To your mum or at school . Or its the same . You see this fear overcome her. Shes not talking to anybody in school. Its affected her whole life. Its been very, very difficult. The only way to get over selective mutism is to confront it. And to confront the situations that make us anxious. Part of you is telling yourself to go and do it but then you say you cant. I felt like this week is make or break it. We need this right now and we need it to be successful. I want their lives to change from it. So there is always a part of me thats worried that their lives are not going to change enough. Welcome to we speak cheering. All of you guys are here because in one way or another, anxiety is impacting your life. Selective mutism is an anxiety disorder where kids have difficulty talking in certain situations, so they look like normal kids at home and when they are in a state of anxiety, then theyjust kind of shut down and freeze. And are unable to respond. A lot of them cant actually ask to go to the bathroom. Ive seen, actually, older kids who have had accidents in school. So, for a shy kid, they are slow to warm up, but this is not the case with kids with sm. In fact, its actually the opposite. So for kids with sm, the longer that they go without talking, then the harder it is to start talking. Weve got to work for our prizes. Annalisa is very funny. I wish people could see that, you know . She is, at home, a typical teenager. But then, when she leaves the house, everything changes. Is your name annalisa, lexi or shelley . There is a physical transformation that comes about. Its so difficult to watch. Because you see this fear overcome her, but they want to be invisible. Is it easier to talk to your mom or at school . She has had selective mutism basically her whole life. Diagnosed at the age of five. I went home and googled it. And then cried. Because. Sorry. Because i realised she was different and it wasnt just shyness. And its affected her whole life. Its very, very difficult. Im hoping that shell be able to lead a normal life. Get married, have children, have a job, go to college. But a lot of that hangs in the balance over will she be able to talk . Do we conquer anxiety by doing the thing that makes us anxious . The cause of selective mutism is kind of a combination of environment and genetics. Theres often one or both parents who also have a history of anxiety. And parents, theyll kind ofjump in and either answer for the child or they might say, its ok, honey, you dont need to answer. So through that process, the child is actually learning to avoid the situations that make them anxious. Until it really becomes an ingrained pattern. What is your name . 0k, can we try saying it a little bit louder . Breanna. Breanna . 0k. And where do you live . Vancouver. In vancouver . We have each of the kids make a video in advance and send it to us. For many of them, you wouldnt even know that they have selective mutism from the video. Hi, im bran. I live on a farm. Who do you find it easiest to talk to . Your parents . At home, with us, she is quite outgoing. And very chatty. I guess from the age of three, it was a pivotal moment. We just thought it was a typical case of her being shy. Do you like homework . Well, it depends. Sometimes i do, sometimes i dont. She actually stepped off into this pond. And most kids would have splashed, kicked, gone crazy. She sank. It was only two feet deep. It was only knee deep but she just froze and lay there at the bottom. So we started to think, 0k, she cant keep yourself safe. What do you want to be when you grow up . Be a vet, a veterinarian . Yeah . Each day you are going to playjenga forjust 15 minutes in the beginning. In another small step. So, on video games, you can tell your parents, excuse me, im just trying to learn problem solving skills here. James talks to me and his dad and his brother and my parents. Thats really it. Nobody at school. Lets jump out its very hard. At points you feel angry because you dont know how to help him and when there is no help out there and no one knows what to do and the teachers think he is just defiant and just doesnt want to speak and you know its not true. I feel like this week is make or break it. I dont want to say our last chance because i would hate to say that. But i really do think we need this right now and we need it to be successful. Chelsea is going to ask you the question as yes or no. Make sense to you . Hand down. Yes, beautiful. Every kids presentation is completely different. We also have kids in there who are very comfortable talking to adults and then with peers, you see a different child. 30 seconds, go, go, go not yet, no toppings yet, just flavours is it harder to talk to family or at school . At school. Is it harder to talk to the kids at school or teachers . The kids. Emilys talking at school and doing what she needs to do to get through the day. But shes not herself at school. Theres a lot of personality that isnt really shining through. Its raining its pouring shes only doing the bare minimum so she answers questions if people ask her, she doesnt initiate conversations. Its like a lump in your throat and part of you is telling yourself to go and do it but part of you is saying you cant. Its hard to. Sometimes i actually cant do it. I think my biggest fear in all of these is that theyre not going to get out of it what i am hoping for them. Its a lot that parents are investing in. I want their lives to change. What is it . Red hot chilli peppers pretty Good Team Name we are about to go do a Scavenger Hunt at a local market and the kids are going to be asking employees where different ingredients are. I remember when i used to go Grocery Shopping. Yes, do you like to go Grocery Shopping . You say, yes, i like to go Grocery Shopping. It can be really hard for these kids to do a normal thing like going into a Grocery Store because its an unexpected