Don’t Make Me Talk, Mom
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 4:02 PM
Camilla is kind of shy.
This morning at ballet class one of the other moms, a friend of mine, complimented Camilla on her curly hair. Camilla wouldn’t even look at her.
She does this whenever strangers are around: turns her face away, won’t make eye contact, stays close to Bryan or me.
Recently we had friends over for lunch. They’re good friends who moved across the country last year, so we hadn’t seen them in a while. They’d been in the house for five minutes when I realized Camilla was missing. I found her in our bedroom, hugging her teddy bear with tears in her eyes, upset that there were unfamiliar people in her house.
On the other hand, by the time our friends left three hours later, they’d become Camilla’s pals. She was chattering away to them and recruiting them to play games with her. So I can’t think her level of shyness is crippling.
I’m not concerned or upset about Camilla being shy. It’s a personality trait, not something that needs to be “fixed.”
What does concern me, slightly, is my own desire to respond to her shyness in a way that is consistent and helpful. I’m not sure how to do that.
I have some priorities:
1) I want her to be polite. Basic courtesy is part of living a charitable Christian life. I’m just not sure what level of social interaction constitutes “polite” for a two-year-old. (Or a four-year-old or a six-year-old, for that matter.) I don’t want to force Camilla to respond to people she doesn’t know, but neither do I want to teach her that it’s okay to be rude.
2) I want her to be comfortable and happy. I struggle with the challenge of crafting a compromise between two important goals of parenthood here: giving my child a loving, sheltered environment in which she can just be a child, and teaching her important life skills. Not being able to have a simple conversation with an unfamiliar person is no problem when you’re two, but can be a little bit of a handicap when you’re eighteen. Somewhere between now and then, if Camilla doesn’t adjust her comfort zone on her own, we’ve got to help her do it. I’m just not sure when or how.
3) I want her to be free to grow and change. I know, from observing it within my own family of origin, that sometimes shyness is a permanent personality trait but sometimes it is just a stage. Another woman once told me that when she was a child, her mother always referred to her as “shy,” so even when she no longer felt shy around strangers, she felt obligated to continue to act shy to live up to her mother’s definition. I’m sure not every child would do that, but I want to avoid making Camilla feel as if she has to adapt her natural personality to fulfill our preconceptions.
Since our daughter is only two-and-a-half, I’m not feeling pressure in this area yet. But it is on my mind, and I’d love some advice from more seasoned parents.
I’m guessing many of you have dealt with shyness in one or more of your children. How did you handle it? Did it work well? Is there anything you would do differently?
If you were a shy child yourself and have advice from the other perspective, I’d love to hear that too!
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