Guide to Overcome Shyness

Every year, the number of people that have having a hard time overcoming shyness is increasing. If you think that you are at risk of developing social phobia or you know somebody who is already suffering from extreme shyness that affects his or her personal and social life, the best way to address the problem is to determine if there is really a "problem".

In this case, the problem is the fear of the person in dealing with others. Experts say that the earlier the shyness is diagnosed is the best treatment for this condition. This is because the problem could be addressed in its "infancy" stage so more options would be available for the patient.

The first thing that one can do if he or she suspects that he or she might have developed this fear in dealing with people is to check the symptoms of people who are diagnosed with it. Some of the common symptoms extreme shyness or diffidence include over anxiety or nervousness during the conversations and other social functions. Other manifestations of the condition might also include nausea, dizziness, vomiting, muscular tensions, motion sickness, excessive sweating, heavy breathing, palpitations or increased heart rate and uncontrolled shaking or trembling of the person's body.

If these symptoms happen to a person during any social gathering or conversation, then there is a great need for him or her to seek professional help as soon as possible. The diagnosis of diffidence is usually made by the psychologist who will offer advices. He or she will also assess the patient by asking about him or her about the fear of people, how it started, and the extent or the severity of the fear which may affects his or her life.

Going to a psychiatrist is one of the basic treatments in overcoming shyness because he or she will give the person another perspective on the condition and will also help him or her handle the condition especially if it has reached phobic proportions. If you suspect that too much shyness affects your life in general, the following are just some of the tips that you can follow in order to overcome this:

- gain enough knowledge. This is the best thing that you can do in order to overcome shyness. If you are educated about shyness, you will know that embarrassment—which is the major reason that triggers shyness—doesn’t happen all the time. And if these will, you will know what to do since you have already taken time off to know more about this occurrence. Experts say that the greater understanding there is when it comes to shyness and about all the things that usually take place during social functions, he or she will get hold of the fear that grips his or her emotions.

- know what actually scares you. This is the basic thing that people who have extreme shyness should do because if they will know what it is that they fear in dealing with others, they can address these issues on themselves with a help of a professional such as a psychologist.

Three Approaches to Get Over Shyness

If you have been pondering about how you can get over shyness, you are on the right direction. You must focus your attention now on how you will be able to achieve this goal in order help yourself become better and feel better, especially when you are with many people. You must not let this attitude hinder your personal growth. You have to realize that there are so many things and experiences that you are missing out on for the mere fact that you are shy. You really need to do something before it becomes too late. But you must not expect too much to happen too fast. You have to take it easy and take things slowly. This way, you will have time to prepare as to how you would like to tackle the experience according to the pace that you are comfortable with.

By setting this goal, you are allowing yourself to have a better future. You know very well that if you want to succeed in any industry, you have to learn how to express yourself and how to interact with people that you will meet along the way. Just imagine how you will be able to land your dream job if you are not going to pass the first phase, which is the interview, just because you are painfully shy to even let your thoughts be heard. If this is going to happen, you are going to have a hard time getting hired. You may think that you would only choose a career that would not require much interaction with other people. But you have to understand that no matter what career you choose, it will be best if you are armed with right knowledge and right kind of personality to match that with.

Here are some things that you can do at this point to help yourself eventually arrive at your goal and that is to break away from your attitude.

1. You must gather your thoughts and energy to only think positive. You have to be optimistic about life and all other decisions that you need to face from hereon. You can start this by studying how you usually interact with other people, especially those that you only meet for the first time. You have to know why you are finding it hard to start a conversation or carry on a lengthy one if they were the ones who have approached you first. Do not think too hard when speaking with other people. You just have to enjoy the moment and go with the flow. You must not aim to impress them all the time. The main thing that you have to think about is how you would be able to tell them what you really want to say.

2. Listen to people. There are times when you become too focused about your appearance or what are you going to tell to people that you fail to listen to what they are telling you. This is not good because you cannot respond to them properly if you weren't able to get what they want to speak with you about.

3. You must accept the fact that not everybody is nice and not everyone you meet will accept you with same friendliness or will respond to you after you have started a conversation. There will be times when you are going to be ignored. This must not let you down from your goal to get over shyness.

Solving the Problem of Shyness for Good

In order to succeed and live a comfortable life, everyone needs constant needs to overcome shyness. This can be done when one is always motivated and have positive outlook in life. Experts say that when people are able to overcome self issues such as shyness, they become more aggressive in achieving their goals and dreams in life.

Experts say that motivation can be a key to solve shyness issues for good. Although motivation from other people helps a lot, it is best if one starts with motivating him or herself. This is because if one knows how to motivate him or herself, that person would be able to make decisions that would affect his or her life in the future.

To motivate one's self, the first thing that needs to be done is by developing a positive outlook in life. This is very important because if one keeps an open and positive outlook towards life in general, he or she will be able to overcome the everyday struggle that would come along the way. Also, if one has a positive outlook in life, he or she will be able to turn failures into successes by seizing each opportunity that knock on the door.

Motivation is the key

Shyness is a natural thing for people. But if this serves as a hindrance to a person's personal and social life, then something should be done to solve it. In dealing with shyness, one can start by motivating one's self not to be shy. One can start by knowing what are the things that cause shyness. This is good for them to know how to deal with these factors one step at a time.

Although it might sound easy, self-motivation is not an easy task. It would require so much self-assessment as well as constant reflection over one's self, on his or her environment, the people that surround him or her and the overall condition of life that he or she is in. Experts say that once each of these has been thoroughly assessed, it will be easier to pave the way for continuous self-motivation. The following are just some of steps that people can do in order for them to motivate themselves not to be shy anymore:

- start with small feats. This is one of the easiest ways to start with deal with shyness. By starting small and simple, you are not putting too much pressure on yourself about the things that you need to do and what are you supposed to accomplished in a specific period of time. By starting small, you will be able to accomplish easier tasks and you can move on to bigger challenges ahead knowing that you have gone though the entire process; and

- stay in good company. To solve shyness issues for good, it is very important for one to veer away from people who have negative vibes. It is a must for somebody to find a good company of people who are all enthusiastic, encouraging, and have a positive outlook in life so he or she would somehow feel positive aura.

Overcoming the Feelig of Shynes

Are you shy?
Are you uncomfortable surrounded by people?
Would you want to overcome your shyness?

First things first: There is nothing wrong with being shy as much as there is nothing wrong with being outgoing, either. Shyness is just a plain emotion, not a permanent personality trait. Anyone who is shy has the complete power to change it.

The following are some simple suggestions that can help you overcome your feeling of shyness. It is a feeling. And feelings can be replaced.

