Speaker 1Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
Speaker 2Hello, and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 104, and today's episode, shy or introverted, I want to help all of you who are listening, who have a child or children who seem reluctant to engage in social situations, who seem slightly nervous in those situations, or maybe this is a child. This is a child who permanently avoids or is always behind your leg whenever you're meeting someone new or whenever you're going somewhere new. Quite often we confuse them, but being shy and being introverted are not the same thing, although they may look the same. So, we're probably going to need to do a little bit of probing and a little bit of auditing and a little bit of observation, but I'm going to give you some just general kind of characteristics of a shy child. So, a shy child, general characteristics of an introverted child, and this will be the same for adults as well, just so that you can begin to be able to recognise those, and then I'm going to talk you through my five top tips in terms of supporting them. And the reason why I know this is something that I get asked a lot, because it can often feel really painful for us on our children's behalf when we see them in social situations where they're so withdrawn and they're finding it so hard, so difficult, and sometimes it can just be around those sort of bigger social situations. For some children, this can just be around friendships, that they really struggle to make friends because they're either shy or they're introverted. So, they do often look the same, but they are different. So, an introvert tends to enjoy time alone and gets emotionally drained after spending a lot of time with others. We'll look at it in a bit more detail, but I'm just trying to give you some broad, brush difference between the two. So, this idea about an introvert wanting to spend time alone and they get emotionally drained. A shy person, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily want to be alone, but is afraid to interact with others because that creates a sense of nervousness and anxiety and stress. Being introverted is more of a permanent characteristic, it's more of a permanent state, it's part of who you are. Now, that doesn't mean that introverts are not sociable, but being introverted, is more of a permanent state. Shyness generally is more relative to the situation and comes from this perspective of feeling quite fearful or anxious or overwhelmed. So, that's broad brush how we can know the difference. Hopefully, that's helping give you a bit of clarity if you are listening about this specifically with a child in mind. Let's look about a shy child first and then we'll look at an introverted child. So, a shy child, probably around 15 or 20% of children, typically have this temperament that, leads to the behaviour that we might typically say that they're shy or they're reserved or they're quite timid or fearful. But typically, we tend to use these words. So, probably around 15 to 20% of children tend to exhibit this temperament and a shy child can often feel very anxious, very nervous, very inhibited in unfamiliar situations or when they're interacting with people that they're not familiar with. So, they're more often likely to feel that they're unsure so when they're meeting someone new or having to speak in front of others and what they tend to do is take in their environment before they start responding. So, they tend to be quite observant and they can be highly empathetic but that's why with a shy child, you will get this sort of standing behind you, their head and their eyes are facing down or with younger children, they're kind of gripping on the back of your leg. These are temporary states with a shy child. Once they. warm up, they are then generally then much more sort of outgoing. So, you may well have a child that tends to exhibit these behaviours when they first go somewhere. So, whether you go to a playgroup, whether you're going to a birthday party, whether you're meeting new people, is that they're just that slow to warm up that they sort of need to observe, they need to take in information, they need to become a bit more familiar and then you typically find that they'll then come out of their shell. So, that is much more typically a shy child and it will be situational. So, you can get shy children and it's quite interesting when I start working with a family for the first time, I have this particular exercise that I do when I first meet the child and sometimes when children will say to me, because I ask them to use words to describe themselves, I'll often be presented with this notion of, oh, I'm shy and I'll often say to them, okay, so if I went to your school and spoke to your friends and asked them and said, oh, Becca's just told me that she's shy, would they say to me, oh my goodness, me, Becca, isn't she shy? Becca's not shy and they often laugh about that and the reason why I say that is that helps me understand whether they're a bit of a slow to warm up and unfamiliar situations. So, a shy child may, and I think that's often as well for us as parents, why we feel frustrated or overwhelmed or we can't quite make sense of it is that with people they're supremely familiar with and sometimes this can be, these can be adults that they're very familiar with, is that they can be incredibly gregarious or maybe at home they're the bossy one and they're really outgoing and we think, oh my goodness me, they're not shy, they're not afraid of making friends because in those situations, but in other situations they are and that would be a typical shy child. I'm weighing it up. You know, these people are unfamiliar to me. I don't know them. I don't know the situation. I don't know how to act. I'm going to observe from behind your leg or behind your back or with my head down. I'm just going to scan the situation and then when I feel more comfortable, I'll then engage. An introverted child, as we've said before, it's much more that this is going to be part of a permanent, character trait and one of the things that is a really common misconception around this idea of introvert and extrovert and I do think sometimes people think, oh goodness me, an introvert, I don't want, you know, an introvert is a bad thing and an introverted child is not going to be sociable. That is so far from the truth. Introversion and extroversion has nothing to do with confidence, nothing to do with how outgoing your child is or even you are. It's much more to do with where you get your energy from and extroverted children, an