What to do if your child is shy

Nowadays, a child’s personality is influenced by innate factors, and is also related to the training provided by their parents since childhood. Some children are naturally extroverted and can communicate happily with strangers. But some children are more timid and shy. When they meet strangers, they will hide behind their parents and usually dare not talk much. This is very bad for the development of children's character. So, what should we do if our children are shy?

1. Incorrect education by parents

As mentioned earlier, timidity and shyness are natural behaviors of children to protect themselves. As they grow older and have more contact with the outside world, timid and shy behaviors will become less and less. However, some parents do not understand this and treat their children's timidity and shyness as a big shortcoming. They are eager to correct it, but with inappropriate methods. They often remind their children in front of others and some even force their children to express themselves in front of strangers. When the children refuse to express themselves, in order to save face, they say in front of others that the children are timid and shy. This will not only fail to correct the child's timidity and shyness, but will aggravate the child's inner experience and make the child even more timid and shy.

Case 1: 4-year-old Feifei is a timid and shy child. One day she went out with her mother and met a friend of her mother. While her mother was chatting with her friends, Feifei hid timidly behind her mother, lowering her head and sucking her thumb. Mom said, "Fei Fei, this is Aunt Ding, say hello to Aunt Ding." Fei Fei just looked up at Aunt Ding, then lowered her head and continued to suck her fingers. Mom tried to coax Feifei over, but Feifei just shook her head. The mother felt embarrassed, but she couldn't show it in front of her friends, so she had to apologize to her friends and said, "Feifei is a timid child. I think she is embarrassed." (Excerpt from "Parents' World")

What her mother said undoubtedly reinforced Feifei's timidity and shyness.

Some parents also threaten their children at every turn in order to make them quiet and obedient. Some use police officers to scare children, and say to them: “If you don’t listen, the police will take you away!” Some even tell stories about ghosts and monsters to scare children, and threaten them, “If you don’t listen, the old ghost will come to catch you!” Over time, this will make children timid, and they will also be afraid of light, darkness, being alone, strangers, crowds, and small animals.

For these situations, parents should learn lessons and change the bad habit of pointing out their children's shortcomings in front of others and scaring their children. For those who have already suffered emotional damage, we should try to tell them some positive messages to eliminate the negative impact. Explain the true nature of things to children so that they can have a multi-faceted understanding of things and eliminate their fear. You can also tell your children stories about heroes and encourage them to face everything bravely and actively explore the unknown. In addition, in life, let children stay away from aggressive animals and scary things such as strong winds, thunder and lightning, and do not let children walk alone at night. For some things that are difficult to avoid, an adult should be present when you first come into contact with them, and you should proceed step by step, from far to near, from the surface to the depth.

Generally speaking, through the above measures, children will become more and more courageous. It is not advisable for some parents to force their children to come into contact with scary things in order to train their courage. This will only make the children more timid.

2. Infants and young children have less contact with the outside world

Most of the timid and shy children we see are those who were raised by their grandparents during their infancy and who seldom meet strangers or play with other children. We also see that children who grow up on school campuses are generally bolder and more open-minded. Therefore, the best way to correct such children's timidity and shyness is to bring them to interact with outsiders more often, let them see more of the world, let them play with other children more often, let them participate in more group activities, and let them perform their specialties in front of everyone.

3. The influence of children's inferiority complex

Some children tend to lack confidence in themselves, make a low assessment of their abilities in learning and other areas, and are cautious in doing things. The cognitive bias develops into an inferiority complex, which manifests itself externally as timidity, shyness, loneliness, and silence.

In this situation, parents should try their best to discover their children's strengths and shining points, and praise them intentionally but pretending to be unintentional (note that if you praise them directly, the children will think you are intentionally training them, and will become wary, and it may even increase their timidity and shyness), so that the children can experience the joy of success and eliminate their inferiority complex. When a child's inferiority complex is eliminated, he will naturally overcome his timidity and shyness and become bold and cheerful.

4. What should I do if parents or teachers are too strict with my child and the child becomes shy?

Some parents or teachers are overly strict with their children. Over time, this makes the children fear their parents and teachers and become sensitive to other people's evaluations of them. They attach great importance to their words and actions, fearing any mistakes. This mentality causes them to behave unnaturally, timidly and shyly when interacting with others.