Parenting a Shy Child

I thought this was a great article.  My son is not shy at all, a bit hesitant in new situations, but then fine as he gets is bearings.  However, I was a very shy child growing up.  But I was shy because I was a big kid--bigger than everyone--until they started passing me up in Jr. High School.  I could have used some of these suggestions and helps while I was in elementary school.

Many children are shy – it's not uncommon at all. However, dealing with a shy child as a parent can be difficult. While there is no shame in being shy, if you continue to let your child be shy, they can later be robbed of important life opportunities. For this reason, it's important that parents find ways to help bring their child out, helping them to overcome the shyness that they are dealing with. Of course, it's easier said than done to help your child get over being shy. Here is a look at tips and advice that parents can use to help out when it comes to parenting a shy child.

Why Is Your Child Shy?

The first thing you need to do if you have a shy child is to ask yourself why your child is shy in the first place. There are various reasons that your child may be shy. Take a look at when you notice your child being shy. Are they shy all the time, only shy when meeting someone new, shy in large groups, or shy when having to make presentations? If you are able to figure out the situations when your child is shy, you will be better able to overcome this.

You also need to consider the fact that your child may be dealing with more than just a bit of shyness. Various medical conditions and other conditions may be confused with shyness in a child. Your child could be dealing with a problem like Asperger's Syndrome, autism, anxiety, or even learning disabilities. Take a careful look at your child and their actions. If you think there may be an underlying problem other than shyness, make sure they get the professional attention that they need.

Be a Role Model
Another important tip for parenting a shy child is to be a role model yourself. You may be surprised at how much your child learns from you. They learn by watching what you do, so it is important that you are a good role model for them. When you are in social situations, be friendly to others, introduce yourself to other people, and compliment strangers, friends, and family members. There are some things you should avoid too. Don't criticize other people in public, don't berate your child for being shy, and don't avoid people because you are nervous. This only sends the wrong message to your child. Even if you are a shy person yourself, to help you child, you need to overcome that and work on setting the example for your child. Not only can this help your child learn important social skills, but it can help you overcome shyness in your own life as a parent.

Start Early with Social Skills

Good social skills don't just randomly occur in children – they are taught. This means that you need to work on these skills with your children, and the earlier you begin, the better. Shyness increases as children age, so you need to start young with your child. Not sure how to encourage social skills in your young child? Start out by having play dates so your child gets the chance to interact with other children at a young age. Take time at home to practice social skills, such as giving compliments, introducing people, or even shaking hands with others. Teach kids about friendship and how to be a good friend. These are all simple ways that you can teach young children important social skills that will help them to overcome shyness later in life.

Help Your Child Learn About Respect and Tolerance
 People who are shy are often more judgmental – of themselves as well as others. If you are judgmental yourself, this will teach your child to become this way as well. When you are criticizing others, you are teaching children that when they go out, people are going to judge them as well, which leads to even more shyness. This causes them to withdraw into their own world of shyness. It is important that you instead teach your child about respect and tolerance for other people. Teach them to respect people even if they do have shortcomings. Let them know that no one is perfect, but people are worthwhile and should be tolerated in spite of imperfections. Compliment other people instead of tearing people down.

Also, you need to avoid referring to your child's shyness in a negative way, which is a way of judging your child. While shyness should not be an excuse for behavior, you need to avoid labeling your child as shy in a negative way. Instead, find ways you can compliment your child while helping them to overcome the shyness that they are dealing with.

When You Need Help
There are some cases where your child may simply be dealing with shyness. However, there are times when this can be a more serious problem, such as severe social anxiety disorder. Sometimes children can go beyond simply being shy and they may become depressed, lonely, isolated, and they may even feel hopeless. In some cases, this may lead to panic attacks when they are put in social situations. This is not a simple problem to ignore. If you feel that your child is dealing with more than simple shyness, do not wait to get help. It may be a good idea to find a good psychologist that is trained in treating these problems in children.

Parenting a shy child can be tough, but if you work on it as a team with your child, they can overcome shyness, which will be helpful later in life for them. Use these tips and ideas with your child and remember, if it seems that your child is more than just shy, get the help that your child needs.

