I'm looking for advice about helping my 5yo DD to overcome her extreme shyness/social anxiety. If that advice can help a less extreme case of shyness in her teenage sister as well then that would be amazing.
Dd2 is more than just averagely shy, which I know is perfectly normal in young children, not quite into the same league as being selectively mute but almost. She is about to go into year 1 and struggled massively with reception, it took 3 weeks til she would talk to anyone at school, but she did do it eventually, then she had a change of teacher half way through the year which set her back, then they moved the children to different classes for phonics, then maths has been with a different teacher as well. Each of these things have been hugely stressful for her. She also isn't managing to show school what she is capable of because she is so stressed by talking to them she can't concentrate on her reading, writing, etc. So at school she's reading books from the blue book band, yet books she can read from the library are much harder, which again I know can be normal but is very frustrating nonetheless.
Our challenge this week has been swimming lessons. She wants to have swimming lessons, she loves swimming, is very confident in the water, can swim 20m, jumps in etc. I don't know how to go much further with her swimming by myself so to improve she needs lessons. So I booked her in for a week long course, having explained what she can do to get the right level, stage 3 we were told. Monday arrived, we went to her first lesson and she froze completely, cried, and refused to get in the water for about 15 mins of a half hour lesson. When she did get in she would only swim if I was at the other side of the pool. We discussed it, very much in the way of me wanting to help her understand and overcome her fear (it is proper fear, her heart was pounding and she was shaking). We came up with 5 targets for her to try, some easy and some harder, with rewards for each one based on how hard she finds them. None of these targets are about swimming, they are all things like smile at the teacher, manage the lesson without crying, etc. She has got a lot better in these 3 days, even though she's had a different teacher each day (absolute nightmare for a shy child). She hasn't yet managed to talk to the teacher, but might have done if it had been the same teacher every day. Now we've been advised to put her in stage 1 lessons, which are for non swimmers, just building water confidence. But it's not water confidence that's the problem, it's people confidence, which has been knocked by the 3 different teachers, with 3 different styles. So do I put her into stage 1 which is too easy swimming wise to build her confidence with having lessons then move up to probably a different teacher just as she's got used to one person, go for stage 2 which is still too easy swimming wise but has the same teacher for stage 3 when she's ready to move up, or try 121 lessons where she can stay with the same teacher for a long time but never has lo learn how to deal with other children in the lesson?
If you've read all that I'm amazed. What would you do? If you've successfully helped your child get out the other side of this extreme shyness how did you do it? I don't think she'll just grow out of it, dd1 hasn't and she was nowhere near this bad at 5.