Is my 8 Year old DD Bad Mannered?

[suchafuss]

She is a very quiet and sensitive and when in company hardly says a word unless she knows the people well. School say that she is lively and engages and has a great vocabulary, but she can tend to be a bit dreamy at times. However when it comes to manners I do have to remind her every time. Friends have said that when she is with them she is well behaved and polite and I never have any concerns with her behaviour.

So this weekend my DN's returned from spending the weekend with her GP's and announced that my step mother had said in front of the rest of the grand kids that 'Mary has no manners'. My daughter is devastated and when I asked her why I have to remind her she said that its because she is shy and that sometimes she forgets.

My husband seems to think that its because she is an oc but I am worried that this has caused her so much upset. FWIW she sees my parents very rarely and now says she doesn't want to see them at all.

Does anyone else have similar experiences and AIBU to think my stepmom should feck off when she sees her about 4 times a year?

No squashy not aimed at you. Plenty of children though aren't actually confident extroverts that can handle the criticism of being told to pipe down, they are loud etc because they are nervous, lacking confidence etc. So same as a shy child they are just as sensitive and unable to handle criticism, and yet I doubt anyone would condone their parents just leaving them to it. The most socially anxious child I know gets very loud and talkative the more nervous she is, and is no more able to handle being pulled up than a shy child. And same as a shy child a stranger wouldn't know what caused it, but would equally judge her as rude. I also don't think being even a true extrovert means a child is less likely to be sensitive or crushed by criticism. My dd isn't shy or socially anxious but her feelings run as deep as anyone elses. If anything because she is generally confident she is more likely to have her feelings overlooked because 'it's ok mini lurked isn't easily upset'.

Fair enough msmermaid that's how I think of a scenario between peers. I was actually thinking of a rl scenario a few years ago when dd got hugely frustrated another dc wouldn't answer, and the childs mother thought dd should empathise whilst not expecting her own child to, whereas I thought both dc exacerbated the situation equally. Although admittedly for the dc in question the parents were very pfb, so I was wondering whether their stance was down purely to that or from parenting a quiet/shy child.

I've only read the first page.
If your DD is that upset then your SM Has been unreasonable.
Manners are important but she's 8 and it will all fall into place eventually. Not worth a big drama just a simple reminder. She shouldn't be made to feel that bad.

Lurkedforever - if your DD had got hugely frustrated because a child with limited mobility had 'refused' to run around the playground with her, wouldn't you understand if the parent of that child was protective of them?

I do get your point that some socially awkward / anxious children are loud and inappropriate as well, I would hope that if my child was like that then others wouldn't leap to judge my parenting and assume that I was doing 'nothing' just because I wasn't dealing with it in a way that was obvious to onlookers.

Because violet my dd presumably wouldn't have witnessed the child with mobility problems running round the playground immediately prior to her asking, so that's entirely different. We're talking about child A perceiving their friendly normal initial question as being rudely blanked by child B, therefore repeating it in escalating tones of frustration. And child B perceiving child A as increasing their inability to actually answer. Why should child A be expected to sympathise and understand child B's motivation but not vice versa?
And in my scenario if the mum wanted to protect her dd she should have actually answered my dd herself, not stood and simpered her dd was shy whilst leaving my dds request unanswered, thus reinforcing the false impression her dd was being rude and refusing to share.

Lurked - I'm unsure of your point though, really. Do you think the child was actually able to answer and just being rude? You said that both children had exacerbated the situation, which kind of implies that it was deliberate, maybe that isn't what you meant.

I can understand that your child was confused/upset at being blanked, and in that position, yes, I would probably have ended up answering for my DD to save the feelings of your child. It's a difficult balance because when treating selective mutism you aren't supposed to enable and reinforce the SM by answering for the child, but at the same time you have to get by in the world without causing too much upset and misunderstanding.

I hope you were able to explain to your DD that just because the shy child could speak to her parents / close friends, that didn't mean that she was able to speak to everyone, even though she probably really wanted to.

I don't have kids, have lots of nieces and nephews, some around the age of your little girl, OP. I consider the SM to be out of order to say such a thing about a child, and especially to other children.

Not in a million years would I say such a thing about any of them. If they are in my care, I might give an occasional gentle reminder about the 'magic word' to the child, knowing that their parents have taught them manners, and the child just forgot, in a moment of excitement, or whatever.

FWIW, one of my nieces when she was small, was very shy, and I used to find just being quiet and gentle in her company, smiling to her etc, she would warm to me, and take my hand, to show me a new toy, or whatever, after initially insisting on sticking closely to her mum or dad.
She is now a bubbly six year old, who is ready to take on and befriend the world .

