When does shyness become rudeness?

[Notsuredontknow]

DD turns 4 soon. She has always been very shy, slow to warm up, an observer rather than a participant etc. She’s great once she feels comfortable with someone but it struck me today, when we met up with a family we hadn’t seen for about 2 months that her shyness might now be coming across as rudeness. The dad of this family was making polite conversation with her, gently asking her about her Xmas etc. and she just just repeatedly blanked him, didn’t look at him, only mumbled a response when I prompted her to. I’m sure this is fairly common and I know she’s still very young but I’m wondering how to deal with it now. Up to now I’ve not put much pressure on her because I wondered if she’d just naturally grow in confidence around strangers/those she’s not familiar with (although I do tell her it’s nice to smile and respond to questions and greetings etc but haven’t made a big deal of it if she hasn’t) but if that’s not looking likely when would you start to address it and how?

My daughter was the same at that age and at 9, is still quiet but answers when spoken to now. She has done for a while, so they get more confident as they grow up. Whether right or wrongly, if it's a new person, I sometimes tell them she is shy, so they don't think she is rude. But then I worry I'm labelling her!

I used to get embarrassed by it a bit but I was the same as a child and it gets better. Plus family we don't see often know it's just her personality and I've spoken to them about it when she's not around, so they know it's not personal to them.

Starting school helps with confidence as well. Mine even puts her hands up to answer questions and I never thought I'd hear that at parents evening!

I meant to also say that she joined a new brownie group in September (old one shut down) and she still says she doesn't talk to anyone much as she doesn't know them. She had people to talk to in the old group.

Same goes for holiday clubs, she waits for other people to start the conversation and I remind her that sometimes she could start the conversation as people might think she's rude. She tends to have a serious face as well, but I think it's more a nervous face but people might think she has the hump lol.

At school she is fine and has different groups of friends, so I don't overly worry about it, but it would be good if she made some other friends at clubs as she might enjoy them more with some conversation. She just keeps herself to herself at them a lot of the time but she doesn't seem to mind too much, I just feel sad for her at times. But as long as she has friends and play dates, I'm happy!

Thanks so much for sharing. They sound pretty similar. My DD is confident at nursery (like yours at school) but she’s been going years and loves it/the people there. I hope that will be case with school when she starts. With things like holiday clubs or seeing friends we only meet up with now and again, she doesn’t have enough time to get her confidence up. I know what you mean about labelling her as shy - I had this worry too but actually I’ve found it useful for her to be able to describe how she feels, so we do say now when she’s feeling shy and I say it to other people. She also says sometimes that she just doesn’t want to talk to someone/ doesn’t feel like talking 🤷🏽‍♀️ so maybe she just cba with some people 😂