Helping shy and slightly anxious dd to boost her confidence

[MyHWB]

If you have a daughter who is shy and somewhat prone to anxiety is there anything you have done that has helped her boost her confidence?

DD7 is very sensitive and prone to feeling anxious. She worries easily and hates the thought embarrassing herself in front of her class if she gives a wrong answer so rarely puts up her hand. She has good social skills in other ways but just lacks confidence and 'robustness'.

How can I help her?

Do you say she’s shy?
I found this was said to me as a child so felt I had to be shy

Worst thing

You’re bette riff saying ‘you’re not shy to her’

I would also roll play where you get the answer wrong and a ‘whoops’ moment so she gets the idea a wrong answer doesn’t end the world. When’s she’s wrong just say ‘try again’ and praise the effort or say I see where you’re coming from let’s have another go

Am also interested in suggestions as have a confident and noisy child at home but school reports always say although they are popular and capable they rarely contribute voluntarily to class discussions or offer to answer questions. My other child is pretty confident in this regard so it’s hard to know how to encourage it in my other child, I think it may be fear of embarrassment? I’m not keen on public speaking so I sympathise but it’s a good skill to be able to confidently speak in a group setting.

DD says she feels shy sometimes GreenTulips, I try not to.

I would be interested in what activities might help boost her self esteem. She hates anything to do with performance although she loves to sing to herself, just not with an audience, she also plays the recorder. She loves running, swimming, anything outdoors. Last year, we took her to a junior park run and that did give her a confidence boost. She is an avid reader so any books with strong female characters would maybe help too?

She hates to be rude when others are boisterous around her and just clams up. School is a busy quite competitive inner city school. She was physically bullied by a boy in her class a few months ago, but luckily lockdown has put an end to it. She has since left the school.

I worry a bit about her as she seems a bit 'fragile'.

Her best friend at school is quite dominant and confident. It's all about being a high achiever for her friend and she is vocal about how good she is at thingsfriend's mum is like that it doesn't help.

At school dd is 'the good girl' quietly getting on with things. At home she can get quite reactive and easily frustrated.

To be honest I don’t think you can bring her out of her shell, if it’s her way. We can’t all be bold and fiesty. However there’s nothing at all to say she won’t blossom.
I was appallingly shy as a child.
There was no miracle it just disappeared with age
My parents made me do things like brownies ect but rather than making me more confident it just made me withdraw more into myself, because Anytime I did try to talk it’d be “Oh she speaks”. Which is why I agree don’t give her the label of being the shy one.

If she likes running, swimming and other sports when lockdown is over find her a club to join and make her go regularly.

She won't transform over night but will slowly get more confident in her own abilities.

Just make sure the club has the right mix between being competitive and social for her.

I was like this as a child.
My parents packed me off to a theatre school with a friend on Saturdays (acting, singing, dancing). I absolutely hated it for the first year. After that I began to to have more confidence and gradually came out of my shell. By 13 I was very confident and to outsiders probably seemed quite an extravert.

We can’t all be bold and feisty.

I agree but I feel that she is bottling up her 'energy' and potential as she doesn't feel confident and is left feeling sensitive, cranky and a bit gloomy. I suppose I am worried for her mental health in the long run and would like for her to feel confident and robust not necessarily by noisy and feisty. She would never put up her hand in class if she is not 100% sure of her answer. She is smart but tends to overthink things and likes to take her time rather than participating in a busy classroom for example. I also worry that she will be overlooked in a class of 30 kids with very many strong and extrovert personalities. My other child is extrovert so this is new to me and I want to be able to support her in the right way for her if that makes sense.

MyHWB Snap! My DC like this could easily go under the radar in a big & busy school system, I’d really like some ways to bolster their confidence to speak up and contribute (we do cubs/brownies & sports which I think help at least being comfortable in different settings - I remember my DC was really worried about the joining ceremony in brownies - again fear over the unknown and people watching them).

One thing that might help is seeing you, and other important adults in her life, fail, deal with it calmly and move on.
She needs to find a way of understanding that we all make mistakes, we learn from them, move on and do better the next time.
She probably feels that it is safer not to try than it is to have a go and risk not succeeding. That her classmates will look and point and remember forever, where as the reality is that most will barely notice, let alone remember.
Tell her about times when you've been asked the "daft" question in a work setting....only to find that lots of other people were glad you spoke up because they didn't understand either.

