tIs your child shy? Have you noticed that they have a hard time making friends at
school? Is there a secret that would help you to help them make friends? That's
what we're going to get into today. The word shy can mean a lot of different things
to different people. So right up front here, let's just have a quick
conversation about that. When we say that our child is shy, what do we mean?
Sometimes that refers to a child who is hesitant to engage in social activities
with others. Sometimes it refers to something that we call in the industry
selective mutism, which is where they choose not to speak in certain settings
or environments. There's anxiety, there's depression, there's all kinds of
things that might be collectively categorized as this word shy. So a little
bit of diagnostic work sometimes can be helpful. Now I'm a positivity
psychologist. I stopped giving diagnosis to my clients about 10 years ago. But
having said that, I want to acknowledge that there are different factors that we
need to consider and look at. So if you think your child is shy, which you might,
because you found this video. Let's take a little deeper look and just keep our
mind open to some different possibilities. Whether it be depression
or autistic spectrum or a form of mutism that we need to take a look at. Let's be
aware of that. We've got some other videos on the channel that will help
with some of those specific topics. Now if it's shyness in the traditional sense
of the word, meaning that there's no interfering mental health issues,
there's no autism going on, this is just a child who is more reticent to
participate in social interaction or they're withholding themselves a little
bit. How do we help that child to make friends at school for example or in
other settings that might be more social? I think what
this comes back to first of all is, a basic principle about social interaction.
When we interact with other people our focus tends to be either on
ourselves or on those other people. Both in terms of how we feel and what we're
thinking about. Now I've talked about that in some other videos. In fact you
can link to one right up here that describes something that I called the
influence quadrant. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about as it
relates to our focus. Helping our children to get out of their own way and
connect with other people socially, is something that can help to overcome that
shyness. Now notice this, when you are feeling shy whatever that means for you
as an adult, when you're feeling shy where's your focus? See it's usually on
how other people feel about you or how you feel about yourself. Notice that it's
about you. What if it's not about you? What if your focus can shift to - "well how
do other people feel about themselves?" Okay now it's not the same kind of an
experience. We don't experience shyness when it's not about us. So how can we
help our kids then to develop a focus that is centered on other people. That's
going to help with all kinds of social skills but the shyness goes away. There
is no longer that anxious kind of insecurity that comes with the feeling
of shyness because the focus is now on other people. So there's a few steps that
I would recommend that help us to teach our children to stay focused on how
they're impacting other people. In fact I'll give you three. Okay three rules
that we're going to implement in the home with the kids. In fact Vicky and I
used to have these posted on a poster above our table and then in the dining
room area. Three family rules and you what this is a whole lot easier than
having a whole list of family rules and I think you'll see that these cover them.
These rules are intended to help children understand their impact on
other people and to get the focus off of themselves. So that they don't experience
so much shyness. Rule number one -respect yourself and others. Respect yourself and
others. Let's break that down for a minute.
I've asked kids as young as three. What does it mean to respect someone and it's
amazing how often they come up with the right answer. They say it means to - "be
nice." Yeah. Can we do that? As parents but also
encourage our kids to do that to be nice. Respecting yourself and others. So
respect for self means you're going to be nice to your self, right? And you're going to
be nice to other people. So I usually work with kids at this point to come up
with a couple of examples. What would it mean? Okay what about yelling
at your sister? No, not respectful that breaks rule number one. What about
hitting someone or kicking or biting? Yeah not respectful, that breaks rule
number one. What about bad-mouthing yourself, you
know, "oh I'm so stupid I can't do anything right."
No, it's a violation of rule number one. You see where we're going with the
respect thing. Now what does this have to do with shyness? What about not
responding when someone asks you a question? Oh that's not very respectful
is it? See? It's not about me. it's not about me feeling nervous about it, is
that respectful toward that other person. See? We're putting a different frame on
this, so that we can help our kids shift their focus from a self focus to focus
on others and the impact that they might be having on others. It's not respectful
to look down or look away if someone's addressing you. It's more respectful to
look them in the eye. Do you see where we're going with that. So
respect self and others, that's rule number one.
Rule number two. Respect property. Respect property. This means that we take care of
things that we don't misuse things. That we don't vandalize or destroy or
endanger property in different ways. Okay respecting property. What does that have
to do with shyness? ?You know what I have found that as we teach respect for
property, it actually increases self confidence because that's something that
is innately reinforcing to be able to take care of something in the right way.
To to have a proper stewardship of the stuff for the property. It implies trust.
There's a lot of different ways that this can contribute to actually
increasing confidence and self-esteem. And all of these things will help us to
enhance working on the shyness issue. The respect property. Rule number three -
cooperate and obey. Now there is a difference between cooperation and
obedience. Let's just address that really quickly.
Who should you obey? Who should your children obey? Well you obviously as a
parent, right? Yes we're all for that. Who else? Here's the short version. Anyone who
has authority over them should be obeyed. So we can apply this to law enforcement
for example. The police, the sheriff, the the law enforcement agencies that have
some level of authority. We should obey because there's some obvious
consequences if we don't, right? What about people at the school or people in
your religious community who have some authority over that child? Yeah, those are
the people were going to obey. So it has to do with authority. What about
cooperate? Cooperate applies to everyone who's asking me to do something that's
right and reasonable. Again we're trying to
increase this child's confidence that they can make good decisions and that
they can show up in a way that supports healthy self-esteem and confidence.
Cooperating with people who ask me to do something right and reasonable, gives me
an opportunity to do something that's a little challenging.
And we did another video about self-esteem. Take a look at that to see
how self-esteem is tied to mostly being able to face and take on challenges. I've
found that a lot of times, kids who are defined as being shy, don't have the self
confidence or the self esteem to know that they can handle hard things. So
that's why the cooperation rule is so important. It gives them an opportunity
to take on hard things and to see themselves taking on those hard things.
This tends to increase self-esteem and you can see how that might be a benefit
when we're working on shyness. I love the way that applying principle can help us
in so many ways to help our kids. And I'm so glad that you're here. I'll see you
tomorrow.