Is My Child Shy or Is It Social Anxiety?

Despite her grandiloquent performance in the family, this lively three year old girl suddenly gets on edge the moment she steps out of home. Her teachers and peers recognize her as a quite, timid and nervous kid who hardly has the moral fiber to look into someone’s eyes and smile.

  This is something awful and startling for the family because we’ve hardly seen her this way. Considering all her after-school talks about what happened in school all day long, it was hard to believe that her role in school was entirely opposite. Now that makes me float up in sheer vacuity where I suddenly find myself inept enough in introducing the social world to her in the right manner. Is she way too comfortable at home that makes it difficult for her to accept the world outdoors, or is it their expectations that make her conscious to perform? Is she shy or it is the social anxiety that stops her? The entire day went on with millions of thoughts that all conclude to the fact that Myra is quiescent in public.

So what keeps her withdrawn? And what would be the further consequences of it? On profound thinking, I realized that it might be our upbeat behavior that adds to her timidity. We might not be giving her ample space to observe the world around her and that’s what she does when the family is not around. But is it normal for a kid to be shy in school? Well, I’ve hardly been shy at any corner of the world, so the fact that my child finds it hard to embrace the society is a little tough as of now, but I’m keenly looking for clues to help her and myself!

What I could conclude after reading several child care guides and a parenting  book called ‘why love matters’ , children always need a free space around them and they take their own time to accept things. They observe things slowly, the way they want them! We cannot and we shouldn’t impose anything on them, until it’s the matter of child safety. Probably, because all of us have been super excited about her new school and her teacher has taken every possible step forward to help Myra socialize, the kid actually wants to take time. She wants to understand things at her own level and not to be forced on her. And I feel she’s right there! We have a different outlook; we simply shouldn’t impose it on her. This is the time for the mental growth and she should be given enough time and space to judge the small world around her.

I want to give myself some time and patience to let the child grow and observe things around her. I’m sure she wouldn’t take more than a month to come out as the most active, talkative and energetic kid in school, just the way she is at home.