Building self-confidence

Self confidence is knowing you are special. Everyone is special, including your favorite celebrity. Being special is having some trait to offer to the world. Your favorite celebrity might be a good singer. Your friend is kind and thoughtful.

How about you? There is always something in you that make you special. Look inside you and find out. Think about it, instead of fixating how you look or sound or dress up. Your being special is the one you should polish and work on.

And whatever your problems with yourself are should not make shy. Everyone has problems too. And they are not shy.

Smiling and getting comfortable
In everything you do, look and act friendly. A smile can work wonders into yourself and that friendly attitude will translate itself into your body language. Your friends will become closer to you and will help you in your work to overcome your shyness.

Smiling is simply a friendly acknowledgment of other people, whether they are friends or complete strangers. It definitely will brighten the day of the person you smiled at. And surprisingly, it will brighten yours, too. Try it.

Visualization

Athletes have a visualization technique. It is simple but very effective. While training months and days before their big events, the first thing they do every morning is sit and relax for about 15 minutes. And they do only one thing: picturing themselves winning their race.

You can do the same. Close your eyes and imagine a situation where you are normally shy. Now, you simply replace that with images where you are confidently dealing with the situation. You can even see the techniques on how you did them in your imagined scenario. Now, do this every day. You will surprise yourself later.

Good posture
Sometimes, it could be our body posture that makes us shy without our knowing it. Good posture and speaking clearly perks up something in us. Standing straight and looking the other person in the eyes sparks a confident note inside us.

We feel secure in what we are talking about and without any prodding, we tend to speak out very clearly because we know that the other person is listening well to us.

 No one is watching you

Being self-conscious is the pre-occupation of shy people.

Do you think people are looking at you when you cross the street? Are they pre-occupied with your hair or with the color of your lipstick?

Why not check out if people are looking at others? No one is really watching anyone that intently. That includes you.

Overcoming your shyness takes work, and only you can work it out. Getting a professional help might be good, but in the end, it is you who will do the smiling, the figuring, and the confident walking.

Is Shyness Really Inborn?

Is shyness hereditary? Is shyness in our genes?

The simple answer is: shyness is not inborn. We do not inherit it from our ancestors or from our parents.

Scientists argue that people are not born shy. This is because shyness has three major features: namely, excessive self-consciousness, excessive negative self-evaluation, and excessive negative self-preoccupation.

These three characteristic features of shyness all have the major component of a sense of selfhood. And based on scientific research, a sense of self in a young person (a baby, if you will) does not develop until approximately 18 months of age.

Since an individual is not born with a sense of self – but developed only later – that individual cannot be born shy.

Sense of self

In trying to learn more of the human psyche, some of the world’ greatest thinkers in the past (including Charles Darwin) first undertook the search for an individual’s sense of self.

It was Darwin who first proposed that the self’s beginnings is when a child is able to recognize himself or herself in the mirror. Later researches showed the initial signs of the sense of self manifest around six months of age, becoming refined in about over a year.

At around the age of six months, children placed in front of a mirror tend to reach out and touch their image as if it is another child.

The logical question follows: how do we know if the child really recognizes itself or is just reaching out to the mirror image perceived to be someone else?

The scientists then applied a touch of red rouge on the noses of children and placed them in front of mirrors. Eventually, at age 15 to18 months, the children would touch their own noses and not the image in the mirror.

The conclusion would seem to point that children 15 to 18 months of age have already some sense of what their faces should look like and are curious about any variations of it (the red rouge on the nose seen in the mirror).

Inhibited temperament

While there is no evidence of people being born shy, there is evidence that 15 to 20% of babies are born what scientists call as an ‘inhibited temperament.’

Generally, temperament is a biological characteristic that people are born with that serves to influence their behavior in their first few months. However, inhibited temperament demonstrates excessive physiological and behavioral reactions to surrounding stimulants.

A baby with an inhibited temperament kicks its legs vigorously, has a higher heart rate, and cries longer and louder when exposed to unpleasant noises like a popping balloon, for instance. Babies not born with inhibited temperament do not exhibit such reactions.

Another example is that two-year-old inhibited children tend to hide behind their parent’s legs upon seeing a stranger. At seven years of age, inhibited children engage in more isolated play rather than playing with other children.

This is when such behaviors are labeled by parents and everyone else as ‘shyness’.
However, these behavioral expressions of inhibited temperament do not mean that such children will grow up to be shy adults.

The idea that people are born shy is just a belief on shyness, and is not a supported fact. There are many documented cases where shy individuals are able to surmount their shyness and become regular guys.

Shyness is definitely not inborn.

Helping A Friend In Overcoming Shyness

Shyness is one of those issues that are hard to deal with alone. This is why it is important for shy people to have friends help them in overcoming this issue.

If you know a friend who is at risk or who already have fears in dealing with others, you can help him or her to overcome that. What you can do is to act as a confidante during conversations as often as possible. Since he or she trusts you, you can try to explain to your friend that although the fears of untoward incidents may happen when dealing with others, these don’t take place all the time.

Acting as the confidante
If your friend is in crowd, it would be best if you accompany him or her so your friend can have somebody to turn to once the nervousness gripping his or her senses. If you are in the same social event with a friend who is trying to overcome shyness, here are some of the things that you can do:

- Familiarize yourself about shyness. If you have time, you can do this research by surfing various sites in the Internet. If it is possible for you to research with him or her, it would be better because here, information about shyness and studies or statistics as well as various relaxation techniques is taught to help people understand the shyness itself.

- Make sure that you know the people who are attending a specific social gathering. Knowing details about the people who are attending the party might seem an extra effort for you but you have to do this because your friend will rely on you during the gathering. You can check from party organizer event details and you will know what to tell your friend. The information and your presence will help your friend be more comfortable and relaxed knowing that she or he doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore.

- Keep your friend distracted. Since your friend is shy, it is only natural for him or her to feel nervousness and even physical symptoms such as dizziness, muscle tensions, deep breathing and even vomiting if placed in a crowd that triggers shyness. If you see one or two of these symptoms, you should start distracting her or him by talking to her about things that are light. If you do this, you can veer him or her away from negative thoughts.

- Stop him or her from consuming stimulants. Some of these are taken by people who are extremely shy to calm them down. These stimulants may include sugar, coffee and other drinks that may contain alcohol. Tell your friend that it would be best not to take these since they contain ingredients that may increase the symptoms of anxiety as well as panic attacks.

- Make sure that you both arrive in the gathering early. One of most effective ways of helping a friend in overcoming shyness is getting at the party venue at least an hour before it starts. By doing this, you can buy more time to relax and just enjoy the event. It is best not to go there late because it will only cause a feeling of rush that may trigger anxiety that causes shyness.

