eight months since I last saw Tyler treatment was approximately over the time period of a year and a quarter-ish. He was 16, I think, then. How old was he then? He must have been 14. Okay. When he was 14, would you please describe what was going on with his problem? I’m you first. Basically, he was not speaking to any of the teachers in school. So he had gotten through all the way through to high school, and he hadn’t been speaking. He was just getting by by getting assistance from the other students, from nodding, from writing things. So the teachers didn’t require him to speak because they all knew that he didn’t speak.
As far as for us on the outside, he wouldn’t speak with various people out in the community. If I took him to the doctor, the dentist, anyone with any kind of authority, he would close down, and he would just kind of look to me to get his message across almost. And how long was this problem going on? This was something that was going on for actually, you know, since he was little, we always thought he was extremely shy. And he had gotten into kindergarten, and they were having some issues with him not speaking, and we still kind of attributed that he was very shy, and he was young for his age, and we just kind of attributed it to social and emotional immaturity.
So it really was going on since he was, you know, right from the start, I guess, when we look back at it. So as he was evolving into adolescence, and this problem, this is a hard question for you, but remember, a lot of parents are going to hear this, so what you say is super important. As he was evolving into adolescence, and this problem was sustaining itself, what were you guys thinking? Well, I mean, you know, what do you think? You think, you know, the kids can grow out of it. You think that, you know, he’ll become a little more mature. You think that maybe, you know, he’ll get a girl, and that’ll bring him out of his shell, and the reality is that none of that happened. Karen, remember the day that you brought him to my office, and he was so filled with anxiety that as you were walking up the stairs, he was holding onto the wall?
Yes, I do. It broke my heart, and I just wanted to do anything at that point to try to help him, because I was fearful that this was what his life was going to be. And I, you know, I mean, that’s kind of what led us on this journey, because for me, as he was getting into adolescence, I almost felt like this panic, like, is this what his life is going to be? And you know, you always want for your children everything. You know, you want them to have a good life, and I was very panicked that his life was going to be, you know, that he wouldn’t be able to get himself through high school, or college, or, you know, have a life. Okay, now, give, I want you to give me this short version of where he’s at now, and then we’re going to talk a little bit about what you guys did to turn this around.
Where’s Tyler at now? Where’s Tyler at? Tyler is talking in class. He’s participating in class. He’s raising his hand. He’s going up doing math problems on the board. You know, he’s on the golf team. He talks to his coaches, and, you know, he’s doing, you know, a complete 180 from where he was, you know, a short time ago. So it’s, you know, he’s been doing fairly well. I mean, he still has some social issues with friends and peers. You know, doesn’t have a lot of social connectedness outside of school, but, you know, as far as the speaking to people, I mean, he’s doing quite well. Okay, now, the starting point was you guys have to get on the same team with the parenting technique and philosophy.
At the beginning, that was not an easy thing to do. Could either of you please comment on that? Yes, I think, you know, I was in the position of, as the mother, I was mothering him. So while I wanted to help him, I was helping him in all the wrong ways that I learned, you know, that I learned from you in that when he didn’t speak or when he looked at me with that panicked look, I wanted to, you know, just kind of take him and hold him and tell him it’s okay. And so I would step in and kind of speak for him, you know, when we were, when we had that, when it was within our control, you know, in the school, as soon as he left and got on the bus, it was out of our control.
But I, myself, I definitely enabled him, you know, and wanted to take care of him. Okay, now, what you’re saying right now is super important. And this is, this is exactly what the roadblock is for most parents. Can you just give one example, Karen, of when you were in the moment and you did the freeze, the moment technique and the emotions that you had to deal with to pull this off? An example of that. Well, where you did not speak for him, where you broke the reflex of speaking for him. We had gone into the orthodontist office and I had, on the way there, we were speaking and I was trying to get him to speak to me about what he was feeling and that he was going to, I was not going to speak for him.