place. A normal compliment could be really anxiety inducing because theyre like, ok, now im expected to respond. Here, i am an employee that works here, im just loading some cookies onto a shelf. And then you ask. Where are the jalapenos . Awesomejob so, for annalisa, currently at one word responses, i can feed her a line of, like, you could ask me this, and then she will ask me that back. But no spontaneous utterances thus far. I had sm when i was a kid. I really relate to these kids on so many levels so its hard for me sometimes to push them too far because i know exactly how theyre feeling. You can ask the question here. In the produce aisle, awesome. Greatjob asking, that was so awesome and clear. Thank you very much. Was it harder or easier to ask the question to the clerk or to practice with me . Did it feel a little scary or really scary . You dont know. Was it. Answer if it was easy or hard. It is a challenge to accept madison because she thinks somebody isnt doing what they should be doing. Meeting parents that are also dealing with selective mutism has been almost like life changing for me. Its just great to hear other people say that these are the same struggles. Their child cant get up to go to the bathroom, their child does this or that, that changed us. It just makes you feel better to hear that youre not crazy. You may not know how to ask about the facts and side effects. Well, thats really what treatment is about, its about practising things that make us anxious. Really, the kids at this stage, they dont really know why theyre scared of talking to other people. I couldnt tell you what i was afraid of when i was five and i think most of these kids dont really know that the only way to get over selective mutism is to confront it and confront the situations that make us anxious. What i said was either sit down. Sometimes i ask parents to write letters to the kids. Because they dont have to deal with the interpersonal stuff, they can read it and reread it. People say, whats the Research Evidence for this . Were not quite there to be able to say, you can take to the bank, this is going to work. But we are confident about tweaking the programme to make it work. For us, its getting the parents to do what we do. Thats our challenge. So i dont think of this week as the therapy, i think of it as teaching the therapist how to do the therapy. And its very daunting because there is this turning point when they realise, oh, so im literally going to have to do this every day or every week . And the answer is, yes, relentlessly. This afternoon, our group is going to battery park, so all of the kids will be communicating with each other and with someone else out in the community. So this should be exciting if you eventually ask, then he will probably say no. So just say, lets ask. As a mum, to seejames struggling, its hard. Its very stressful and produces great anxiety in me because were watching this child who i know can talk and i know he wants to talk and he just cant get it out. Ive asked before, where are your words . Why cant you get your words out . And he will say theyre stuck in my head. I cant get it out. When his words get stuck in his head, my anxiety level really does increase and ifeel like i want to grab him and hug him and make it all better. One, two, three. Great job do you ever worry that its too much . The treatment for anxious kids is putting them in situations that make them anxious and actually facing theirfears. We need them to actually experience the anxiety in these situations and get through it for them to see that they can. What is that . Statue of liberty, yeah weve got a question, we are looking for south street seaport. You see a kid like breanna, who wants to be around other kids and you can just see them wanting to talk and wanting to build that relationship. Great, one more time . Have you been here before . No. Go ahead and ask. Ask a little bit louder. Whats your favourite colour . Obviously, we would love to get her out of her whisper but the whisper is really secondary. The first step is just getting them talking and expanding their talking to other situations and other people. We would love forjames to have just a friend to talk to. He cant go through life alone. So hopefully he can find one person to play with and one person to speak to. I cant imagine going through life and not having a friend. You want to try to do. I make a statement and you guys ask Something Back to me and then back to you. A lot of these kids just really cant have a simple conversation with another peer. And so the last couple of days is going to be a lot of work around that. If were hanging out and i say. I cant wait for my vacation in a couple of weeks. Talk about what you guys would say or ask back to me. I want to learn how to go up to people because sometimes i want more friends than i have. I prefer to be inside because its more peaceful. Why do you prefer to be inside . I like to watch tv and stay inside. When was the last time you had a conversation like that, with two people that you dont really know . Its been a while how long is a while . A couple of years. Do you want to stay in touch with emily after we speak . Yeah. What did you do that was really cool . I hung out with other kids. You hung out with other kids outside of we speak. And this was for the partner project. Annalisa blows me away. You know how anxious she is, you know what its like for her and she was just up there in front of an entire class. Did you guys go to the museum with your parents or without your parents . Without. Without your parents. Did you guys talk in the museum or were you silent . We talked about the flavours on the high line. We then talked about the flavours we love. Everyone could hear her and she answered everyones questions. Applause. You become very attached to them. You become very invested in them. And once you start to see them