How to Utilize Tips for Overcoming Shyness

Do not feel like you are too old to look into tricks and tips for overcoming shyness. If you have been battling with this attitude for so long, there will really come a time when you will like you have had enough and you want to finally come out from the dark. This doesn't mean that you will be the center of attention or crowd drawer all of a sudden. It will take rigorous steps and proper pacing until you are ready to face your own demons and fight your battles within. You must remember that you are on the right track, so do not let anything distract you from this point forward.

You have been depriving yourself from many experiences for too long. You have to fight the main factor that is hindering you to become happier and a much improved person. Now that you have set your mind to the task, you must proceed and do everything you can to overcome the fact that you are shy.

Focus on the Task

There are actually many things that you can do to start the process. If you feel like you cannot handle it on your own, it will be best to seek the help of professionals. The latter can help you sort out the roots of your dilemma. They can tell you what led to the condition according to researched and scientific information. They can also study your case and relate it with how other people coped with the same condition. This will take time so you must allot right schedule to accommodate the treatment. You must also allot money to be able to get the services of the right people that can help you in this regard.

If you think that you can do this on your own, be sure about it and prepare to help yourself to emerge a winner at the end of it all. To start with, you can gather self-help books that tackle topics about shyness. You can also look at various resources online, which you think can give you more perspective about the matter. It will also help if you will allow yourself to open up about what is bugging you. You can try joining online forums where you can talk with other people who had the same problems with this kind of attitude and can tell you how they were able to overcome such. While at it, you must also start enveloping more friends and joining various activities where you can gather more friends.

You have to be easy on yourself and must not expect too much. You should also be prepared for rejections to come so that when something negative happens, you are prepared and this would not easily dissuade you from attaining your goal.

No matter how little your improvement seems to be through the period that you have been involved in the task, you must still persevere and should not easily give up. The tips for overcoming shyness should only act as guide. It is still up to you what you must follow in order to help yourself according to your capabilities.

Overcoming Social Shyness

If you are inflicted with social shyness, it is high time that you do something about it before it becomes too late. You must realize that you have been missing out on so many things already. You could have done so many things and experienced bigger happenings if you have only done something to let yourself break free from such attitude. If you are not going to do something about it, you might end up thinking about the things that you wish you could have done if only you had the guts to do them. If you are the kind of person who hates the crowd and would do everything to miss out on events and parties where you will meet a lot of people, do you ever wonder how would it be like if you weren't that shy?

There are many negative effects that may be caused by this attitude. First and foremost, you are limiting your world to the circle of friends that you have already grown accustomed with. You are too afraid to expand the circle by making the effort to approach people and initiate conversations. If you will allow this to happen for a long time, you will also be limiting the possibilities of learning something new from the experiences that you have failed to try.

If you are facing this kind of dilemma, it is high time that you do something about it. If you feel like you cannot do this on your own, you better seek help of professionals who can guide you through the process until you have solved the mystery on how you were able to develop such attitude. They can also help you plan out the procedures that you can try to be able slowly step up from the attitude until you have gathered more self-esteem and confidence.

You can also do this on your own as long as you are determined about what you want to achieve and you are focused that you will stay true to the plans that you have set your mind to do. Here are some things that you can start doing on your own to help you with regards to this kind of venture.

1. Gather self-help books that you must diligently read whenever you have free time. You will be able to find many tips that you can use for your own good. You can also find related tips online. Browse through various websites that offer help for this kind of problem or you may also want to check personal blogs of people who can attest that they have become triumphant over such situation and list out the ways on how they were able to do such.

2. Start going out to places or gatherings where you will be exposed to more people. You don't have to speak to all of them in one night. You have to take things slow in countering your social shyness. Start with someone you feel like you will have something in common so that it will be easier for you to think about the topic that you can use to start a conversation with them.

After you have said you introduction, just go with the flow and enjoy the process. Do not be too rigid because you might end up looking like you are trying so hard.

Helping Young Children Fight Shyness

Shyness develops early in young children. On their own, children cannot overcome shyness. Parents and the immediate family are needed to help children fight shyness. And this should start when they are young and impressionable.

The following are some time-tested guides on ways and means for parents to help their child fight shyness and overcome it in the end.

Slow changes

Behavioral changes do not happen overnight, as much as it cannot be done in a short time. Start by easing your children into learning non-shy behaviors, and doing them in small steps. One example is teaching them how to say “thank you” and “please” to appropriate situations to all people, including complete strangers.

Socializing

Parents should not let children be alone for unnatural lengths of time. Introduce them to activities with other children to encourage them to be sociable with others their own age. Parents should not spare their praises for their children’s efforts at socializing. A pat on the back, a smile or a good word reinforces the good effects of what they did in their minds. 

Independence and responsibilities

Shy children tend to be dependent on their parents or to other adults. They are not willing to take risks, including making new friends and participating in social activities.

Parents can introduce a sense of independence and responsibility. They should solve their own problems and let them make decisions. Choosing what to wear is one sample of a decision-making effort.

Taking responsibilities can be slowly done by assigning them small chores apt for their age and abilities. A young girl can help the mother do some very light duties. A boy could be assigned to feed the pets. These are good for their self-esteem.

Reinforcing shyness

Paying too much attention to a child’s shyness (or worse, punish them for it) will only reinforce the behavior. Instead of forcing things around (making shy children to speak at all costs, etc.) or punishing them, parents should put on a calm attitude and treat shyness like an ordinary thing.

Teasing by family members or by other children is another form of negative reinforcement. It seriously damages a child’s self-esteem. For a shy child, the best recourse would be to withdraw some more into themselves to avoid being teased, and the cycle goes on. Use all your powers never to allow teasing.

Speaking for shy children also reinforces shyness. They will not learn to speak for themselves even if given the chance. Parents should never answer questions for their children and speak for them.

Criticism, nagging, or threats to children when they act shy will only unnecessarily put into focus their shyness. Forcing them to do things they are not yet ready will produce opposite results.

The better option is provide them with opportunities to socialize. Also, encourage them to do things slowly. If situations become overwhelming for the child, parents should respect their feelings and do not force things.

Helping your child fight shyness is a long and continuous work, if you look at it that way. Actually, it is more of giving the love and attention the child deserves in order for him or her to develop the self-esteem and confidence needed. It is not work.

Road to Overcoming Shyness

Talking and mingling with people is fun. But for people who don’t know who have yet to develop strategies in socialization, this is not always the case. For these people, the dealing with others can be fun but the hardest part would be keeping their heads up during any given conversation.