You know, I always let him know and we always were saying, you know, we were there to support him but this was what he was going to be. And so we went into the orthodontist office and the orthodontist, again, was aware of his issue and never really would talk to him but not really expect him to answer. And so he was, you know, I wasn’t going to answer for him and he was looking at me with the look in his eye like, please help me and I just stood there waiting for him to answer. Neither one of us answered the orthodontist. And that’s a good example of you managing your own anxiety in the moment. And that’s one example of the overall non-enabling strategy that you guys implemented over time.
Could you comment a little bit more on that, George? Sure. You know, I mean, Karen is right in what she was saying as far as, you know, wanting to help her kid and, you know, hold him and coddle him and get him through all of the, all of the times that he got stuck. You know, and my style was a little too brazen in the fact that, you know, I was more of the snap out of it kid kind of approach without really coaching him on how he’s feeling about it and really talking to him about what he’s going on and what he’s thinking about when he’s in these moments. So, you know, it was hard for me to get to the point of, you know, talking to him and talking him through his emotions about what he’s feeling at that time.
You know, and, you know, quite honestly, I mean, from, you know, a marriage standpoint, I mean, there was a lot of strife as far as, you know, the different styles and the approaches and, you know, that kind of stressed us out a little bit. Certainly with, you know, the medicine and, you know, the therapy, we were able to get on the same page and, you know, work together to get him to this point. And there was, you know, there was a lot of coaching going on through it. I mean, setting up scenarios where, you know, he was forced to talk, which for, from a parent standpoint, put anxiety upon us because we know it’s a moment that’s going to cause stress in the adults, but certainly in the child. But it was something that, you know, we had to do.
Okay. There’s two more issues that I would like to touch on before I speak to Tyler. Now what we did was we waited until the expectations were restructured for Tyler. This is very important because this is what most, it doesn’t happen in most clinical scenarios. In your case, you guys went the distance first in learning what the issue was and learning how not to enable, and we worked on identifying thoughts and feelings before we integrated the medicine into the treatment plan. So Tyler had a different set of expectations. He was learning that he had to try. That’s the operative word here before the medicine was introduced.
Right. What did you see the medicine doing? Well, I mean, you know, from my standpoint, I mean, the medicine, you know, I think after he really understood what the expectations were and what he was, you know, ultimately going to be responsible for. The medicine, you know, took that edge off and got him to a point where he was able to do it. But again, you know, medicine without the therapy is not going to do it. And I think that, you know, the medicine just helped and it was an adjunct to really all of the parenting that was going on. Right. He used to verbalize to me when I would ask him when he was put into a situation, you know, and I would ask him if he felt different with the medicine in that same situation.
And he would tell me that he definitely felt that he felt less nervous, you know, and less anxious where before he would have been completely almost immobilized. He said that he did feel like he was less anxious overall. And I believe he’s off the medicine now for about 10, 12 months, right? Yes. Yeah. And he’s doing great. One of the very, very complicated issues for selective mutism is the integration of school into the overall treatment process. In your case, it was really a positive experience to school psychologists really worked very well and you had a 504 plan in place and it was really carried through in a very productive manner. Can you comment on this a little bit?
Yeah. I mean, the school, again, you know, just from a school standpoint, the school was enabling him as well. I mean, they felt terrible for him. They saw his face turn red when he was called upon. They said it was okay, you don’t have to answer. And it was really, you know, both Karen and I with Tyler because he would come to the meetings talking to all of the professionals about what he’s got and getting them on the same page, getting them to understand, don’t enable him, you know, wait out the five minutes for him to give an answer as uncomfortable as it might be. And they were really willing and they were happy to help.
And but it was a lot of communication with the school. I know the communication had ongoing email traffic with you, John. And you know, it was just a real comprehensive team approach. Right. But the whole, the whole, the whole question it was that we had a 504. So that 504 plan, the school had to follow. So no matter what, you know, whatever plan and whatever we set up with you, John, we got it in writing and the teachers, because it was a formalized plan, the teachers really had to kind of follow through. And I know there were a couple instances where the teacher, a couple of the teachers didn’t send their papers and they were in commenting. And with that 504 plan, I was able to call and speak to the person who was in charge of it and say, you know, this is what we’re finding.
