What can you do when your son is too shy?

[Fiona2011231]

Could you pls help me?

My son is at reception class (4-year-old). Since Sept, dDuring the days when he goes to school, he is ok and seems to like the atmosphere there. There is no problem.

However, this evening we brought him to the Xmas party at the same school. All his friends are expected to be there. But somehow he got cold feet and refused to enter the school. In the end, I had to take him home.

In other examples, when we brought him to other friends', he would refuse to play with other children. It became so negative that sometimes we are afraid to visit friends, knowing that our child would stay with us all the time and kept us from communicating with other people.

Is there anything we parents can do?

Thank you.

Mine was like that.

He did grow out of it, and now he's in year 2 he is much better, but I still help out at school discos etc so he knows I'm there if he needs me.

You can't do anything except let him dictate when he wants to go home. If you were having a shit time at a party you'd want to go home too.

I know it's embarrassing sometimes, but the only thing to do is try and minimalise it I think.

Our DS didn't like people dressed up in costume, didn't like crowds, parties or loud music. Best not to try to force him into situations he is worried about, especially if there is no essential need to be there.

ds1 was like that, really painfully shy, we'd go to parties, even small ones he was sure he wanted to attend, and then as we got to the front door he'd just shake his head and say "nope, let's go home".

that lasted til he was about 7 or 8, at which point his personality randomly did a complete u-turn. he's now 13 and is the most socially confident extrovert i know.

so i wouldn't think you need to DO anything, as such.

i now have ds2 who's 5 and is much the same as big bro was.

Our son has been shy and frightened of various big social occasions. He's 3.5 and is growing out of it a bit now.

I think what helped was going through what was going to happen, allowing him space to say what it was about the situation (usually noise), rehearse what he could say whether to be sociable or to excuse himself and also to make sure we turned up super early to anything as he wouldn't walk in to a big noisy group but would cope if a big group emerged gradually around him.

I think that's quite common, time will sort it.

There isn't much you can do except praise him and ensure he feels safe and secure at home.

Is he happy at school? I changed my ds's school and he's gone from being low in confidence to being described as having a high self esteem. His previous school was quite relaxed and carefree, his new school is strict and highly academic. He his thriving in the stricter school far better than he was in the carefree school.