If you are one of those who are having a hard time dealing with others because of certain fears such as shyness, the first thing that you could do is to identify and acknowledge what you are afraid of in dealing with others. This is the best way to go about it because how can you address a certain problem if you don’t have enough courage to face it. Once you know in yourself what that fear is, you can find ways on how to overcome them.

The road to overcoming shyness

Shyness one of the most common fears that people develops. This is because of the thought something untoward might happen that would change other's perception about them. Many people who enjoy talking to others might think of it as something absurd but experts say that shyness is not a laughing matter. This is because it can lead to more complicated problems such as panic attacks, nausea and even vomiting.

If you are one of those who have developed shyness and you want to overcome it, here are some tips that can help you get started:

- know what really in dealing with others that are you are afraid the most. The most common answer would be the fear of embarrassment. Although the thought can be frightening, this doesn’t happen all the time. If you are afraid of embarrassment these things, it is best to acknowledge these right away so you can address these properly.

- be educated. This is the best weapon in getting started in overcoming shyness. If you are knowledgeable about the possibilities, you won't be able to imagine some things that might happen to you while talking to others. Experts say that if one if knowledgeable enough, he or she would have a better understanding of any given situation. Being educated means one is able to learn what to do when he or she feels shyness when dealing with others and what to do in these circumstances.

- get all the support that you need. It is hard for a person—who is just starting in overcoming shyness—to do it by him or herself. So, the best way for him or her to continue with the process is having people around who can give the support needed. If you are the person who always gets shy, try bringing along a friend who is not afraid of talking to others in a crowd. He or she can serve as a distraction so you won't think of negative thoughts while dealing with others.

Overcoming shyness might be simple but many people are still having difficulties in achieving this because of so many factors such as personality, upbringing, and ways of managing stress as well as failure. Experts say that for one to deal with shyness for good, he or she must be able to keep a positive attitude first then self confidence will follow.

Confidence: The Way to Handle Shyness

Confidence is one thing that enables a person to develop ways on how to keep his or her self motivated at all times despite challenging times and without direct help from other people. Experts say that being confident is a very important factor in a person's life because this will help him or her see things in a positive way. This will also enable him or her to overcome challenges by developing an attitude that could withstand trials, failures, and even shyness.

If one is able to build self-confidence, he or she will soon develop a good outlook in life and will enable that person to think that everything will start falling into their proper places. In fact, he or she might even be surprised of the things that were able to accomplished in that span of time.

If you are one of those who have just realized the importance of confidence in dealing with shyness and you would want to start but just don’t know how, here are some of the things that can help you:

1. Start with self-reassessment. Many people think that they know themselves already that is why they decline to do self-assessment regularly. Experts say that these people don’t realize that the more that they decline doing self-reassessment, the more that they get stuck to their own routine which leaves them lesser room for improvement. If you want to start with constant self-motivation, it is best that you know yourself very well. If you know yourself well, you will know your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Once you were able to identify all of these, it will be easier for you to set goals for yourself that are within your reach and your capabilities. Knowing one's self will also enable you to take note of your weaknesses and find ways on how to overcome, manage, and deal with them. The same works for your strengths because you might even find a way on how to improve them. If you are able to do this, you can build self confidence and will enable you to overcome shyness in the long run.

2. Start with small and simple goals. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. If you are just starting with building self-esteem too overcome shyness, it will be best if you start small and simple so you won't feel defeat when you weren't able to meet the standards you have set for yourself. If you start with small and simple things, you are giving yourself the chance to accomplish bigger things ahead.

3. Keep track of your progress. Monitoring how well or bad you are doing in overcoming shyness will help you maneuver things and will help you find ways that would best work for you. For a person who is just starting with his or her overcoming shyness, it is best to keep track of how you are doing so you will know where are the areas that you should improve on. You can do this by keeping a diary about how your day went and writing the things that still make you feel shy towards others and also the things that you are not confident with.

Battling With Shyness

Battling with shyness through motivating one's self is indeed one of the best ways to live a good life. This is because if one is motivated well, he or she can set goals that are within his or her reach. He or she can also find ways to deal with defeats without having to feel anxious or depressed over something that may be beyond his or her control. The following are just some of the ways on how people can motivate themselves if they are depressed over being too shy:

A good fight

1. Never stop learning. Experts say that once people realize that life is never-ending journey to learning, they will be able to find ways to battle with shyness. To keep one's self-motivated to overcome shyness, it is best never stop learning because this opens up to new worlds of possibilities that are waiting to be explored. If one continues learning through read or by trying different things, he or she can gain more confidence to do things and start with new projects. Also, when one continues learning, he or she will acquire newer skills that can add up to the things that he or she can do.

2. Always have a positive outlook in life. This might some easy for some but many people are in fact having a hard time developing and maintaining a positive outlook in life. Maybe because people just have different personalities and different upbringing that affect the way they see life in general. If one wants to overcome shyness, he or she must start developing a positive outlook in life. This can be done by trying to see the good in bad at all time or whenever possible. If people are able to overcome obstacles, he or she would soon develop the habit of looking for ways that would help him or her overcome that problem.

3. Avoid too much thinking. If possible, stop thinking at all times over something. This is because thinking would only bring in a mix of emotions that could be harder to handle and manage later on. To keep constant motivation in battling with shyness, one must try to veer away from negative thoughts and only think of the things where he or she could something good. One must also try not to dwell on things that are beyond control because this will only cloud the positive outlook he or she is trying to build.

4. Find time to share and help others. Motivation is a process that indirectly involves other people for it to be successful. If you think you are doing well at your own pace in battling your own shyness, it would help if you find time to share the experience as well as the ideas to others so you will influence them. If the people—especially those that matter to you—see that motivation helps you a lot in dealing with shyness, they would even might want to try the same thing that you are doing.

Ways to Help Children Overcome Shyness

You cannot simply ignore shyness in children, especially when you are dealing with your own kids. You have to help them while they are still trying to evolve and become better in a world that may be tough to deal with after they have grown carrying such attitude. As a parent, it is your duty to guide them and make them realize what will be best for them. You don't have to impose on your children to do what you want them to. You just have to make them understand that they can gather many benefits from being confident in carrying themselves and relating with other people.

One Step at a Time

To help your children overcome this kind of attitude that may hinder their emotional and social skills as they grow old, here are some of the things that you can do.

1. You must not impose on what you want them to be. And even if you are already doing certain things to make things happen in this regard, you cannot expect instant results. You must understand what your children are going through. The attitude may be innate to them and it is also hard for them to follow your lead as much as they want to. You must try and take small steps to initiate changes to your children. Give them time to absorb things and values of what you want them to learn. Let them approach the situation at their own pace and do things at the right time whenever they are ready.

