Shyness/silence with adults

[CathyH]

My daughter will be 4 in June. She has been going to the same nursery since she was 6 months old, although never willingly. Although she was very upset when we left her for the first 2.5 years she quickly settled down and played with the other children and she was getting better at being left. However, over the last few weeks she has refused to speak to any of the adults who work there although still plays very happily with the other children. Here carer is concerned that she often walks around in a dream and refuses to even say her name at register time. Although she has always been very shy with other adults and extremely clingy, she is so chatty at home and a real 'leader' in role play situations, it is almost hard to believe. Has anybody else experienced this silent behaviour towards other adults & daydreaming? She will be starting school in September & I need to try and address this before.

CathyH - I was very much like this as a child - I got on happily and talked to other children but wouldn't speak to adults- of course I spoke to my parents ! - this went on for a long time. My school sent me to an educational psychologist who found nothing wrong-so I think it was an extreme form of shyness. I can remember the feeling that I'd got so much into the habit of not talking that it was very difficult to break out and speak-though it wore off while at primary school as I gained confidence. I'm still shy now,but am over the very extreme shyness and will chat happily to anyone. I'm not sure what the answer is,which wont help you,just wanted to say that it passes. It could be that your daughter is quite engrossed in her own imagination too,I spent hours happily wandering around telling stories in my head. If she's otherwise happy and seems untroubled I shouldn't fret.

CathyH, my dd had the same thing, she would socialise well with other children but was always largely silent with adults (especially those she didn't know well or saw infrequently) and would often not answer questions (even things like "What's your name?" without a lot of prompting. I wouldn't say she was a daydreamer though...it was more a social development thing really. Your dd has known her carers for a long time (assuming they haven't had a big turnover of staff lately!) so it does seem a bit unusual...you say she has only done this over the last few weeks, does that mean she was better before and it has gotten more noticeable? Has there been any trouble at nursery lately, or any other incidents you can think of? It almost sounds like she is "sulking" and giving them the silent treatment! Have you tried asking your dd directly about it?

A friend of mine had a daughter, now adult, who wouldn't speak to anyone outside their family. She was diagnosed as having a psychological condition called something like Selective Muteness. But she had mild learning difficulties, too, which didn't help, and also no one would take the condition seriously at first, so it went on for years before they got any professional help.

I suppose what I'm saying is that it might be an idea to give your dd time to 'grow out' of it, but don't let it go on too long without calling in the HP's to get to the bottom of it.

Another thing occurs to me about the day dreaming; it can be caused by a mild form of epilepsy, so that might be worth checking out, too. Good luck.