My 5.5yo daughter is very shy, so I’ve been pushing her into hobbies to help managing her shyness. I’ve talked about how being shy is fine, but it’s something to work on, otherwise she’ll have a really hard time making friends. I’m shy and told her about that.
I took her to a gymnastics class (we do gymnastics together at open gym), but she refused to join the class. I said if she does one activity (even just a game at the end), I’ll get her ice cream. We spent the time sitting on the side.
She didn’t do it, so I figure no ice cream then. She’s pretty mad. I’m not mad with her, but just of the opinion that we had a deal, and if she wants the reward, she needs to earn it.
Too harsh? Too soft? Alternatives?
EDIT:
So I took a two prong approach. 1. hard rule for no screaming at me or arguing. 2. we can just sit and watch, but if she joins, we leave after 1 exercise, each time slowly staying longer. She seems to feel safe when she’s in control of when she leaves, which makes sense. Seems to be working. She expressed that she was surprised the kids and teacher were nice to her and loved it more than her art class.
I’m not 100% sure why she’s so afraid of other kids. Maybe something happened at school I don’t know about, but she’s way less anxious about the class now.
Something I stumbled upon when doing some adoption related reading was a book called The Highly Sensitive Child (ISBN 978-0767913904). I was originally looking for something pretty tightly focused on sensitivities to sensations, noises, tastes and things like that.
But it ended up being a lot more well-rounded and incredibly educational about kids that often are noticed as being shy. They tend to be the ones that sit at the back of the classroom and observe for a while long before they feel comfortable stepping in and trying to make a friend. Or kids that might startle easy, get overwhelmed in a loud room, or tend to notice a lot of details that maybe others around them don’t.
I have no idea how much applies to your kiddo. But I figured if that sounded familiar to you it might be a good read and I might give you some good advice. (I also recognize that you posted this 7 months ago and you might already have figured this out for all I know 😅)
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Something I stumbled upon when doing some adoption related reading was a book called The Highly Sensitive Child (ISBN 978-0767913904). I was originally looking for something pretty tightly focused on sensitivities to sensations, noises, tastes and things like that.
But it ended up being a lot more well-rounded and incredibly educational about kids that often are noticed as being shy. They tend to be the ones that sit at the back of the classroom and observe for a while long before they feel comfortable stepping in and trying to make a friend. Or kids that might startle easy, get overwhelmed in a loud room, or tend to notice a lot of details that maybe others around them don’t.
I have no idea how much applies to your kiddo. But I figured if that sounded familiar to you it might be a good read and I might give you some good advice. (I also recognize that you posted this 7 months ago and you might already have figured this out for all I know 😅)