2. You must protect them from getting teased because of their behavior. This will aggravate the situation and may lower their self-esteem even more. If they are often getting teased, they will try to avoid people and situations so that they won't get such treatment. If this is going to happen, you will have a harder time teaching them on how to improve their social skills.

3. Do not punish them for being shy. They did not intend to be this way. You must approach the matter in a calm manner all the time. You must bear in mind that they are also having a hard time dealing with their situation and thinking of ways of how they can eventually get out of their shell.

4. You must support them, but not too much to the point that you are taking matters onto your own hands. Let them speak for themselves whenever they want to at the phase that they like. Do not speak to other people on their behalf because this may only aggravate the situation. You must do your best to encourage them to slowly get out of their shells. You have to be able to achieve this without being very obvious about your intentions.

If you are faced to deal with a problem like shyness in children, you must always put their feelings first before you start acting and implementing what you think will be best for them. If you are having a hard time dealing with it, just think that this is harder for them. If you really want to help them, you must allow them to adjust to the whole scenario at their own pace.

Tips to Help Your Child Cope with Shyness

When you see that your child tends to show many signs of shyness, you must learn ways in order to act on the situation while you can still control them. In doing so, you are helping them to become better and you are also trying to prepare them face the future with the kind of confidence that they need. People can carry this kind of attitude until they are already matured. You must act on it while they are still young and they are still trying to evolve to the kind of person that they are going to be.

There are many negative effects of this attitude that is why you really have to act on the situation while you still can.

Here are some of the characteristics that are being shown by children who are shy. These also present the negative effects that the attitude can give them, which is why you need to help them while you still can.

1. They will have difficulty making friends. People will find them aloof and sort of stuck up. Their peers may interpret such aloofness as sign of disinterest to befriend anyone. Other people may also try to take advantage of them. They may feel superior over your child that they may find ways to push them to do certain things that they don't really want to.

2. They will lack social skills and may even tend to fear away from social gatherings. As a result, they would often feel lonely because these skills are necessary for their emotional development and growth.

3. They won't be able to improve on their communication skills. They don't have much exposure to people. They are stuck with you and other close relatives and individuals. They are missing out a lot of chances to learn more about other people and may also find it very hard relating to them. This can also result to so many bottled up emotions because they haven't learned quite well how to express their feelings.

Prevention is Cure

You must act on the situation while you still have time and your child is still young. The attitude may bring more problems if you won't at least try to do something to lessen it and improve your child's attitude through time. Here are some things that you can do in this regard.

1. Teach them how to behave in social situations by being a good example. You must also tell them about the value of friendship and how they can gather and maintain their real friends as they grow.

2. You must expose them to functions where they will be able to meet many people. Little by little, allow them to come out of their shells on their own.

If you have done everything but you don't see any changes on your child's shyness, do not pressure them to become who you want them to be. Try to appreciate them as a whole and focus on their talents and other good characteristics so that they can hone these further despite their lack of other social skills.

Three Simple Steps to Get Over Shyness

If you have been inside your shell for a long time already, there will really come a point when you will feel like you want to get rid of shyness and finally come out of the box where you've been hiding all along. If you have this dilemma, you have been missing out on so many things and experiences. This must not be the case because life is too short, so you really have to make the most out of every moment or everyday. If you are too shy to even approach people and find new friends, you are limiting your space and the world where you try to exist.

This kind of attitude will backfire on you at times when you have to stand on your own and gather the kind of confidence that you need to show people who you really are. If you are ambitious and you want to go far in terms of career, you should also start honing your social skills. You will not be able to go far if you cannot even speak your thoughts clearly. You have to seek help or help your self if you can and while you can still do it.

There are many things that you can do in this situation. There are professionals who can help you get through this awkward stage. If you think that you cannot solve your problem on your own, you must start finding a good professional who can help you trace the roots of your inhibitions. They will take you to a journey down memory lane to find out what triggered such attitude. They will also try to apply scientific techniques to be able to find the best solution for your condition.

If the case is manageable, you must do this on your own. This way, you will be the one who is in control of your decisions. This will help you find your own pace as to when you will be ready to initiate changes that you think will help you become more confident and gain more self-esteem. Here are some tips that you may want to follow if you are at this point in your life where you are very determined to change.

1. You must be optimistic about life. Avoid negative thoughts from now on. These will not help you with the kind of goal that you have set to achieve. Whenever you encounter failures, you must think that you can always find time to correct the mistakes that you have done and create better outcome in your future decisions.

2. You must not be too self-conscious to the point that you are no longer paying attention to people because you are too busy thinking what others are saying about you. Instead of thinking hard about how you can impress people, you must begin focusing on what they are showing and telling you. This way, you can address their concerns more promptly.

3. You must never be too hard on yourself. The good thing about this is that you are trying your best. Even if it is taking a long time for you to see positive results, this doesn't mean that you must quit trying on how you can get rid of shyness.

Simple Ideas on Helping Your Child Get Over Shyness

You have made your decision to focus on the task of helping your child get over shyness. Now you are doing everything to know more about how you will be able to achieve that. If the case is simple and you think that you can handle this on your own, you might as well start on it while the child is at the stage where you can easily control them. You should also act upon things before they enter school and start mingling about with kids their age.

The main thing that you must understand about the matter is that this is a process. You must never impose for changes to happen so quickly. As much as possible, you would want your child to enjoy their age. You are only helping by molding them to become the kind of person that could have a better outlook and disposition in the future. Here are some points that you can start thinking about when you have set your mind into helping your kid become more active and more expressive.

1. The first thing that you must be careful about is for your shy kid to be teased about their attitude. This will only make matters worse for them and they may find it harder to move forward and get past such attitude if they will often receive this treatment. You may have not noticed it before, but even their own family members commit this mistake and what's worse, they do it in front of other people. You must be alert all the time to prevent this kind of occurrence. At this point, you have to think of ways of how you can help boost your child's confidence and self-esteem and teasing is not part of it.

2. You may have noticed that your child wants to be often left alone. You can allow them to do that but make sure that you counter that by exposing them to events and other happenings where they can also get exposed to many people. You can bring them to places where they will enjoy themselves and see other kids interact with one another. If they show signs of trying to be sociable, you must praise them for the effort and show your support by encouraging them to continue such behavior.

3. If they are being asked questions by other people, do not easily speak for them. Allow them to speak for their own behalf. Give them a chance to strategize their answers or how they would want to approach the matter. Just come into rescue when you see that they are really not interested in continuing with any conversation to the people who are talking to them.

