Dad Pushes Through His Stutter To Read His Daughter A Bedtime Story

A Special Forces veteran faces his toughest battle yet with help from his daughter

Lance Lambert was a paratrooper in the special forces but it’s the battle he’s facing at home – reading to his daughter while suffering from a severe stutter – that scares him the most.

The Today Show featured Lance’s story, in which he relays the details of his stutter and his attempt to power through it and read bedtime stories to his beloved 6-year-old daughter.

Lambert recently recorded himself reading Aladdin to his daughter Avery, who clearly worships her heroic dad (even kissing him on the cheek while he fights through words), and shared the video on Facebook. It takes him eleven minutes, and by the time he’s finished powering through, his daughter has fallen asleep on the bed behind him.

“Someone had mentioned that my speech wasn’t that bad. I made a comment that I can’t even read my daughter’s bedtime story without having issues,” Lambert said. “So I posted the bedtime story video and said, ‘See. This is why I have to read better.’”

“The response was overwhelming from my friends and family, so I put it on YouTube, because I thought it would relate to other people who stutter,” he said.

Lambert has long been in speech therapy, and even the Army attempted to help, but so far, nothing has rid him of his stutter. The best therapy, though, may be the support of his daughter, to whom he’s read Aladdin countless times, despite all the tricky S-words.

“My daughter doesn’t care at all. It’s me who cares. I’ve said to her, ‘I’m sorry you have a dad who stutters,’ and she said, ‘I don’t care, Dad. It’s fine,’ and I started crying — and I don’t cry!” he recalled. “That was a very personal moment for us. It was just really cool.”

For all their brutal honesty, kids also have a tremendous capacity for love and compassion. And even though her father may be a bad-ass soldier who has served two tours in Iraq with the Special Forces, 6-year-old Avery has got her father’s back.

Now, thanks to the courage he showed in sharing his struggle with the world, it’s a fair bet many of us do too.