Identify the nature of your child's
shyness.
Children are shy
in different ways for different reasons. Understanding the nature of your
child's shyness will help you develop a program geared towards your child's
specific needs. Is your child shy in groups? At parties? Meeting new people? In
novel situations? Or, pretty much everywhere? Does your child have trouble
eating in public? Playing with other children? Making phone calls? Or, is your
child only shy when s/he has to make a presentation in front of the class at
school? Knowing the nature of you child's shyness will help you identify the
specific skills your child needs to be more at ease in social situations.
Sometimes,
though, children struggle with more than shyness. There are a number of
conditions that masquerade as, or can lead to, shyness---many of which require
professional attention. Some children struggle with non verbal disabilities or
Asperger’s Syndrome which interfere with their ability to read social cues and
understand how to enter and exit play or answer questions (at an appropriate
level), other children struggle with extreme anxiety, while still others
have difficulty establishing emotional bonds with other people. The
good news is that most of these conditions benefit from supportive structured
environments that emphasize the development of social skills, strategies for anxiety, impulses and the ability to both read and relate to other
people on an emotional level. The specific nature of the social skills and
treatment strategies, however, is likely to vary with your child's needs.
Role model confident social behaviour.
Children learn by
watching the people around them. Parents that means you! With time, your
ability to approach others and put them at ease can help to put your child at
ease, too.
Do . . .
·
Go first in
social situations. Be the first person to say "Hi," to introduce
yourself or to strike up conversations.
·
Make a list
of the kinds of things you would like your child to feel comfortable doing
(e.g., talking with other children, asking for help from store clerks, making
phone calls, etc) and make a point of doing these things in front of your
child.
·
Be friendly.
Routinely smile and greet the people you see as you go through your day.
·
Compliment
others often. Notice what you like about people (friends, family and strangers
alike
·
Make an
effort to help other people when you see they are in need. Open doors for
people, pick things up when people drop them or offer to carry things for
friends.
·
Role model
taking risks and learning from them. Help your children learn by making
positive comments about how you felt while you did things. Things like: "I
thought that would be harder than it was." "That wasn't much fun, but
I'm glad I did it and got it out of the way. At least now I don't have to worry
about it." Or, "That didn't go as well as I thought it would, but at
least I know what to do next time."
Don't . . .
·
Embarrass
your child in public.
·
Criticize
people in public.
·
Berate
yourself for having failed when you try things and they don't turn out the way
you would like.
·
Berate your
children when they make a mistake.
But what if you're shy yourself?
And there's a
good chance you are--an almost 50/50 chance. It's hard to role model socially
confident behavior for your children when you're struggling with shyness yourself.
All you can do is your best.
·
Take
advantage of opportunities to practice being assertive in front of your
children by asking how much longer it will be before you're seated at
restaurants or asking sales clerks how an appliance works.
·
Make an
extra effort to practice social skills with your children at home . There's a
good chance that teaching handshakes, introductions and conversation skills to
your children will enhance your skills as well.
Fortunately, role
modeling social skills for your children--even if they're in the privacy of
your own home-- can help your child improve his/her social skills and is likely
to improve yours, as well.
When it comes to
social skills, the earlier you begin teaching them the better. Arrange play dates for your children when they are
young and seek out safe places for your children to interact with others and
practice social skills as they get older (e.g., volunteer work, tutoring
younger children, clubs and other structured activities with supportive group
leaders).
·
Teach your
children how to enter and exit groups and how to read other people's signals
·
Help your
children understand what it takes to make and keep a good friend.
As shy people, we
tend to worry a lot. We're afraid things won't turn out the way we want them to
and we're crushed if they don't. It's hard for us to see that failure is a
natural part of learning. Instead, we do everything in our power to avoid it
and we kill our creativity in the process.
One of the most
important things you can teach your children is that failure provides the
feedback we need to become good at the things we choose to do.
If at first we
don't succeed, try again. The ability to see our problems as challenges and
failures as feedback---as information about what we need to do
next---strengthens our confidence by reminding us that just because we didn't
succeed at first, doesn't mean we won't succeed in the end. Teach your children
to think creatively. Show them how to brainstorm--how to generate more than one
solution for their problems. Help them come to see themselves as scientists
whose job is to test their solutions until they find the best one. Prepare them
for disappointment, but teach them to persevere until they find an answer that
works.
Build creative problem-solving into
your child's life.
·
Get in the
habit of generating multiple solutions to each problem. Three is usually enough
when you're in a hurry.
·
Refrain from
evaluating solutions until you're finished generating them. Evaluations shut
down the creative process by making people defensive.
·
When
possible, test each solution empirically. Try going home from the store four
different ways to see which is fastest.
·
Reward you
children for trying as much you reward them for succeeding.
