I’m a speech-language pathologist, and I’ve been teaching kids and adults communication skills for a decade.
I support kids who stutter or have lisps as well as students with autism who are considered “nonverbal” — or show limited use of their words. I’ve also worked with teens and adults who had a stroke or traumatic brain injury. Sometimes, these experiences cause us to lose the capacity to understand or express language.
Over the years, I have adopted one simple strategy for my personal life. It works across age groups when I’m on the job, and it has helped me avoid hundreds of arguments or unwanted conversations.
It’s all about pausing, intentionally.
Use pauses strategically
In clinical speech therapy, we use strategic pauses throughout a session with a client. This is similar to resting between physical therapy exercises. When we are teaching people how to use their speech sounds (like saying words that end with “s” without a lisp) or helping them increase their vocabulary, it’s helpful to let the mind rest in between sets.
I often work with family members of patients who struggle to find words due to diagnoses like aphasia or childhood language disorders. I coach families to pause during a conversation, giving their loved one a little extra time to find their words. These pauses can be “unfilled” (silent) or “filled” with something like the word “um” or a physical action (like touching your nose or even dancing).
If you think about it, we use pauses strategically in regular social conversations all the time. We often pause silently or perform a physical action, such as tapping or taking a deep breath.
I use these pauses in my personal life too
I’ve personally adapted the therapeutic pause for casual use: What I call the “fun, filled pause” fits in almost any situation imaginable.
In my personal life, I use “filled” differently than I do when I’m wearing my SLP hat. As in, fill your mouth with a snack, gum, or a lollipop to keep yourself from responding before you’re ready. This allows you to sit with whatever the other person has said or give them time to metaphorically digest what you want them to hear.
My fun, filled pause helps me the most with parenting. I’ve got three kids who are in the double digits. When my daughter narrates a wild preteen drama or my son begs me for a super-expensive video game out of nowhere, focusing on the gum I’m constantly chewing has saved me from externalizing my knee-jerk reactions, and we’re all better for it.
The trick is to focus a small part of your attention on the movement of your jaw and tongue, the taste of the gum, lollipop, or mint, and how it moves through your mouth. If your attention is centered on these small sensations, it gives your mind — and communication partner — a break. With my kids, I can reason through different parenting strategies once I’ve given myself a wider space between what they said and my own reaction.
This is great at work, too, especially when I know I’m about to enter a tricky meeting where I want to honor others’ big feelings while also ensuring I thoughtfully respond. When I’m out and about, I keep lollipops and mints on hand to remind me to slow down and wait a beat before responding.
I’m not suggesting that you constantly snack, take constant disruptive breaks, or use pauses as an excuse to avoid a difficult conversation. For my part, keeping my mouth busy helps me stay present and chill when something surprising, weird, or challenging comes up in conversation.
Whether pausing relaxes your mind or strengthens your thinking, it’s a fun, easy strategy to try nearly anywhere in your life — as long as you do it mindfully.