I was dreadfully shy at school and into adulthood. Only time helped me. Even now though I won’t speak over the top of others on conference calls etc, which is what you need to do to be heard, I just don’t bother. If they don’t have manners then I’m not losing mine.

I think it may have helped me at school to be good at something. But I never was. If I’d been good at something, say English, I’d have felt like when other children said stuff I could be all “don’t slag me off for being stupid at maths cos im awsum at English and you suck at that, nah” But I never was that good. Perhaps because I didn’t practise my weak subjects because I hated them, so I had no confidence.

Find something she’s quite good at and nurture it.

If she gets frustrated and reactive at home, it sounds like she is bottling it up and 'masking'. Have a look at it online.

Personally, I wouldn't push her to be like other people or into activities she doesn't want to do. This will make the problem worse. Encourage her to be herself and work to her strengths. Do activities that she enjoys.

I was the same when I was younger. I've sort of grown out of it, kind of found my place in the world. I always felt though that my mum never really encouraged me to be myself and was always pushing me to be someone and something else. It wasn't really until I went to uni (and moved away from mum!) I felt more confident. My DS is very similar at age 7 as well.

Have you looked at mindfulness for children?

There’s a journal designed for kids to reflect back on their day, how they felt and how they dealt with things. It might be a good thing to do together each evening to prompt her to open up a bit so you can talk about her worries.

happyselfjournal.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_content=Kids+Happy+Journal&utm_campaign=children%27s+happiness+journals+-+search+-+broad+-+UK&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoriZuoW26gIVSbTtCh2dggY6EAAYASAAEgJI6vD_BwE @

She sounds just like me as a child. I was very quiet and didn't have much confidence. Agree with PP although I know you said you don't tell her she's shy, it really doesn't help when others comment on it!

My parents never commented on me I was shy it was always other people. What really helped me was finding a hobby in dancing. It was something I had confidence in and I loved, I competed and I felt that was something I could shine in. Maybe help encourage her with a hobby? Dance, gymnastics, football or whatever her interests are? It will take time but if it's something she enjoys it will really help her confidence.

You accept her and love for what and who she is whilst teaching her how to behave correctly in a variety of situations so she never fears not knowing how to greet, say goodbye, excuse herself from a room, interrupt, etc.

Maybe help encourage her with a hobby? Dance, gymnastics, football or whatever her interests are?

DD loves to socialise but hates to be in the centre of attention. She won't try dance as she is too self conscious (her two closest friends are super into dance) and she won't try football at school as it's boys and girls and she feels uncomfortable.

I don't want her to be different but I would like for her to feel secure in her own skin and able to socialise and be at school without being shouted down by the loud and confident kids (I have one of those too and know they face different challenges). All your posts help though as they remind me to try an accept where she is now and maybe stress about it a bit less.

She has a lot of anxious thoughts e.g fear of the dark, fear of nightmares, fear of us dying, but most of all she hates the feeling that all eyes are on her or everyone is listening to her. The latter, I would like to help her grow out of as can't be a nice feeling at all.

What about team sport that isn't football that she can do outside school? She will then be doing something social with completely different children, and as she will only occasionally have all eyes on her won't feel like she's the centre of attention.

I was a very shy kid too - I "grew out of it" around 13-14 and suddenly my school reports started saying I chatted too much in lessons! Bit of a shock for my parents

I second the hobby, but I'll also say that slightly counterintuitively team sports might actually be more of a struggle than individual sports or hobbies. Instinctively we'd think a child has less attention in a team (and it's mostly true!) BUT I was always nervous as a kid that I'd let the team down and then be absolutely the centre of attention for a bad reason. Whereas athletics, which I did, allowed you to have the team element but if you fluffed a race it didn't feel like it directly impacted the team in the same way (I didn't really get how the league points worked - not a bad thing )

It also doesn't have to be sport but I do think sport is fantastic for building confidence in your abilities. Think outside the box a bit - life saving? Climbing? Orienteering?

I also agree that doing it outside of school might be a good thing.