No mother or father can understand their child's disorder without having read these Chapters. To fail to understand is to multiply the chance for error in deciding what to do. Therefore, I repeat, if you are the mother or father of a boy or girl who stammers, read chapters on Child Stammering before you go further. There are three mistaken beliefs in the minds of many parents of stammering children which must be rooted out before the child will have an opportunity to be cured of his trouble. These beliefs are: 1--That the child will outgrow his trouble and therefore need only be permitted to "grow older," at which tune the trouble will disappear. 2--That the child could stop stammering if he would try--that the trouble is but a malicious habit of the child's, which he could put away from him if he would. 3--That the child's trouble is incurable and that nothing can be done for him. All of these beliefs are entirely fallacious and based purely upon ignorance of the cause and progress of the child's trouble. There is not the slightest scientific foundation for them, they are not beliefs based on facts or upon experience--yet in many homes, they constitute the chief obstacle between the stammering child and his complete and permanent cure. As long as you believe that your child will out-grow his or her trouble, you take no steps to have the disorder eradicated. What happens? The trouble becomes worse from month to month and from year to year, until in many cases where the "outgrowing belief" persists, the trouble passes into a chronic and incurable stage and the stammering child becomes the stammering man or woman, condemned to go through life under a handicap almost too great to bear. Write it on your heart that your child will not outgrow his trouble. Ponder over the information given in the Chapters on Child Stammering. This is not hearsay or guess-work but facts gleaned from a lifetime of experience. If you, as the father or mother of a stammering child, cling to the second belief, that your child could stop stammering if he would try, then I can see from this distance that your child has stored up for him in the future, more than his due of misery. For as long as you believe that he can stop of his own free will, you will be impatient with him when he stammers. You will scold him and tell him to "stop that kind of talking!" Thus you will irritate him, and bring to his heart that sickening sensation that he is totally helpless in the grip of his speech disorder and yet--"Oh, why will they not understand?" Like the first belief, this belief that the child could stop if he wanted to, is based upon ignorance. No mother or father who has ever experienced the sensation of fear that grips the heart of the stammering child when he tries to speak, will say that he could stop if he would.