Article found here: http://www.more4kids.info/2413/parenting-a-shy-child/
More4kids is a Parenting resource dedicated to helping encourage children's intellectual and growth.

Put some music into the mix this summer!

There's no better way to enhance your summer fun than to blend music into your daily life. Studies have shown that learning while exercising the right brain with activities such as music helps improve creativity, memory, and language learning.

Did you know that involvement in music and movement activities from an early age helps children develop good social and emotional skills as well? Social and emotional development has also been linked to school-readiness and even higher academic testing scores.

 An easy way to blend music, movement, learning and fun for your child this summer is to enroll him or her into a Kindermusik summer camp. To find a class near you, click here.

 For a few ideas to incorporate music into your family's activities, read the activities section below!

Babies (0-18 mos):
Light and motion are incredibly important to your baby's development. You can help your baby improve his or her visual literacy by encouraging his or her eyes to move. Spread out a blanket under a shade tree and lie on the blanket with your baby. Watch the motion of the tree branches as they sway in the breeze. Watch the clouds go by and sing a favorite song. It doesn't matter if you're a "good" singer or not, your baby will love the sound of your voice.


You might just find the perfect sing-along song on Kindermusik's "Wiggle, Waggle, Loop-de-Loo" CD.
 

Toddlers (18 mos-3 yrs): Ask your toddler what kinds of sounds different animals make, repeating the sounds with him or her. Get creative with your choices, what sound does a grumpy gorilla make? Then talk about comparisons: roaring lions versus chirping robins. If you have an older toddler, add an extra challenge by having him or her make the sound of an animal that is associated with their hiding place: buzzing like a bee if they're by the flower bed or croaking like a frog if they hide under a bush.

The perfect song for this activity might just be found on Kindermusik's "Frog Went A-Dancing" CD.
 
 

Big Kids (5 yrs &up):
Go on a treasure hunt in your own backyard! Collecting things is a favorite preschool activity. Children in this age group are expanding their memory skills and the joy of finding a new or interesting item is particularly rewarding. Start out by deciding on a category that won't be hard to find (leaves, rocks, etc.) or take along a notebook and you can write down the colors of the cars parked on the street. Once you have a goal, start your search! After you've done this a few times, come up with more specific and more challenging objects to seek. Below are a few additional ideas:

• Head outside and look for things that are purple, or polka-dotted or try to find smooth things, or bumpy objects.
• Play a music game. Try to fit songs into categories. Is it fast or slow? Loud or soft?
• Decorate an empty shoebox for your collection!
• If it's too hot to go outside, give your preschooler a piece of paper with the name of a category on it. Have him or her draw pictures of items that fit into that category.

Kindermusik's "Rupert the Wrong-Word Pirate" CD might just have the perfect "tune" to accompany this activity -- after all -- pirates LOVE treasure hunts!

Find these CDs, songs, activities, and MORE at play.kindermusik.com 

 Join in the Fun this Summer!

Feelings

Part Five: The Emotional Life of the Toddler

Control of emotions is one of the most complex challenges facing toddlers and their parents. children vary greatly in the intensity of how they experience and express feelings, depending on inborn temperamental factors, but it is a rare toddler whose feelings do not become intense and overwhelming at times. As parents provide both limits and loving support to their toddler, they are helping the child gradually learn ways of handling and modulating their feelings so that the tantrums of the 2-year-old ideally give way to emphatic verbal argument of the pre-schooler.

Developing competence in language and increasingly complex symbolic play skills will help this process immensely. Music as a fundamental route for the expression of human emotion, is an excellent tool for helping young children learn to identify and channel emotions. Very young children can identify and channel emotions. Very young children can identify music that makes them happy or sad, and enter enthusiastically into singing songs, or even verses within the same song that express emotion. Learning to identify loving, contented feelings and feelings of anger, fear and sadness are equally important human tasks. Musical expression of these wide ranges of emotion can help make them more manageable, less overwhelming, and much more understandable to the child who language skills are still emerging.

It is clear that many of the elements that make up a Kindermusik class enhance a toddler's ability to progress in these crucial tasks. The structure of the Kindermusik program and the opportunities it offers have the potential to directly enhance each parents ability to support his or her child in these tasks, and thus increase th joy inherent in parenting a bright, musical toddler.