Thanks everyone - appreciate your comments. Everyone has their hurdles to overcome in life and the things that make them different so for me the most important thing is for this to not negatively affect his self-esteem and make him retreat inside himself (so far so good); we had a few kids from his class over this evening (a group of 4 kids + him that he isn't normally friends with) and the interaction between them was great to see - even with his (mild) stutter he doesn't hold back saying what he wants and he had a great time... the only real stutter I heard was when he was reading a fortune cookie message So interesting that him stuttering much more around his parents as opposed to other people isn't an anomaly - I've suggested reading out loud more and he sounded happy with the idea, so I'll set aside time to do that with him to make it into an activity - maybe reading a story to his little brother or sister would be a good place to start. This is a very helpful group and it's great to see such a support network and great advice given