Do yours "go all shy" in public so it looks as if they are just being rude... and what do you do?

[UnquietDad]

Took 9yo DD away for the night for a concert and we met up with an old friend of mine (J) who I used to work with. She has only met him once before when she was very little. Had a quick meet-up for coffee and a chat.

DD is a girl who is always around adults and knows how to have an intelligent conversation, but you wouldn't have known it from yesterday. Every time J asked her a question she'd either shrug, or answer in a monosyllable. Whenever she did say anything she addressed me and didn't even look at J. It wasn't as if she was in a bad mood or anything. She just temporarily seemed to have forgotten how to speak to people.

I'm worried he'll have gone away with the idea that she is rude and, even worse, stupid. This is a gay bloke with no kids but he has younger relatives and knows friends' children and so knows the things to ask children to engage them - it wasn't as if we were talking about Grown Up Stuff all the time.

Gah. Sometimes I am so, so proud of her, but some days I am just ashamed...

ime, cool trendy men and prepubescent girls are a tricky mix. She probably felt a little tongue tied to be perfectly honest.

Don't worry about it, I'm sure he hasn't been.

oh i have that problem with my dd 2.9, she is just able to talk but not fluently as yet, she is very sociable with myself and my dh but when her grandparents visit, is very shy, does not really engage and runs away from them crying. When i introduce them to my friends she does not greet them, hides behind my legs or starts shaking her head. I am very sociable and so is dh so i hope that she grows out of it. It does seem to come over as rude but at the moment she is just a toddler so i hope tht it will pass especially once her speech improves.

I keep telling her that she needs to say hello how are you to people when they greet her, and when other children ask her name in nursery she needs to say hello my name is say Katie, but no nothing. She is quite a young 2.9 year old so there is hope

UnquiteDad, no need to get so rude and agressive.

When you post that you are 'ashamed of your dd' and worry about your friend's impression you must be prepared that some people will feel .

If you have said that you worry about your dd and her friendships then i would have posted on different tone.

But as it is i find your OP pathetic, sorry.

I think you need to examine your motivations - your DD was able to come up with the basic politeness of hello/goodbye...she is only 9, and this was a man she had effectively never met before. There is no reason a child should be chatty in that scenario.

I think it is good to simply appreciate our kids for who they are not for what they do. They are not performing monkeys who are there to give you a nice warm proud glow by being chatty or clever.

Sounds like a possibility that she may be entering a more self conscious, 'awkward' phase, most kids do as they get older....so maybe now is a good time to examine that 'ashamed' feeling and bin it!

I didn't want her to be "chatty" necessarily but I do think it is important to learn to look at the person who is speaking to you and to answer in more than monosyllables. She is not a quiet, shy 6-year-old. She is a noisy, outgoing, vibrant 9-year-old.

Laquitar - well, I find your reply pathetic, so we're even. Now you can go. Thanks for your input.

Confusing for the kids tho - introduced to a strange large male and expected to be sociable yet bombarded with stranger danger messages at school etc.

She's a young girl, she's going to be shy and awkward around strange men!

Thanks Lenin, i see most of the children i have met her age are chatty and say hello when greeted by other people, i am a bit embarrassed should i say that it comes across as rude. But she is only young hopefully in time it will change. My dh and i try to set a good example and we see different people and she can see how we interact.

'My dh and i try to set a good example and we see different people and she can see how we interact.'

That is all you can do, and give it time. I'm afraid that as a shy DC the idea of my parents asking me how I felt and asking what they could have done to help would have made me 10times worse! I was acutely embarrassed, I wanted to be able to chat away but I couldn't have done it-not to save my life! Much better not to draw attention to it. I suppose the best thing would be, to start with, just to say 'try and look them in the eye and say hello'. It needs very small targets.

UQD, mine can be very charming and polite in public - and it does make me feel proud of them when other people comment on it. But other times they do turn into monosyllabic, grunting [pre]teenagers. Usually this is for rudeness (ie because they simply can't be bothered to make an effort) rather than shyness iyswim, often because they are not interested in the person or sense they are not interested in them.

It is partly about learning appropriate social interaction: some children do pick these things up fairly quickly and automatically by observing others. Both my nieces have been the most delightful, engaging children from being tiny. With ds1 we actually had to actively teach him social expectations and so on, and to some extent continue to do so.

In your position I would have a chat with your dd at an appropriate time and point out how her behaviour might have been perceived.

Dunno about the handshake - she does know that grown-ups "do" this and I think it's nice, in a way.

Will try and have a moment to talk to her about it, anyway.

UQD I think if you want her to learn to look at people she meets and not answer in monosyllables then all you can do is keep modelling this behaviour yourself and she will pick it up/regain it when she is ready. I think you need to have a lot of faith in her as a person because feeling judged and undermined through just one episode of less than confident behaviour (which she could if you leap on this and talk to her about it) will certainly not get her there, imho. I think you are really reading too much into this and I think you should lighten up before you make it worse for her!

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Thanks everyone, our neighbour came round for coffee today and was trying to talk to dd, but dd was having non of it and giving the silent treatment i was so I said to dd, when we see people we say hello to them, say hello to sam, which was met by more silence, so just left it, and apologised to neighbour. My neighbour has two teen children so understands.

I know that there was a similar thread on here about this and either being rude or shy and some posters said that parents should teach dcs good manners and that by 3 years they should know how to be sociable. I have tried practically everything, as she gets older hopefully she will come out of her shell.

If your friend really knows children, he'll know that this shyness or lack of social skills is common in most children at some time or other.

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Yes thanks lenin, i should just not get so stressed and just keep on setting the standard. i am and also dh are both sociable people, i can talk the ear off somebody so i was a bit about dd