You need to talk to the teacher because they’re not following, you know, his state mandated 504 plan. Very good. Last question for you guys. What advice would you have for parents who are in a similar situation? What advice would I have? You know, I… Yeah, you’re the role model here. I mean, as I think that you need to really put everything into it to try and help your child. And if that means, you know, placing them on medicine that may make their nervousness go away so that they can try to get over it, whatever you have to do, you have to do to allow your child to try to have a positive life.
And you know, I think that total commitment in the non-enabling approach and the total commitment following up with your feelings, talking about the feelings, if you were anxious, you know, and identifying all that has helped me actually understand what he was going through, too. I had no idea what he was… That he was actually struggling so much. George, you want to add anything? I agree with Kar. And I think that, you know, for parents who might be listening to this, it’s really about knowing that this is not normal. It’s not just the kid being shy. It’s not the kid just being a little introverted.
It really is a raging anxiety that’s going on in this child’s mind continuously and obsessing over, am I going to get called on in class? Where should I sit? All of those things. And it’s really, you know, for parents to understand that it’s not just isolated to a classroom, that it’s really pervasive. It’s every waking moment of the kid’s life and really understand it and understand that if it’s every waking moment of the kid’s life, then it’s every waking moment for the parents to help the kid. This was excellent. Thank you very much. Hello. Hi. Hi. Remember me? Yeah. I’m asking. It’s all right. Well, tell me about it a little bit. Uh-huh.
I don’t know. I haven’t been able to play it. There’s just no on the ground. I know. But how were you doing last season? Um, okay, I guess. What were you shooting? Um, like low 40s on 9 and like mid 80s. Pretty impressive. So what number on the team are you currently? It was like 5. Oh, that’s excellent. Now, I want to ask you just a couple of important questions. Do you remember when you had the problem? Um, a little bit. Tyler, what you say right now can help a lot of people, okay? Can you just, in whatever words you want to use, can you describe how you are different now than you were a couple of years ago when I first met you?
Um. Well, I feel like I have, like, I can do more things in school. Like if I have a problem, like I am able to ask someone, um, like, uh, like I feel more free in school. Like I’m not held back by it anymore. That’s a very important work. Just talk about feeling more free for a moment. Like when I added all this, like, like you are restricted with like certain things because you can’t ask if you have a problem or like if there’s a question about something you can’t but like, like being more free, like, I feel like I have enough confidence to ask if you can’t.
That’s excellent. Here’s a very important question. This might be one of the most important questions you were ever asked. There, as I told your parents, there are not any, I don’t know of any examples anywhere where somebody your age talks about how they resolve the problem. What advice would you give to someone your age who has the problem that you had? You just have to push yourself and be motivated. But it was hard to push yourself sometimes, right? Now, so what happened was your parents started to do some major changes, right? Yes. They started non-enabling. Do you know what that word means? Uh, like they didn’t help me out in tough situations. How did you feel about that?
Um, I was nervous at first, but like I had to push myself far enough to get past this and succeed. Did you ever get angry with what they would do? Uh, sometimes inside I was angry because I was used to it, but I know I needed to go through with everything. Like get rid of the problem. And when the teachers started calling on you in class instead of just accepting non-verbal behavior, how did you feel about that? Um, I was, uh, I mean I was nervous because like I know people would say stuff like, oh he doesn’t talk, but like after a while, like I kind of got tired of it and I know I needed to like, I know I needed to change and like, um, just show everybody that I could do it.
Okay, one last question. One of the hardest things for you was after you had been making progress outside of school because of what your parents were doing and the medicine was helping and even though you said a lot, I don’t know what the medicine is doing. I think, you know, it really did help, you know, for a time period. There was the moment that you had to break the ice in school for the first time and you had to use your words for the first time and you were really, really afraid of doing that. How did you get through that moment? Um, I just knew that I needed to do it and like, I was really nervous but I knew that if like, I didn’t do it, I wouldn’t, I could stay like this and um, like it could affect things like it was affecting my grades because participation, I wasn’t getting any grades in it and it was lowering my grades and it could like affect me through the rest of my life. Tyler, thank you very much for sharing. You’re welcome.