I didn't think the child was able to answer and therefore rude violet. But I can understand why another child would. By exacerbating the situation I meant both kids making the other worse by their own behavior, however unwittingly. It wasn't but imagine my dd cheerfully asking if she can get on the roundabout too and getting a blank stare. And asking again to receive another blank stare. And so on till my dd is angrily saying she wants to get on and the other child has turned her back. Neither child is to blame as they both had valid reasons. The shy childs parents were though for expecting an equally immature child to understand their childs motivation whilst not the same in reverse.

Also yes, at the time I explained so the other parent could hear that the other child was just shy etc not rude, but that it wasn't dds fault for not knowing and therefore she wasn't being rude either to get annoyed, and that they both needed to think about others feelings more.

Being shy is no excuse for bad manners, in fact, manners are there especially for shy people so that they are accepted and liked and can rub along with the more gregarious types.

Manners are social grease for everyone.

Your stepmother might think she's doing your DD a favour by pointing out her rudeness. Accecpt the advice and teach your DD some manners- they're not rocket science. Your stepmums' manners are her own business- no point being angry at her for your DDs lack of social skills.

The world isn't just about your Dd - other people have feelings too. At 8 I'd expect her to have more awareness of others and how things work in social situations.

Practice saying "thank you" and "please" out loud with her so she gets to hear how loud she has to say them in order that others can hear her. Make sure she knows how to smile at people and how to make eye contact as well. These are all essential social skills.

Does no one see the irony of drawing attention to someone's bad manners!!

I do Maddy! Venus how can she be doing my daughter a favour when the comment was made about her and not to her?

This thread is depressing as hell. Speaking as someone who suffered terribly with social anxiety from 7 and diagnosed with mild autism at 16, I would have done anything to not find social situations so painful.

Lurked - where you say "they both needed to think about others feelings more" that does imply that you felt that the shy child had control over whether they could speak or not.

Usually if a shy child has reached the state of being 'blank faced' it means that something in their brain has shut down and don't even have the option of smiling or making eye contact.

I do get that this is very difficult to understand if you're not living with it and yes, it can appear rude and thoughtless, it really isn't though.

Flowers did it help being diagnosed and it have been easier if done earlier? Reason i ask is that i suspect she may also have autistic traits.

Not in the sense they should just get over it violet but in terms of long term aims for the parents, or in terms of thinking about how others perceive them yes, it's something that needs to be considered from the other persons view too. If my dd is expected to grasp that the other child was being shy rather than rude, the other child can also be expected to grasp that the other child feels hurt and offended. And yes, fine, depending on age/ maturity both may be equally incapable of putting it into practice at that particular stage. But maturity and empathy aren't related to whether or not a dc is shy, so it's not fair to expect it from one child but not the other.

lurked tragically where selective mutism is concerned, the child is in most cases only too aware of their failure to please others by being unable to speak. Most desperately want to, but can't. They aren't making any kind of choice. They realise that being silent makes things worse but they aren't able to respond (even if they were chatting away a moment ago). It becomes a phobia. If you are phobic of spiders that phobia only manifests when you see a spider, same with mutism it only manifests when a person you are not able to talk with talks to you and expects a response. It isn't unusual that the child has just been heard chatting away to mum, that isn't the fear. I'm not sure why you think that it isn't 'fair' to your typically developing daughter that she struggled to interact with a mute child and got annoyed? You handled it well, and don't forget that your DD had to handle that frustrating situation once, that child and its parents go through it multiple times every day.

OP it does often go with autism spectrum because of course of the social anxiety so prevalent in that population, but you can be autistic without selective mutism and vice versa. One key thing is that autism is permanent whereas selective mutism is of course 'curable'.

Lurked - obviously I don't know the child in question and what their particular situation is. They may have been behaving like that deliberately just to upset your child for all I know, in which case yes it would make sense to impress upon them how their behaviour causes upset.

But where a child really has very little to no control, it's actually counter-productive and a bit cruel to keep reminding them that along with feeling weird/foolish etc when they can't act normally in social situations, they ought be adding 'selfish and unkind' to the list of negative feelings they already have about themselves.

Most parents of selectively mute children are incredibly aware of how their children's behaviour comes across, and how it will affect them in the future. They are vulnerable children who may well encounter people taking offence, writing them off, and even goading, bullying and unfortunately worse in some instances. So most of these parents are already doing everything they can to avoid that happening, it's a bit offensive to suggest otherwise.