4. You must not brutally tell them what you want to happen or why you are doing these things and following certain techniques in order to help them. You must do everything subtlety. You must not let them feel like you are rushing them into becoming who you want them to be. Allow them to grow, get over shyness and come out of their shell at their own pace.

Motivation: The Key To Overcome Shyness

Shyness is one of the major reasons why there are so many people who are unhappy in this world. Because of being shy, many people are not able to get the job that they want or meet others who they are interested with. Although shyness is a natural part of an individual's personality, something should be done about it if it affects the entire well being of the person.

Seeing yourself

Although motivation from other people can be a good start in building a positive attitude in life and overcome shyness, this might not be applicable to all people especially to those who prefer to do things on their own.

If you are one of these people who would rather do things on his or her own, then now is the time to realize how big self-motivation can create in your life. Experts say that if one starts with the process of self-motivation to fight shyness now, it will be easier for them to accomplish greater things for themselves and for the people that they love in the future.

Experts agree that for one to overcome shyness and be successful in life, motivation is very essential. This is because knowing how to motivate yourself would help you deal with challenges that would come along the way. It will also serve as an inspiration that would keep your spirit high no matter how trying the times are.

Although there are countless advantages of motivation, it's saddening to think that many people still don't know how to adhere with it. For those who would want to start with motivation to deal with shyness, here are some tips that can help you get started with this.

1. Discover your cause or purpose in life. Indeed, the most powerful thing that can help a person get started with overcoming shyness is discovering your cause or your purpose in life. Once you were able to do this, you can find the reason in your heart why do you want to be motivated. The reason maybe for the betterment of your own self or for your family and others but no matter what it is, what’s important is you have something to hold on to in setting goals that you would want to achieve in the future.

2. Have a dream and hold on to it. Overcoming shyness is a not an easy task to start with. It would require lots of efforts and self-assessment to be able to maximize its full potentials. For people who would want to reap the benefits of overcoming shyness, use motivation now by having a dream that they could hold on to. The scale or the size of that dream doesn’t matter, it can be a big thing or a small thing, what's important is the person is willing to do everything to achieve that dream. For some people, having big dreams work on them because they are looking forward to big rewards in the future that is why they are giving their best this early.

While some people opt to have small dreams because they want to make sure that they will be able to accomplish that dream and won't have to deal with defeat or failure in the future.

Critical Steps on to Overcome Shyness

It is never too late to find ways on how to overcome shyness. If you are in this position and you think that you badly need help, you must act on it while the urge is strong and you are truly convinced that this is the right way to go. This way, you will be more focused about what you are willing to do to achieve your goal. You must understand that this can be easy but this can also be very hard. It actually depends on how shy you are. If you are painfully shy, you must allot longer period of time to be able to accomplish your goal. You must not be hard on yourself and expect so many changes to happen overnight. This is a process and the first thing that you need to do at this point is research.

Where do you start looking for tips about the matter? You must first understand the roots of this attitude. You can read about the matter on printed books and try to gather as much scientific data about the matter that will open your mind to what led you to have this kind of disposition. You can also look at the internet for this kind of data. If you want facts and figures that are easy to understand, you must search for other people's experiences regarding this attitude. You will find such entries on personally blogs or even public forums where you can meet people who are still struggling with the attitude and those who have succeeded from overcoming such.

You can always seek the help of professionals to make matters easier on your part. But if you don't have the money or you think that you can do this on your own, you may want to try the following tasks.

1. Sit down and think about the circumstances. Get ready with a pad and a pen to gather your thoughts. This way, you will be sure that you won't forget anything and you will be able to address these factors when you are ready to do so. You can do this by drawing a simple graph. The middle part will be you with the attitude problem. You will try to connect your images to the reasons why you think you have developed such attitude. You can extend your thoughts by looking for certain connections what caused the main reasons of your problem to occur. After you have spent time on this task, you will have a better view as to what really caused the problem and so you can focus your thoughts as to how you can counter these.

2. You must also practice ways to enhance your social skills. This doesn't mean that you would suddenly hit the party scenes and suddenly becomes the center of attraction. You do not have to take such drastic step because you can do this slowly and in accordance to your capabilities. You can start by simply greeting the people you see that you used to ignore because you are to shy to be the first one to even say hi.

Through these simple steps on how to overcome shyness, you are on your way towards growth and success on the goal that you have set for yourself.

How Positive Outlook Can Help You Get Over Shyness

Experts say that positive outlook is one of the most important things that a person should have to live a good life. It is just so unfortunate that not many people let feelings such as shyness get the better of them. And what's worse is that they don’t have innate means of motivating themselves not to be shy that is why many of them just give up and live a remorseful life filled with negative things.

Many people still don’t realize that shyness would be a constant factor in their lives. And because of this inability to understand and accept certain situations, people just give up the chance to a better life. Experts say that shyness is the number one factor that kills the people's desire to be motivated. This is because due to so shyness, many people think that it is useless for them to put on a fight since they will only taste defeat later on.

Self-motivation kills shyness

However, although experiencing shyness discourages people to want more things in life, this should not be enough reason just to let the chance of living a better life go. If you think that shyness hinder your process you to have a positive outlook in life, the best thing would be to know the things that motivate you. You can start with this by letting go of the bad experiences that cause your shyness.

Letting the past go, experts say, is the first step to deal with shyness. This is because if you already accepted that there are things that are beyond your control, you will be able to forgive yourself and start anew. If you just keep thinking of the past, this will serve as a reminder of your failure. And if you keep thinking about your defeat, you will undergo a never ending cycle of blaming yourself for the things that you did not really opted to do. If you want to start with overcoming shyness, try to finish each day and forgive yourself for the things that you were not able to finish or accomplish today. If you were able to do that, you will look forward to a new day and new opportunities that will come along your way.

Always take one step ahead. To be able to continuously motivate one's self despite feeling shy most of the time, it is always best to take one step ahead of things. Meaning, you need to plan ahead and do things ahead of time so you will be given more opportunity or chance in case the first plan did not work. Taking and thinking one step ahead are the best foundations of dealing with shyness because if you were able to develop these, it would be easier for you to take tougher and bigger problems or challenges along the way.

Once positive attitude is set, it is easier to look overcome shyness. For one to develop positive attitude, he or she must undergo self-reassessment to find out what are his or her strengths as well as the weaknesses. Once all of these have been identified, it will be easier to turn the bad ones into good ones and there would also be greater chances of making the positive ones better.

Preventing Shyness In Children

Like all other character traits, shyness begins at a young age in children.  Left on their own, the children might bring this trait over to adulthood. In many cases, however, shyness can be prevented with the timely intervention of parents and family.