Help your child see that life is
process of steps (and risks) of one size our another that - over time - lead to
success.
Your job as a
parent is to monitor and periodically adjust those steps to determine the size
that's best for your child. And, if as a parent you do a really good job, you
may find that, with practice, your child is able to raise the size of his/her
steps to higher and higher levels.
Encourage your children to develop
passions early in life.
Even if they
don't like the first few things they try, the journey will make them richer for
the experience. And don't worry if they find a passion you don't like (assuming
it's not dangerous), most children will grow out things with time. Just know
that the more things your children do in life, the more things they will have
to share with other people and the easier it will be for them to connect. For a
shy child, the ability to connect with another child is one of the greatest gifts
they can receive.
Getting shy children to do things
can be difficult.
If your child
felt comfortable doing things, s/he wouldn't be shy. But because s/he is shy,
odds are your child avoids precisely those things that could help him/her
overcome his/her shyness.
·
Identify
activities that take advantage of your child's strengths. Is your child
athletic? Artistic? Neat and organized? Good at math? Loves to read? Good at
building things? What holds his/her attention? What is least likely to
discourage him/her? And find activities that take advantage of those strengths.
·
If your
child is very shy and unwilling to attend group activities, start with solitary
activities at first - like music lessons, arts and crafts projects out of book.
Then, as your child gains more confidence, arrange opportunities for him/her to
get guidance from other adults and gradually, with time, to share his/her
interest with children his/her own age.
·
Encourage
your child to share his/her expertise with others by performing, teaching, showing
his/her work or simply describing what s/he is doing to others. Many children
benefit from teaching their skill to children who are younger than them.
·
Seek out
activities that offer an opportunity for growth and increased interaction with
children his/her own age or learning to play an musical instrument might start
off as a solitary exercise, but lead to your child's playing in the school
band.
We know that the
more we pay attention to other people's behaviour, the more likely they are to
repeat that behaviour in our presence - independent of whether we like their
behaviour or not. And so it is with
children---the more attention you pay to your child's behaviour, the more
rewards they will derive from it. Unfortunately, that means the comfort you
show your child when s/he is upset may backfire, teaching your children to
show, if not feel, more of the upset you were meaning to squelch.
So, what can a
parent do?
Well, for
starters, don't stop comforting your child! Not only would that be
cruel, but all of us need comfort from time to time, adults and children, as
well. Simply make an effort to evaluate the effects of your comfort on your
child's behaviour to determine when your comfort is helping and when it is
hurting. And, should you decide that some of your comfort hurts, simply shift
the nature of your support from comforting your child to helping him/her learn
to cope.
Seek out opportunities to reward (i.e., praise, pay
attention to) your child's coping efforts no matter how small.
Avoid comforting every little upset your child
experiences.
Suggest solutions and reward your children's efforts.
Encourage your children to find their own solutions to
problems (see teaching creative problem-solving above) and acknowledge their
ability to so.
Let your children work out some of their problems on
their own, even if they are uncomfortable doing it. Keep a watchful eye and
don't intervene unless necessary.
Teach stress management techniques from an early age.
Shy people are
notoriously judgmental, both of themselves and others. The more judgmental you
are as a parent, the more opportunity your children will have to learn to
internalize those judgments even though you may have intended to direct them at
someone else. When shy children overhear you criticising other people's hair,
wardrobe, job, lifestyle or personality, they assume that's what everyone does
criticise others. They learn that going out in public means you will be
continuously judged. What's more, by judging other people harshly, your child
may come to believe that your are judging him/her harshly as well.
Modelling tolerance and respect for
others, despite their shortcomings, teaches children that people don't have to
be perfect to be worthwhile.
·
Teach your
child what is right about people, not just what is wrong.
·
Compliment
others often.
·
When it comes to using criticism around shy children,
remember . . . "less is more!"
It's fair to say that no one
strategy is right for all people at all times.
Not all people,
parents included, understand how shy children feel. They mistake a child's
anxiety for a sign weakness, lack of motivation and intellectual disability to
name just a few. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that shy children are never
lazy or never have intellectual challenges. It's just that most shy children
are just that - children. They want to fit in. They want to belong just like
other children, but their anxiety not their motivation or intellectual
capacity gets in the way.
While many
children outgrow their shyness, many others carry it forward with them into
adulthood. If your child is struggling, particularly if your child is
challenged by a non-verbal learning disability or if you have a history of
anxiety disorders, depression or substance abuse in your family, consider
getting professional help. The right support can help your child's shyness
become just one small blip in the course of his/her development. In many cases,
it will be fine to start your search for help by surfing the web, reading
books, talking with other parents of shy children and/or taking classes. But
should these avenues fail or should you want more immediate help for your
child, it's best to consult a qualified professional who has expertise and is
familiar with resources in this area.
