TinyStepper
Boy sitting cross-legged on a teal cushion blowing a pinwheel with fairy lights above

Ten Minutes With Me

A daily ten-minute slot of completely undivided attention where your child leads — no phone, no questions, no agenda — just slow, calm presence with the speech your child wants to make.

Activity details

2y–4y10 minslowindoorNo prep

Instructions

Get ready
  • Pick a fixed time each day — after breakfast, before bed — and protect it.
  • Tell your child: 'This is our special talking time. Ten minutes, just for you.'
  1. Pick a fixed time each day — after breakfast, before bed — and protect it.
  2. Tell your child: 'This is our special talking time. Ten minutes, just for you.'
  3. Put your phone in another room.
  4. Sit on the floor at your child's level. Let them choose what to play with.
  5. Speak slowly when you do speak. Use comments, not questions.
  6. When your child speaks, wait until they finish. Then pause. Then respond slowly.
  7. Don't praise the way they're speaking — praise what they're doing or thinking.
  8. End with a warm goodbye to the slot: 'That was our talking time. Same time tomorrow.'

Parent tip

Start before you overthink it. No-prep activities work best when you begin while the moment is still recoverable.

Relaxed child lying on a floor cushion with blanket and pinwheel in a cosy calm corner

What success looks like

A few quiet minutes together without pressure. If your child relaxes even slightly, that’s self-regulation building.

Set aside ten minutes every day where you give your child your complete attention. They lead. You follow. You speak slowly, you pause often, and you don't ask questions. The whole point is to remove every demand from the slot — no instruction, no correction, no test — so the child experiences talking as a place of pure connection. Children who stutter heal fastest in environments where they get this kind of regular pressure-free contact.

Why it helps

NHS stammering guidance is built around the principle that fluency improves in environments where the child feels relaxed and confident about talking. The Stuttering Foundation translates this into a specific daily practice: protected minutes of undivided attention where the child leads and the adult uses slow, calm, relaxed speech with plenty of pauses. This is the closest thing the early-disfluency literature has to a single most-effective intervention, because it teaches the child's nervous system that talking is safe, unhurried, and unconditionally welcomed.

Variations

  • Make the slot a fixed bedtime ritual so the calm contact is the last thing of the day.
  • Use the slot in the bath when your child is naturally relaxed and chatty.
  • If the day has been overwhelming, do the slot earlier to reset rather than waiting for evening.

Safety tips

  • Don't skip the slot on busy days — even five minutes is better than zero.
  • Resist the urge to use the slot for reading — child-led play creates more spontaneous talking opportunities than a book does.
  • Avoid praising fluency directly ('that was so smooth!') — it makes the child self-conscious.

Want to try another?

Holding Hours With Mum

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