Shyness Is Often Inborn
Q. My 7-year-old has always been extremely shy. Even as an infant, she seemed extremely sensitive to new situations and new people.
Her teacher recently expressed concern about her shyness and said it might be the result of low self-esteem. She then ventured that Sandra possibly didn’t feel as loved or wanted as our other children, and that my husband and I had unrealistically high expectations of her.
It’s true that we insist upon appropriate behavior from our children, and that her lack of assertiveness results in the other children sometimes taking advantage of her - a situation we correct when we become aware of it - but the suggestion that we’ve damaged her psychologically was very upsetting.
A. I’m sure Sandra’s teacher is very well-intentioned. However, she is equally misinformed. The latest and best body of evidence strongly suggests that shyness is an inborn temperamental trait.
Researchers at Harvard University have found that children who are timid during infancy and toddlerhood tend also to be socially inhibited at age 7. They estimate that 15 percent of children - significantly more girls than boys - are born shy.
Those researchers also discovered that over time, however, many children seem to “outgrow” shyness. The author of the study, psychologist Jerome Kagan, writes, “For every 10 children who are extremely shy in the second year of life, only five will be shy in kindergarten and first grade; by adolescence, only three. By their 20s, only one or two will still be very shy. …”
The best “medicine” for shyness is parents who are gently encouraging, supportive and who themselves are not inhibited. It goes without saying that criticism of an inhibited child is likely to make matters worse, as will a lot of parental anxiety concerning the child’s social reticence.
Of particular interest is the finding that inhibited children, both as infants and at age 7, tend to have faster heart rates. In other words, these children seem to be in a relatively high state of arousal from infancy onward, as if they are in an almost constant state of stress. As a result, they have more difficulty adjusting to unexpected changes in the environment - the sudden appearance of a guest in the home, for example - and new situations, such as when first introduced to a group-care situation.
In some cases - a small minority, it seems - children become inhibited as the result of some overwhelming environmental trauma.
The significance of the studies under discussion, however, is that they seem to point toward concluding that more often than not, children are born shy.
The long and short of all this is that your daughter’s shyness is, in all likelihood, inborn rather than the result of your expectations or your discipline. My best advice to you is to encourage her to try new things, but don’t push too hard. In the final analysis, she’s going to emerge from her “shell” when she’s ready, and not before. In addition, Sandra’s teacher needs to stop being so concerned about her mental health and focus on positive ways of coaxing her out of hiding.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Rosemond Charlotte Observer