Children who won’t say hello

[GingersnapBiscuit]

My daughter (3.5) won’t greet people. Not just new people - any time we go for a playdate or bump into nursery friends on the street she’ll just drop her head and completely ignore them to begin with. Nursery say she’s the life and soul of the party and in every photo they send I see her playing exuberantly with others but something about being put on the spot when meeting people outside nursery seems to stump her. Sometimes she’ll even struggle to acknowledge my parents at first if I go round with her, even though they look after her once a week and I know she’s totally confident with them on those days.

How can I help her get over this block? Once she’s warmed up she’s very friendly so I don’t want to put too much pressure on it but I haven’t really seen other children behave quite like this.

I remember this as a child (probably older than yours!) and I think it just came from being shy seeing someone outside of your normal environment where you might see them eg in the street rather than school. Even now as an adult I feel inside a bit uncomfortable seeing someone I know outside the normal place I see them eg if I bump into someone at the supermarket 😂

My mum got so fed up with it that one day she said if I didn’t say hello nicely she would give me a smack 😔

What I would actually recommend is just to keep modelling it yourself and gently encouraging her to say hello.

My dad has situational mutism (not saying this is the case for your dd, I think it’s very normal for a 3 year old), and her speech therapist told us that hello and goodbye, please and thank you parts of speech are the most pressured and anxiety provoking because they’re loaded with expectation, and therefore these are the last parts of speech that we should expect to develop. No pressure is the advice for SM, no expectation of speech, as that increases anxiety and compounds the problem. I think that works well as general advice with a lower level issue too,

There’s a difference between a child who doesn’t know that it’s polite to say hello and a child who knows it full well but finds it very difficult to do it.

In the latter case it’s nothing to do with manners and forcing a child in that situation, or shaming them, or telling them
off, is only going to backfire and create even more anxiety around it.

It’s nice for you that your own child finds this easy. Maybe don’t be so quick to judge other children/their parents who don’t find it easy.

I had a child like this, and I can tell you that what NEVER worked and that was standing there in an increasingly awkward encounter trying to encourage, cajole, force, demand, she spoke up, whether to say Hello or Goodbye or 'Thank you for the gift/for having me.' while the other parent/relative got increasingly uncomfortable.

It was impossible to enforce, never resulted in a free, ungrudged, unmuttered greeting, and just made much more of a 'thing' than was necessary. It's not like the other person cared or even noticed until I made something of it. Why the hell would 'Sally's mum' care that 'Apples' daughter had terrible manners, especially if I breezed over it myself with 'oh wow, Applekid, isn't that lovely/what a lovely time you've had/thank you so much, she'll have so much fun with that!'

Lots have said the same as me, I see - IncompleteSenten said it really well "Saying hello for them and using lots of "we" sentences eg we're so glad we bumped into you, and things like "me and daughters name were saying (insert something nice about them) the other day." Modelling conversation without expectations.

Applekid is adult now and while she'll never be as 'gushy' as I am she can perfectly well manage nice, polite interactions, so honestly, it will come in its own time if you shelve it completely.

I used to hide behind my mums legs at that age. By my teens I was comfortable introducing acts at a concert and as an adult I regularly give presentations and deliver training in my area of expertise. I'm really comfortable in managing large groups of people. I also have friends.
Yes, do model good manners, it is important. Please don't worry about her though, she will get there!

I’m not judging individual children at all. Though ofc i understand my judgement about what’s usual might be skewed- I only have continuous access to a sample size of one (chatterbox!) after all! Which is exactly what I’m asking - has it always been the case that older children have found this part of social interaction hard, and have my expectations of my own child been unrealistic? I wasn’t being snide- I was asking genuinely.

Of course I understand that some children will have an underlying cause- ofc nobody should ever be shamed or bullied into anything, let alone saying hello. In any event- I didn’t say that (& I’ll choose to believe you don’t mean to insinuate such). I’ve been absolutely horrified by the accounts upthread of people whose parents punished them for not saying hello etc.

But is it the case that this is now the norm? That more children now have an underlying factor that stops them saying hello, than don’t? And I’m asking that in all seriousness.

This is taking the conversation away from the OPs question though, I apologise OP.

My 3.5 year old is exactly the same. She finds greetings in particular difficult but at childcare she’s super social after she warms up. Every day she is greeted by the teachers and she just remains stony faced and doesn’t respond. Everything I read says not to pressure them, model the behaviour you want to teach them etc but it does make me anxious because I don’t want my child to be anxious or introverted because it can be so
limiting.

One of mine was very shy at this age. I taught her that if going into a room with lots of people (eg nursery first thing in the morning or parties) all she had to do was say "good afternoon everyone" to the room in general rather than speak to anyone specific and then sit down quietly until she was ready to engage. We also did a lot of practice/role play on "Good morning DD how are you today" "I'm very well thank you, how are you" in the lead up to starting school so she could manage early mornings at the front door. . we spent a lot of time talking about how good manners take the pressure off you as you automatically know what to do and how to speak to people.SHe's now a very sociable student who is often picked by her profs to represent the department at open days and to look after prospective students at auditions as she's so friendly.

No, it’s not the norm, but neither is it uncommon, as this thread clearly shows.

Since your own child doesn’t find it hard, then no, your expectations of them
are not unrealistic.

This is so common, I did it so did both my brothers- we all turned out ok! Both my daughters did this too until they were about 4/5. My niece also does this now, she is 3.
Lots of children just need time to warm up, lots of adults do to but we're better at disguising it! If you make a big deal it'll become a thing and become harder to stop!

My son is 5 and has always been like this. He'll be shy for a while when we're on days out or parties with his school friends but at school, he's fine. I don't understand it but I just leave him be and I assume he'll grow out of it.

Go for "you can say hello if you want" and if necessary tell the other person that your child will talk to them when they are ready.
When they get older you can talk in more detail about why greetings are important.
Saying hello is one of the most taxing things to do communication wise, for a child, strangely enough. You'd think it's just a word but it turns out not to be the case at all.

My 7 year old daughter keeps phasing out! She starts to say something like "mummy, I have an idea" and when I respond and ask what her idea is, she completely phases out, she doesn't hear your response, sometimes I wave my hand over her face and sometimes she doesn't even see the hand. As I am writing this I am actually thinking I really need to take her to the GP but not sure how to explain it or if it a phase - anyone ever experience this with their child?