I'm so worried about my DD. She just freezes like a rabbit in headlights when confronted with groups of people, even good friends of hers. She's basically ok at school - though she enjoys her own company, she has friends, is happy, plays with friends at most playtimes. People seem to like her! But she is very passive - she rarely initiates contact, is often so quiet people don't even notice her, and doesn't at all join in with chatty hellos etc at the school gate. At her weekend music school she has barely said a word to anybody in the two years she has been there. Today we went to a new after-school activity. There was a friend of hers there (somebody who has been to our house many times), who greeted her with a loud hello when she joined the group, and my dd half-smiled in recognition but then ran off to stand right at the other side of the hall!
I'm worried that her anxiety is really holding her back from making good and reciprocal friendships. Because she is so passive, at school I feel that she is at the mercy of who happens to want to play with her, which is not always the person she would necessarily choose to play with. Because she's a good playmate once she gets going, she isn't isolated, but it's hardly an ideal setup. She's also missing out from meeting likeminded people in other settings, like music school.
I have wondered in the past about ASD, but it doesn't really fit. She is enormously perceptive about 'unspoken' subtle undercurrents in social interactions, very happy with sarcasm, word-play and suchlike, and not at all set in her ways, obsessive or unhappy about change. Her behaviour is fine at school and home. She is perfectly happy playing with her two siblings, with friends one on one at home (though finds it hard to assert herself), and with very selected groups she is happy in a 3 or a 4. She doesn't show other signs of anxiety, except for finding it very hard to get to sleep at night. Things are noticeably worse in the winter.
I would really appreciate any pointers with how to deal with this - resources, experiences etc. It doesn't help that she has totally picked up on my own anxiety about the issue, and now refuses to talk about it at all with me. (Her dad she is a bit more open with). Although in some ways she is much better than she was a few years ago, in other ways of course the greater relative social sophistication of her contemporaries makes her stand out more. I'm worried she'll soon be labelled as the odd loner. She's such a funny, imaginative, lovely child, but it's hard work for her friends to see it, as they have to do all the legwork initiating contact!
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social anxiety in 7yo - help!
zoemaguire · 18/01/2016 17:41
Oh I'm totally with you on the introvert front. I'm a huge introvert, as is my DH, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But it does seem extreme in DD. Introvert is one thing, but barely acknowledging a friend who you've known for four years, whose entire family you know well, and vice versa, is beyond the bounds of your average introverted nearly-8yo, no? Or not making friends or even acquaintances with the children at saturday music school who - again - she's been in lessons with for years? Maybe my expectations are skewed? They may well be! I had a solid best friend by age 4 who I've kept for all the intervening 36 years, so my own childhood experience was very different.
But all the same, in the case of the friend at the club this afternoon - she loves this kid, when they get together they play amazing games together and get on like a house on fire. But only out of school. In school, as far as I can see she barely talks to most of the kids she gets on best with, because she doesn't dare initiate contact. She ends up playing with those who solicit her attention, who are often the children who she doesn't have so much anything in common with. If she was totally happy with that, I'd let it be, but I do think there's anxiety involved, which makes me more inclined to want to help her with it. Also the winter thing. I wondered about SAD, but from Dr google that doesn't really fit either.
Thanks for all the detailed information on your DD mynd, it's hugely helpful. Some of it resonates and some doesn't - DD was an early talker and is particularly good at song lyrics. At your DD's age she did struggle hugely with instructions in group games, looked like she was on another planet 
, but she's fine now. I don't think she can have serious hearing problems, partly because she plays the violin bang in tune, which I think would be extremely hard to do without fairly finely-tuned hearing. But of course that's very different to hearing in a noisy environment and the possibility of a processing disorder. So maybe I need to push that further.
Sorry, I'm rambling again! - it's been hugely helpful to think aloud about this based on other people's experiences.
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