Some shy just cannot speak in certain situations. They literally CAN'T not 'won't'

Squashybanana
'All words are not equal. There is what is known as 'communication load' in play as well. Generally speaking, using rote language is easier than free language ( counting and nursery rhymes with a new person easier for a shy child than saying what you did at school today, for example). Answering is easier than initiating. And phrases where the child has been subject to repeated pressure are hardest of all, because of the weight of expectation. Shy and socially anxious children go easily into 'freeze' mode. They aren't snatching stuff and running off rudely, they aren't deliberately rude or badly brought up. The very hardest words for children who have this problem to say are 'hello/goodbye' 'please/thankyou' and 'sorry'. Because for their whole lives these words are the most loaded with social pressure, these are the words they have been reminded to say, told off for not saying, the words that have caused them the thing they most dread - other people's disapproval. '

That is why I took the approach of rehearsal -- DD1 didn't have to think about what to say, didn't have to worry she would get her response 'wrong', didn't have to guess anything about the other person's intention in speaking to her.

Flomple, I agree with your comment about use of the term 'shy' too. DD1 never heard the word from me. It was exMIL who proclaimed her shy, and the 'diagnosis' really bothered DD1. It set her back in her progress towards verbal independence because she thought there was something wrong with her. I had to retrace my steps and tell her Granma was wrong to imply that people are all one thing or the other -- shy or outgoing. I had emphasised to her that everybody felt what she was feeling to some extent, that some felt it more then her and some felt it less. All of that ground had to be covered again.

I think it is really important that children are not put in boxes or defined by others. They are building their own identity as they grow and should be allowed to do that without the interjection of words that can trap them -- lazy, messy, clever, pretty, shy, good: even the compliments can be dangerous. For a child who is anxious and sensitive, such words can have inordinate power.

I think it's really important to emphasise that everybody has their own strengths and not to dwell on the glass half empty when encouraging a child. They need to know when they have done something well (not that they are 'so good at XYZ') and to develop a realistic idea of their capabilities and to understand that the way they are is perfectly fine. There was nothing that would ever change DD1 from being a serious introvert who liked listening to classical music and writing in her journal. Her peers were not all like that but it helped her immensely when I pointed out that only four or five in her class were bubbly, chirpy socialites, and even among that number each had his or her own personality, voice, talents, just as everyone else who tended to be quieter had. Not all children can empathise or see the funny and fun loving child behind a quiet exterior, so a quieter and more shy child can get overlooked. This reinforces a burgeoning negative self image and compounds the difficulty of feeling confidence in your own voice.

Comparing your child to others in a glass half empty way is never going to end well. You have to meet your child where he or she is. Shyness is not a negative. It is something that can cause much misery in the child who experiences it however, as it often goes with self consciousness and anxiety, so trying to sensitively teach ways to get around it is doing the child a favour. Sensitively is the key word.

Ds1 has 'rudely blanked' adults & children before. And been told off for it. by strangers.

He is 16 & can't fucking talk -because he looks 'normal' it seems beyond people's abilities to understand. I sometimes answer for him, I sometimes explain, I sometimes don't bother. Depends what the person badgering him is like.

I didn't say it was unfair to my dd squashy because the other child didn't interact, and I don't know why you think I did. I'm saying that to expect my dd to empathise and consider the other childs feelings, and basically take the blame as it were, while saying the other child is absolved of doing so is unfair. You can't expect others to be caring of your feelings and understand the reasons behind them if you aren't willing to do the same by others, which with that particular child was the issue.

My very shy ds3 - who does often need a prod to respond to people talking to him, (and often couldn't respond when younger) is now (at the age of 10) being assessed for a specific language impairment. I certainly won't be explaining that to people in his hearing. I tend to assume most very quiet children are doing their best.

I find most children understand 'so & so finds it difficult to talk' without too much trouble.

I've just remembered one time when I said 'no' to DD wanting some piece of crap in a shop - "but mummy, I said please"

Sorry DD, people may call it a 'magic word' but it's anything but!

Lurked - can you hand on heart say you know why the child didn't speak, and that they could have spoken if they only had more consideration for others? If you can't say for sure, you are making assumptions which may or may not be valid.

violet again I didn't say it was deliberate. But as the parent of a shy child you can't tell their equally immature peer 'they're very shy so its not very nice to shout, you're upsetting her' whilst not also saying 'mini lurk is shouting because she thinks you don't want her to play and is also upset'. Both kids have an equal right to have their feelings and the reason for their response acknowledged, not just the shy child. I'd never give my dd the impression a shy childs feelings shouldn't be considered and they should just deal with it, but neither was I willing to give her the message her feelings weren't important and she should deal with it.
I'm an adult, I can understand a 5yr old is blanking someone through shyness. Another 5yr old won't perceive it that way though, and shouldn't be blamed for acting on their personality. Like I said that's where the adult steps in before that point, not afterwards to criticise one child only.