Children tease each other for many different reasons. A child who is taller than the others is sometimes teased. The same may happen to a child who is very short.

You may be teased about a big nose or giant ears. About being sick a lot or about not running fast. About having red hair or about being slow at math. About not wearing the right clothes or about not having a bicycle.

It is pretty normal for children to tease each other sometimes. But if you happen to want a bicycle very much and--on top of that--are teased about not owning one, the teasing really hurts. It is the same with stuttering. When you feel bad about it yourself, it really hurts to be teased about it.

When you are being teased, you can go to the teacher to make it stop, or you can tell your mom and dad and ask them to help you. But you can also do something quite different and tease back. You can always think of something.

I personally think 9-year-old Mark found the best solution. Every time he gets teased he just grins and says, "Come back when you can stutter better than I do." The children stopped teasing him right away!

Excerpt from the book Sometimes I Just Stutter by Eelco de Geus.

Copyright 2007 by Stuttering Foundation of America