Hellobee Boards

When I read the book "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen," one thing that resonated with me was how kids can be labeled early in life and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy (shy, bossy, athletic, bookworm, etc.). One thing to combat that is to remind her of a time when she wasn't shy (like, "You're very outgoing around your friends at school!"). Basically trying to disrupt that narrative and help her see herself in a different light.

I'd try to help her understand that there are some things we do just to be nice - that it makes other people feel appreciated, so it's a kind thing to do to say "Hi" and "Bye" and leave Grammy a voicemail.

Otherwise though, I agree with previous posters - point out when she has fun doing something she was initially afraid of, praise her when she takes a social risk (i.e. sharing her toys or talking to someone new), and ask her questions to draw her out. I think introverts tend to internalize problems and emotions, so encouraging her to talk about how she's feeling (with you listening and even just repeating back to her what she's saying) will make her feel heard. At some point in the future, I'd probably also teach her a few tactics to stand up for herself with her peers - like saying firmly, "No thank you" when she doesn't want to do something - because I think quieter kids can sometimes get pushed or bullied into doing things because they don't want to speak up.

So my son is the same age and he's definitely introverted, although very social and happy once he's comfortable with the people and surroundings. His introversion is further complicated by the fact that he's been slow to speak and has not been affectionate (even with us) until very recently.

He takes after me in that I am introvert as well, but my parents always did a good job in ensuring my introversion didn't hold me back in a very extroverted world by "forcing" me to do uncomfortable activities when I was a child, like public speaking events or sports. It helped tremendously when I was a teenager and I ended up being very successful in jobs that required meeting and speaking to a lot of people. As an adult, people are actually very surprised when I tell them I'm an introvert (my husband was similarly shocked when he found this out about me) because throughout my life I learned how to quickly make myself as comfortable as possible in social settings, "turn it on" when necessary, and then get out to recharge. I felt it was similarly important to teach those skills to my son

Some of the things we've done is essentially "force" socialization without us in safe, predictable arenas. For instance, he goes to church drop-off nursery on Sundays for an hour. He was in a small in-home daycare with 5 other kids his age for a few months and just started at a small preschool program with 5 other children in his classroom. We know in those places, the teachers and caretakers will not allow blatantly rude behavior like hitting and we feel its really important for him to learn social norms and graces that we agree with in contexts that don't involve mommy or daddy to hide behind and force him to learn to deal with the stress or anxiety of having to interact with people in small doses. We've noticed that his introversion and clingyness get much more noticeable during periods where he's at home with us, like this past summer, so we feel confident this is important for him as he gets older and approaches school age.

When we leave a place, we model by enthusiastically saying "hi" or "bye" to the people we see and then ask him "can you say hi to Miss Liz?" If he says no, we will ask him if he'd like to acknowledge that person in a way he might enjoy more like "can you give Miss Liz a high five?" (He loves high fives). If he says no a second time, we respect it and say "okay, maybe next time!" and move on. This way we model the desired behavior, try to give him alternative ways to accomplish that behavior, but respect him if he just doesn't want to deal with people in that moment.

Another thing we try to do is respect the need for rest and renewal after social interactions. As an introvert, I know that after dealing with people, I need to withdraw and decompress. We are super hardcore about his naps and bedtime. He physically needs the rest, but he also needs that time to just shut down and recharge. Even when he doesn't sleep well for a nap, we leave him in his crib for 2 hours because we believe he needs quiet rest time. He hangs out with his stuffed animals and babbles to himself and is very happy once he's had that time to himself. If we are going to have some social situation during the day that will turn his stress responses on, we make sure there's also quiet activities or one on one time with a parent or time at the park to burn off any anxiety before or after (or both). We also encourage periods of independent playtime in his room where we set a timer for 30-45 minutes, put the baby gate up, leave him with quiet toys like books and puzzles, and go out of sight (but within earshot and watch him on the monitor). He might protest for a minute because he wants to be with us, but then he settles down and plays and has fun by himself.

Its a work in process and its hard at this age, because you can't really explain to them WHY we have to be polite or what our expectations are. For instance, yesterday, we were at his preschool and I brought him something to eat out in the playground because we were going to another event and would miss his meal otherwise. A bunch of kids were swarming around him and asking him what he was eating and why and just being nosy toddlers. My son isn't very verbal yet, which he finds frustrating at times, so he couldn't really express that he didn't like people in his personal space. But as his mama, I could tell it was annoying him. He finally pushed a girl away from him twice - not shoving or aggressively pushing, but just pushing her to get more than 3 inches away from him - and then when she didn't move, he slapped his hand on the table and grunted at her to get his point across. His teacher asked the girl if she would please respect his space and let him eat in peace and we definitely admonished our son to not touch the girl and to be nice and gentle (so he patted her head, which is still unwanted touching so we'll have to work on that in the future, sigh). I told my husband later that I understood why he would try to cope with that situation that way, but the combination of the teacher trying to get the other kids to respect my son's personal space while we reinforced polite behavior really solidified to me why we put him in these settings.

One really cool thing we've found about my son's inclinations is that he's WONDERFUL with other kids who sorta hide in the corner or are sorta left out. He's also extremely empathetic to people in emotional distress (perhaps because it stresses him out to see someone wailing). I don't know if its because he's not super verbal or he's not really into group play, but for instance, we found that he plays very well with our pastor's daughter with Down syndrome who usually just sits alone at nursery. They will silently roll a ball back and forth to each other, its so adorable. Also, if he sees someone upset and crying, he will go over and pat them. So those are really sweet intuitive qualities to his personality that we want to encourage as well.

I haven't read through all the responses yet but oh how I feel you! My almost two year old is painfully shy and most people just don't get it, it's beyond the normal takes a few minutes to warm up or won't perform on command. One thing we're having mild success with is talking about situations where it's polite to say thank you or hi when we aren't even close to the situation. She is getting the idea now that it makes other people feel happy when she does this. She has now unprompted said thank you twice and hi once-which is an enormous improvement for us!

I've found she does better with less prompting and less prep in the moment because for her it creates anxiety.

I worry about the labeling and self fulfilling prophecy idea too but people are so quick to label for us that it's hard to avoid. I try to change it to "you're feeling shy" instead of "you are shy" and I point out things like "when we got there, you were feeling shy but after you got to see what was going on you didn't feel shy anymore." She will now tell me "I'm feeling shy" or "I wasn't feeling shy anymore!" It's always hindsight for the not shy part though, never in the moment or she's back to shy.