If shy adults face numerous problems in all walks of life, the same is true for shy children. Childhood shyness can also be overcome and parents play a key role in stopping the development of a shy personality. Find out how the family can help a shy child.
Shy children: how to overcome shyness as a family
- Although shyness has a certain genetic component, childhood is the key stage in the development of shy people. It is the parents who must provide their children with the most appropriate environment so that they grow up without fear, without insecurity and without social inhibitions. The question we ask ourselves is how the family can help a shy child.
- The answer is not easy, but in the first place it involves raising children in an environment with abundant signs of affection and with a great reinforcement of personality. Parents often want to turn their children into other people or make them behave differently from the children’s own character. In the same way that self-esteem problems are overcome through personal acceptance, children must also feel that they are accepted by their family.
- This would be a good starting point to build a solid self-esteem for any child, a weapon that all those shy children who sometimes allow themselves to be overcome by insecurity can grab hold of. Making it clear to the child that he is a valid person with his defects and with his virtues and making positive reinforcement of his most outstanding qualities at all times will help him feel more secure.
- If the child has a shy character that is difficult to change, the family can help him to be more sociable by proposing activities that he likes but with other children, always without forcing and seeming spontaneous. It is also not convenient to overprotect the shy child and accompany him at all times because then we would be promoting his shyness.