make progress, you want to keep going with them. Every one of them, just work and try new things and face their fears. Annalisa. Applause. Im so lucky to get to hang out with her. We made a million bracelets together annalisa, i dont believe talks to anybody in school. So if she is able to start the new school year able to raise her hand and say here, then the kids in the class know that she can talk. That would be the first time the kids in the class ever hear her voice. That is massive progress. I have to say, when i saw her little presentation, it almost brought tears to my eyes. I was very happy. I know that shes going to work really hard and im very confident that going forward, this is a new chapter in her life. Emily. Applause. I am proudest of her today for helping to facilitate conversation. How would you feel if i told you that emily today kind of lead a conversation in front of the other girls . I am surprised and thrilled. Hopefully it means she realises that she can do it and that she can go back to school and have conversations. Dont act like you didnt do it, take credit for it how does that feel, having done that today . It feels good. And exciting. This is not a cure for these kids. This is the start of theirjourney to overcome and challenge their sm. What would it be like if everyone could hear you talking out loud . I dont know. I think shell probably start by texting, which is great. Shes never done that, either. It seems minor but its a big deal shake hands amazing we were being fully engaged and playing monopoly. James mum actually emailed me last night and she said thatjames and breanna were emailing each other back and forth last night. Several exchanges about their shared interests. So this is it, this is what its all about. I never thought that james would be able to stand up at the end. Just even standing in front of 20 parents and getting a certificate, not speaking. I mean, that was impressive. I was concerned that he might not speak. It does look like they are tiny steps, but in reality forjames, they are huge, enormous, great leaps. Hello there. If youve been tempted to shed the thickest of your winter garments this weekend with slightly higher temperatures, dont put them too far away. Youll need those extra layers again by the end of this forecast period. Cold air not too far away, but at the moment we are bringing in this milder air from the atlantic. Its certainly no heatwave, but it has brought some slightly higher temperatures already. A little ridge of High Pressure bringing in the westerly or north westerly winds. Underneath this high we do have one wriggling weather front, making for a cloudy and a damp start to sunday across southern parts of england and south wales. Quite misty and murky as well. Things here will brighten up through the day. Another finger of cloud across parts of northern ireland, south west scotland into wales and the south west. A few spots of rain along this. Elsewhere, a fair amount of sunshine on sunday. Quite chilly up to the north east but not as cold as it has been, and down to the south west we are looking at double digit temperatures. For many, its been a while since weve seen that. During sunday night, our area of High Pressure still trying to build its way in from the west. Its going to push this frontal system through. We start monday morning on a largely dry note. There will be some spells of sunshine through the day. Generally large amounts of cloud. And in Western Areas that cloud will produce some outbreaks of patchy rain. Further east is where you have the best chance of seeing some sunshine. Those temperatures still not doing too badly, certainly relative to what weve had recently. Eight, nine, 10 degrees. Here is our little ridge of High Pressure as we move out of monday into tuesday. The high drifts eastwards, as these frontal systems start to squeeze in from the west the isobars squeeze together. The winds are going to start to pick up during tuesday, particularly up towards the north west. Well see a lot of cloud, some outbreaks of patchy rain in northern and Western Areas. The best chance of any brightness towards the east with temperatures of 7 10 degrees. During tuesday night into wednesday, this weather front gets stuck, we suspect across scotland. Well see rain continuing to feed into the north west of scotland and increasingly strong winds. As we go on through the day on wednesday, rain will spread into other northern and Western Areas. With the rain and strong winds, we could see gales at times. Those winds coming from the south west so still pumping up some mild airfor the time being. That is the precursor to this pretty deep area of low pressure swinging through, through wednesday night into thursday. Strong winds, heavy rain and then on the back edge of that system we start to get back into the cold air. There could even be some snow on the back edge of that rain band over hills in the north. Certainly the showers in the north turning to snow, potentially even to fairly low levels as we get deeper into thursday. As we move through friday into next weekend, this is the setup. Low pressure to the east, High Pressure to the west. Follow the white lines of the isobars all the way up to the north, we tap in once again to that cold arctic air which is going to sweep its way southwards across the country. There will be some showers. Some of the showers will be wintry, some spells of sunshine as well. Through the latter part of the weekend and into the following week, there is a chance we could bring frontal systems or areas of low pressure in from the north west. If that happens well see some rain and strong winds, but with things generally cold as we had through the weekend and beyond, there certainly is the potential for some snow, particularly in the north. Keep those winter warmers close at hand. You may need them again as we head through the next ten days