extroverted adult is energised by being around people. So they seek to be with people a lot because that gives them and builds up their energy and fills their batteries. It recharges their battery. An introverted child, an introverted adult, being around people drains their battery. So they will actively seek to recharge the battery by seeking solitude. So it's really important that we're able to understand that distinction, particularly because it's a very important thing because I think as a parent, we can often feel that if we've got an introverted child, that that's kind of like the kiss of death. It isn't. It's just understanding where their energy flows. They can be just as confident as an extrovert. They can be just as sociable as an extrovert. They'll just need downtime afterwards. So some of the key things that will differentiate an introvert is that they prefer to kind of have conversations to communicate best one-to-one. They are very strong listeners. They typically will seek solitude of very, very different kinds because that's how they recharge. So they may go to a party or they may spend all day at school with friends and being around other children. When they come home, they actively seek out time on their own. And that might be why they then don't seek to engage with us initially when they come home. So they actively seek solitude in whatever shape or form that takes. That could be reading a book. That could be just playing on their own. But it is colouring, drawing, creative things. That's a natural part of their recharge, which is why it's really important that we allow and create the space for them to do that. An introverted child will often need time to process a question that they've been posed before answering. And that is a really crucial thing to remember if you are an extroverted parent and you're then sort of thinking my child is being rude or just, you know, you've been asked a question, why are you not responding? Is just being aware so that we can give them time to answer. They often prefer not to talk about or share their emotions. emotions, they're highly self-aware. they learn through observation so they're observing others and they are generally quiet in large social settings because remember the large social settings lots of people lots of buzz lots of noise is likely to be draining them so they are subtle differences but there are some very key differences a shy child if it helps you takes a while to warm up and will then be very full-on and engage an introverted child it tends to be much more of a permanent state so hopefully that's given you a bit of a clearer distinction between the two so what can we do to help whether we've got a shy child or an introverted child to help them because one of the things that we need to remember is of course we need to accept them you know accepting them for who they are they are but it's also being aware that there are going to be times in their lives where they are going to have to step up and be uncomfortable in a social situation or overcome their shyness and step out of that introversion so it's really important that we help scaffold and help them then build up and feel able to cope with these situations so we want to help accept them for who they are that's really really crucial but we also want to make sure that we equip them because that's our role as parents remember we're working with the end in mind we're reverse engineering we're thinking of the adult that we're raising and what are the steps that we can do to help them and the adult that we're raising is going to have to have a job interview at some point the adult that we're raising is probably depending on the job but for most jobs they're going to have to interact with people they're going to have to probably present their ideas in some shape or form at some point amongst a group of their peers and potentially superiors so we're really thinking about it from that perspective how can i build that skill set for my child so here are my top five the first is that we just need to get super clear on whether what we're seeing is due to shyness or introversion this is to help us and to help you understand how best to support your child and to help you understand how best to support your child make appropriate choices in your expectations because you then understand now remember that these are not negative life sentences introverted and shy adults still manage social situations admirably and love them but it goes back to this notion that the world often requires us to step out of our comfort zones and what we're simply doing is equipping and preparing our children to do this now and also for when they're older so we just want to get super clear and if we're not super clear but we've got a bit of a hunch then let's work on that basis but then be a bit more observant let's do that audit let's be mindful let's look out for these things so that we've then got a bit of an idea about how best to support them moving forward that's number one therapy's biggest
Speaker 1impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in the smallest moments you bite your tongue instead of escalating you put your phone down instead of firing off that text you say what you want to say but you don't know what you're going to say you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life that's what growing feels like and that's exactly what grow therapy is here for grow is therapy that works covered by insurance sessions average 21 dollars with insurance and some pay as little as zero dollars depending on their plan there are no subscriptions no long-term commitments you just pay per session grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapy services and you don't have to pay for anything you don't have to across the u.s offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days not the national 48 day average see if you could pay as little as zero dollars for therapy in seconds at grow therapy.com slash a cast that's grow therapy.com slash a cast grow therapy.com slash a cast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan at humana our medicare