Here are some tips that parents can do to wrest shyness away from their children.

Modeling confidence

Shy parents often have shy children. Parents, consciously or otherwise, stand as models for their children. They should show their children how they interact and express themselves with confidence with other people.

Social skills

Children need to be taught social skills at a very young age. Parents should teach their children how to behave in social situations (saying thank you and please, introducing oneself, etc.) and how to make friends and keep them. It is good to praise them when they show correct social behaviors.

Effective communications

Communicating with others is a very important skill to impart to children. It develops their self-esteem and builds their confidence. Parents should teach them how to express themselves to be understood by others.

Again, parents can set themselves as models on how to communicate confidently. Like always, children learn by example.

Social exposures

Exposing children to varied social situations can polish their personalities. Parents can start having them interact with children their age (schools and play groups) as well as letting them meet up with adults.

Decision-making

Parents can manipulate some situations to make their children feel capable. One way is encouraging them to make decisions (like what they want to wear given a choice of clothes).

Another is giving them chores that are challenging but well within their abilities. (Young girls can be encouraged to help prepare tables or food for cooking, etc.) In all instances, parents should always be there for guidance and help.

Appropriate discipline
The right weight of discipline gives foundation to children’s lives. It allows them to learn acceptable behaviors and those that are not. It helps teach them what to expect from their parents and everyone, and this gives them the feeling of security.

Excessive discipline, however, can swing the wrong way. Severe punishment in the name of discipline tells children they have no control of their lives, and this might result in shyness.

 Love and affection

Unconditional love and affection for your children gives them security and confidence. Show them, tell them in words, and give it all in action that you love them no matter what. This assurance of affection is one big factor that boosts self-esteem in children.

Trust

One big cause of shyness in children is mistrust of others. Parents should work hard to create a trusting relationship with their children. This trusting relationship has to be nurtured with consistency, honesty and openness so the children would know what to expect.

Inconsistent behavior, broken promises, lies, withheld information – these things destroy trust, and consequently, a child’s self-esteem. They will become secretive themselves and shyness sets in.

Basically, all these tips can be a big help in nurturing your children away from being shy and leading them into becoming confident personalities who can express themselves. Self-confidence has degrees like shyness has degrees, too. You would know how to prevent shyness in your children when you see it.

How to Effectively Overcome Shyness for a Better Social Life

If you are dead set that you want to overcome shyness, you must do everything to make things work the way you want them to. This may not be easy, but if you are really determined as to what you want to achieve, you must not let anything hinder you from becoming who you eventually would want to be. One aspect of your life that is greatly affected by this behavior is your social life. When you are shy, you tend to stay away from any events and happenings where there will be many people in attendance.

Most people who have this attitude find it hard to initiate conversations or sustain a long one if ever they do get introduced to someone. Such attitude will not help you in many ways, especially when you are starting a career and you have to nail down your job interviews. You may have the right educational background and you are mentally prepared for the tasks involved on your chosen career, but these are not enough. If you will not be able to express your thoughts right while you are being assessed by your future employer, you may not even be able get the chance to prove yourself.

Proven Techniques

No matter how desperate you are to get rid of your unwanted attitude, there are certain solutions that you must veer away from. Although these may provide short-term solution to the problem, as long as you don't find answers to the roots of your attitude, you may not be able to address real concerns. Some samples of these kinds of solutions include anti depressants and alcohol. If you will depend too much on anti depressants, you will still be bothered by what causes your shyness every now and then. Alcohol can be damaging because you may not be aware of the things that you do when you are under its influence.

You are already starting to do the right thing by trying to come up with probable solutions to your problem, which is your attitude. This means that you have already accepted that this is really a problem. It may be confusing to accept why you find it so hard to approach people or initiate conversations with them. The latter may only appear as trivial encounters for most people, but you are not sure why you fear occasions where you will be faced with many strangers because you don't know how to handle yourself at these events.

Now that you have accepted the fact, you can already start with small steps towards the kind of change that you want to happen with regards to your attitude. You can begin by changing your attitude in meeting people that you know and you used to simply ignore because you are too shy to be the first one to greet. You can now smile at them and slowly through the process, you can begin talking to them briefly whenever you meet them.

If you are not sure that you can do this on your own, you may want to consult a professional who can help you overcome shyness and deal with the situation.

Techniques to Win Over Shyness in Preschoolers

Children behave differently. There are those who are naturally friendly and would respond to everything around them with glee most of the time. But there are those who refuse to let their guards down until they are very comfortable with the people whom they are interacting with. This is very evident in many cases of shyness in preschoolers. This is very true for kids who have been very sheltered by their parents and other loved ones at home, especially those who do not get to play with other kids their age most of the time. A lot of them find it hard to relate to other people, even kids their age, because they cannot easily adapt to the changes that they experience once they enter school.

If you are a parent who has this dilemma, you have to understand what your kids are going through. You have to support them every step of the way. At the start, you need to be by their side constantly. This must be done until you feel like they are ready to take things on their own. Here are some techniques on how you may go about the matter.

1. You must take things at a time. You must understand that at this point, you should think about the steps that you ought to do to be able to help your child. You must integrate things that can help them gain confidence and they should feel your support through it all. You must allow them to do things according to their preference and capabilities.

2. You should not put too much pressure on your kids. If you want them to change their attitude, you will not achieve that if you are going to pound on them every so often whatever you want to happen. You must not expect them to act like other active kids. Instead of following you, they might turn against the idea and also turn away from kids whom you keep comparing them with.

3. Set good examples of what you preach. It will be easier for your kids to understand what you are trying to tell them by being good examples of what you would want them to be. You must encourage them to speak their minds whenever they are being asked certain questions and at times when there are people who are talking to them. You should also tag them along with you at occasions where they will be exposed to many people, especially on events where there will be many children.

4. Involve your kids in role playing games where you will ask them to do roles that reflect the kind of person that you want them to become. This serves as a practice for them to know what to do in instances if they are not shy. You should prepare for the game and give them roles that will inspire them to do the same acts if ever they will be faced with the same situations in the future.

You can do your share to counter shyness in preschoolers as long as you are focused on the task and you firmly believe that you can achieve the goals that you have set for them.

Handling Shyness Through Self-Motivation

Shyness is one of the hardest issues that a person must deal with. This is because fighting shyness would require an overall assessment of one's self—among others—to become successful

Experts say that one of the easiest ways to start dealing with shyness is through self-motivation. Indeed, motivation keeps people moving. This is one thing that helps them achieve goals that they have set for themselves. However, not all people are able to motivate themselves easily. There are those that who rely or depend on other people or experiences just to keep them going. Although getting motivation from other people or experiences might work, it is best if one learns how to motivate himself or herself on their own.

