Dear parents of children with cleft palate, unfortunately your child has a congenital cleft palate, a condition that if not treated surgically will almost certainly have the consequence of a lifetime of unclear speech. Some parents may be afraid that their child is too young, that the surgery will be dangerous, or that it will leave a shadow on their child’s mind. All surgeries have certain risks. Cleft palate surgery is a routine surgery with relatively small risks. Without surgery, it is almost impossible to speak clearly. I know that your heart aches for your child and you are afraid that your child will suffer and be in pain, I am also a father and can fully understand your feelings. However, I think you should think about it this way: it is for your child’s future good to suffer and pain now; if he or she cannot speak clearly, how will he or she face the complicated society and survive in the future? Cleft palate surgery has now been advocated before the child learns to speak, or at least when he or she first starts to learn to speak, and the surgery age should be around 1 year old, at least before 1.5 years old. In fact, any child has no memory until the age of 3 or 4. Parents, can any of you remember anything before you were 3 years old? If the surgery is done too late, the child will already be speaking quite a bit, and certainly because of the cleft palate, many words will be pronounced incorrectly and there will be some degree of poor pronunciation habits, all of which need to be corrected as early as possible or it will be hard to tell. Why don’t we get the child operated earlier when possible? It would be a lot easier for parents in terms of phonological training too!