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Speaker 2number two do not label your child do not call them shy do not call them introverted not because i want you to be deceitful but i have a very strong belief that they may have a particular temperament and we know it's not a life sentence but i also don't want it to be a determiner or an excuse for not fully engaging socially in a way that's not in a way that we want them to we don't want to wrap them in cotton wool what we want them to do is we want to be able to recognize that that's that's their temperament that's how they are and how best can we support them when we give children labels when we repeatedly call them shy when we repeatedly call them introverted in my view we can then potentially give them an excuse for not doing things oh i can't do that because i'm shy i can't do that because i'm introverted and introverted people don't like those situations and that's not to say that i don't that labels in other aspects of our children's development in terms of neurodiversity and autism and adhd and dyslexia and dyspraxia and all of these other things are not important they can be i just believe and that's a whole episode for another podcast but i do believe that when we label our children which we do sometimes that you're my little um helper or you're my little cheeky monkey whatever it is that we do that we do from a place of love and kindness i think quite often it can create our children and it can create our children and it can create our children the words that we use are incredibly powerful our brain does not know the difference between what's real and what's imagined and if we label our children in terms of their temperament and in terms of why they find certain situations difficult then that becomes i believe slightly self-fulfilling and then that gives them an opportunity to opt out and i don't think that's helpful we can be aware that we can you know in some situations you find difficult of course we can acknowledge that when they're meeting new people we can be aware that we can be aware that people are in new situations that they find that a little bit overwhelming i think that's part of a broader challenge and as i say potentially another podcast episode but i just think labels create roles and personas that our children then take on which i don't believe are helpful when we're looking at problem solving when we're looking at scaffolding when we're looking at overcoming challenges because instead we say well i fit this pigeonhole this is where i sit and that role that i inhabit is then incongruent can't do that they're not capable of that and then it gets in the way so of course we want to be super clear whether our child is shy or introverted so that we can best support them but we do not need to give them that label and if they use that label then reframe it it's not that you're shy because you just find some situations more challenging than others introversion is just simply the way that you find your energy so this situation is going to drain your energy the sort of responses i'm giving are if the introversion comment comes from your child it's much more about you know that it's about how we see our energy so let's talk about how we can top up that energy or make sure that our batteries are fully charged before we go into that situation so number one get super clear number two do not label number three is so these are much more now how can we start looking at we know where our child sits how can we now best support them moving forward and number three is about setting up social situations which are scaffolded so we're not talking about forcing our children into frightening situations immediately because that's we want to we want to set challenges it's about feeling an element of stress and anxiety particularly if we've got a child who is shy who wants to avoid that particular situation but it is much more about problem solving in advance through setting up these social situations so if you've got a child who's shy who's really struggling with friendships one of the ways that we can set up a social situation which is scaffolded is to organize a play date but a play date that has a very definitive start and finish and is a very task focused so if you're shy the idea of inviting somebody over to your house or you going over to somebody's house where you're simply playing in an unstructured way can feel overwhelming because they can often feel like the spotlight is on them they're like rabbits caught in the headlight so instead when we talk about setting up social situations which are scaffolded is it's actually creating a play date around a specific task so it may well be going to do pottery class you know pottery painting it may be going to the cinema it may be going to a zoo it may be going to a museum or a park to play on a playground or to go on a bike ride it's really thinking about how can i set up this social situation for my child which gives them a bit of a scaffold on which to frame to hang some of these interactions onto now we may well have to start doing that quite regularly but it's really important to for each of their social situations that they find themselves in but in time we will do less and less of that but particularly if you've got a shy child needs a bit of time to warm up then that can be a great way and then obviously the more familiar they are then you don't need those as much for an introverted child those social setting up social situations to scaffold may also be helpful but for a different purpose because it helps them not feel overwhelmed in terms of the discharging of their batteries so all of these strategies are helpful regardless of your child whether they're shy or introverted they'll just serve different purposes so it's about setting them up and then problem solving with your child in advance so what we're doing is we're agreeing in advance how we might be able to help them should that sort of situation feel slightly overwhelming and we need to make sure that when we're problem solving in advance about how we can help to support them that this comes from our child saying to us this is what I would like you to do rather than us saying this is what I will do so for example if you've decided that you're going to go to the park as the scaffolding for that social situation and you're aware you've had conversations with your child about how they feel and those interactions can feel difficult so you'll then have a conversation about you're not going to use this language about how are you going to anticipate but we're going to be in the park where do you think the areas the things that you're going to find quite tricky and you're not going to feel particularly confident in so it might be about starting a conversation it might be about asking them to come in on a particular bit of equipment in the playground so it's helping them reflect and process the situation and then we're going to have a conversation about how we're going to problem solve in advance where they might find their shyness comes out the most and