DD "ignoring" people - is this shy or rude behaviour in a normally confident 3 yo

[poodlerockin]

In the last 6 months or so DD has started to act completely shy at times. This is unusual for her as she's always been happy, sociable, talkative and confident up to fairly recently.

Even now she'll happily go off to play in the playground with other unfamiliar children and make friends with them, she has lots of friends at nursery, and will happily talk my friends to death.

But recently, and seemingly at random, she'll completely clam up and won't speak at all, or even look at the other person. She just ignores them, like they're not there. She's done this to children she knows who she's bumped into at the playground / library, to adults she's met before, and also to staff at nursery. Before 6 months ago she would never do this.

Me and DH have both talked to her and told her that it's nice to say hello to someone when they say it to you, and talk to them if they're asking questions, and look them too. But also that it's ok to feel shy and to not want to say very much.

She says she's not shy, she just doesn't want to talk to them, so basically she's saying she can't be bothered ?!?

I just wondered what would be the best thing to do here... I don;t want to pull her up on it too much if she is genuinely feeling shy (my mum did this with me and it made me worse TBH).

I don't think she is as this is new behaviour - and if it's just rudeness how do I speak to DD about it?

My DD is 3.5 and does this sometimes. She does it to me too, which is quite annoying. I asked her why she thought it was alright to ignore me. Her response was "Sometimes I just like to ignore people..." I did have to stop myself from laughing. I wonder if it's some sort of parameter thing ie they don't want to talk to that person at that point so they're not. Exercising their free will rather than what we want/expect of them? I don't think it's deliberate rudeness.

Yes Belle your DD's reasoning is similar to my DD's! Maybe to a 3 yo talking to people is an optional thing, and if they talk to you and you don't want to reply then ignoring them is a valid option!!

DD doesn't do it to me unless distracted by television etc - so not on purpose. She is definitely doing it to others on purpose though

But I don't think it's deliberate rudeness - because at 3 I don't think she fully understands social niceties / conventions or what have you. But I just wondered whether these would just come naturally with time, or there was something I should be doing...

I imagine it'll come naturally. I did ignore DD after we'd had that exchange, so that she could understand how it feels. She didn't like it much. Now I come to think of it, though, she's not doing it as much now anyway. Perhaps they do just go through a phase with it?