Getting started

Motivating one's self is a process where one needs lots of reflection and self-assessment. These are very important in dealing with shyness because it will help the person to know what are his or her strengths as well as his or her weaknesses. If one knows of his or her strengths, that person will be able to continue what he or she is doing and even enhance it.

On the other hand, knowing one's weaknesses is as equally as important because through this, the person will know what the areas he or she should improve on. If one knows his or her weaknesses, he or she might be able to deal with shyness easily and can even turn these into opportunities that will make him or her successful in the future.

If you are one of those who would want to get started on self-motivation to deal with shyness, the first thing that you need to set your mind into it. By having a mindset that you would want to get started on self-motivation and stick with it until you are successful, you will be inspired to overcome the feelings and hesitations you have. Setting your mind into something will help you look forward to the results of what you are aiming for. For you to have a proper mindset, it is best to clear your mind from negative thoughts so you can think clearly. Once you have done this, you will have an idea where to start with self-motivation.

The next best thing to do is to start with small and simple tasks in dealing with shyness. Overcoming shyness might be easy for some but for others, this is a very difficult feat to achieve. For people who feel that starting with self-motivation to deal with shyness, this can be overwhelming. So, the best way is to start with small and simple goals to achieve. If one starts small and simple, he or she will be able to accomplish these goals the easier and faster way. If simple goals are set and achieved this early, you will be able to earn self-confidence that you will need in facing greater and bigger challenges ahead of you.

Experts agree that self-motivation is a very important factor for people who are aiming to overcome shyness for good. This is also important because it gives the person a sense of freedom in choosing paths that he or she has to take. Through self-motivation, people are given the chance to maneuver or control their own lives which in the future will help them be the best persons that they want to be.

Alternative Approaches To Overcome Shyness

Experts say that it is only common for people to feel shyness, anxiety and defeat if life has been giving them so many tests and trials. However, instead of feeling depressed and sulking into the taste of defeat be because of being too shy, people can use this as an opportunity to make themselves stronger. This can be done by using these emotions and experiences to motivate his or herself in battling with shyness.

Options in dealing with shyness

Today, with modern technology and continuous advancement in research, overcoming shyness could be fast and easy. All one needs to do is to gather enough willpower to face his or her fear and the willingness to overcome that fear no matter what it takes.

Once the final diagnosis has been made by the psychologist, the person who has extreme shyness can now start with treatments depending in the severity of the phobia. Nowadays, the most common treatment options available in overcoming shyness include drug therapy, natural remedies, and various relaxation techniques. Each of these offer different concepts and processes so it's up to the person which one could be suitable to his or her needs.

The drug therapy could be the mildest form of treatment available for people who are starting in overcoming extreme shyness. Once diagnosis is made by the psychologist or psychiatrist, the most common drug prescription that they give include benzodiazepines and other relaxant drugs which are proven to control the symptoms of the phobia for a certain period of time. Although some can be bought over the counter, always remember to check with your health provider which drugs may help you overcome what your fear in dealing with others. Their approval and prescription is very important because these will ensure that the problem will not get more complicated.

If you want to go the natural way, there are certain natural remedies that can be made or taken at home to help you control anxiety attacks during social events. These herbs include St John’s Wort, Scullcap, Passiflora incarnate, and Valerian are recommended because these are believed to help calm the person's nerves while extreme shyness attacks. Because these contain properties that help people to relax, many are trying this treatment option. But since herbal or natural remedies don’t necessarily have clinical approval, it is best to test first the effects of these herbs before you finally use it.

Since anxiety is the main culprit for shyness, people who are experiencing this are advised to various techniques that would help them relax such as meditation and deep breathing as well as muscle relaxation. People who are afraid to socialize are advised to practice these techniques at home so once they have mastered it; they can try using these relaxation methods as often as possible.

Learning these techniques is important because it will help the person reduce his or her anxiety, relieve the tension brought by the fear, and enable that person to take off his or her mind into untoward things such as embarrassment in front of a person or a crowd.

Common Causes Of Shyness

At one time or another in our lives, we have had experienced shyness. As children, it is a normal temporary behavior, considered part of normal development.

It comes in roughly two waves: first, at around the ages of 5 to 6 months and again at about age 2. Shyness becomes evident at about age 3. Problems arise when shyness hampers with the child’s relationships with the others, in social situations, school, etc.

Defined as a fear of, or withdrawal from other people or social situations, shyness may have several causes depending on the particular child and the specific circumstances.

Shyness is a behavior parents should not ignore on their child. On the part of the child, it can be a very painful emotion to live with, and it will definitely affect the other aspects of his life all the way to his adulthood.

For starters, shy children develop low self-esteem and its attendant lack of self-confidence. This results into a real difficulty for the shy child to make friends. Moreover, they do not usually receive the needed help from their teachers.

Some reasons for shyness

As had been cited before, shyness can have several causes. Each case, however, is unique for each child. Some may have one specific cause, while others may have a combination of causes that feed on each other.

*Heredity Some research showed that shyness runs in the family. However, science could not yet pinpoint if there is a specific gene for it. It could be that children learn the shyness behavior from their parents through example.

*Modeling or learned behavior. As is noted from the above observations, children may have acquired their shyness habit from watching how their parents interact with other people. As statistics show, shy parents usually have shy children.

*Difficulty with frequent exposure to new situations. Children are repeatedly exposed to new situations. Unfortunately, not all children can cope with these, and those that cannot tend to withdraw.

*Overprotective parents. Children who are overprotected lack the opportunities to be socially independent. Growing up, they lack the confidence needed to make their own decisions. Their later insecurities will trigger shyness.

*Inconsistent parenting. Parenting practices that are not consistent cause confusion and insecurity in children. This behavior can lead to shyness. Examples would be punishing the child for a breach of rules at one time and yet letting it pass on the next incidence.

*Lack of parental involvement. Some parents believe that letting children on their own promotes a child’s independent attitude. This is a mistake because children with no experience need constant guidance from parents. Other parents don’t have the time nor the inclination to involve themselves. This is another tragic mistake. Decreased parental involvement makes the child believe his unworthy status and will feel uncomfortable in social situations.

Teasing, threats, criticisms. When children are frequently teased, threatened or criticized either by their family or by other people, they will eventually develop the expectation of only negative feedback from others. This will lead to their evading actions in social situations and contact with other people.

These are just some of the more visible causes of shyness in children. Fortunately, shyness is not a difficult problem to correct.  However, the correction process needs the full cooperation and total commitment from the parents themselves.