then ask them so if that is the case how can I help in that situation what would you like me to do and it may be that they want you to initiate the kind of conversation and start things off so that they can then and then you back off and they continue it may be that you're problem solving which order of rides to go on it's really thinking about in advance so what you don't get is you've done all of this great work to solve the problem and then you're going to have a conversation about how you set up a social situation which you've scaffolded agreed that you're going to go to a playground or you're going to go to a funfair or something like that and then your child is paralyzed you haven't had that conversation about how to best help support them so it's really setting up those situations in advance so that's number three number four is about rehearsing what to do and how to be in those potentially stressful situations and scenarios before we place our children in them so this is role play you know how role playing with your child so if we've decided that we're going to set up a social situation which we've scaffolded and our child's happy we've problem solved and we've talked about what we're going to do if they feel overwhelmed then role play it because i say this quite often to shy and introverted children is that actually if you can practice this and feel uncomfortable because it feels uncomfortable doing it with your parent then if you can overcome that discomfort that uncomfortableness that awkwardness that weirdness then in lots of ways you're doing something that feels a little bit like what you're going to actually be doing in the real situation so it's really important that we role play and when we do role play and we rehearse it's making sure that we both take the role of the child so of course your child role play with your child being themselves in that situation and working through it and how they what they're going to say but also make sure you switch and you play your child but play your child compassionately knowing the things that they find difficult and trying to implement in you and you're going to be the one that's going to be the one that's going to be the one that's going to be the one that's going to use the scaffolding techniques that you've talked about the things that you've suggested that you've problem solved together that might be helpful in starting those conversations because that's really helpful because children are going to learn in all manner and we know that we all learn in different ways and some children are very experiential learners they learn by doing and by role playing we're creating a scenario and an opportunity for them to role play and if they don't want to role play with you they can role play with their sibling whatever it takes is really trying to make sure that you're doing the right thing and you're going to make it fun and if you all end up sort of laughing and not necessarily taking it massively seriously it doesn't have to be a perfect play out of it it just has to simply be getting them to think on the spot to experience some of that on the spot thinking and what they may say or they might do in that moment so that's the fourth one so the first is get super clear on whether they're shy or introverted the second is not labeling them the third is about setting up social situations which are scaffolded the fourth is about rehearsal about practicing about role play and then the fifth is about setting small goals you know we must remember we're not trying to throw our children under the bus we're not trying to put them into overwhelm we're not trying to put them in super frightening situations of course they're going to feel anxious and overwhelmed to some extent and we want to manage that by starting with small goals remember my ladder resource which i've spoken about before which we will include in the give in our free resources but it's looking at it from that ladder perspective the top rung of the ladder is where we want to help our child and support our child to get to so being able to be in those situate social situations and not feel overwhelmed and then the rungs of the ladder is simply well what might be the first step what's a small goal that we can work on that will just help you feel that little bit more comfortable and let's work and let's practice and let's role play and let's set up social situations which are scaffolded in that situation let's learn let's feel empowered let's feel confident and motivated and then let's move up to the next rung and the next rung and the next rung so it's working through setting small goals we don't have to take huge leap we're a work in progress it's a long journey there's no rush we don't have to rush at this we have to get our children on board and we have to set small goals which help them work up so those are my five top tips so my give this week are going to be these top five strategies along with the ladder resource and a full explanation of that if you have not worked through it before i'm going to show you how to do that so i'm going to show you how to do that previously and i've mentioned it in a number of different podcast episodes around anxiety and confidence and goal setting by all means if you want to hear me talking through it again in more detail then go to one of those particular episodes where i speak about it in a lot of detail so my give is going to be these five strategies as well as the ladder resource so that you can use the checklist as that reminder and that practical tool so you can reflect on you know whether you think your child is an introverted or shy and why and what you think your child is going to do and what you're going to practice first but you will also be able to go back and use it and also looking at the ladder resource so you can do that a number of ways as usual all you need to do is head over to my free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library where you'll find the link to download the resource all you need to do is pop in your email address and you'll get instant access not only to this week's resource but all the other free resources across all my podcast episodes as ever i would be so grateful if you could subscribe to my channel and hit the bell icon so grateful if you have enjoyed this episode if you could please please please follow and review this podcast it literally only take you a few minutes but it is so important in terms of others being able to find us so that we can spread the love so until next time when it's time to
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