Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello, we’ve got Dr. Emily Upshur here. She’s going to help us answer a listener question on Beyond the Session segment of the Securely Attached podcast. Welcome Em.

Dr. Emily (00:53):

Hi. Good to be here.

Dr. Sarah (00:56):

This question was sent in by a mom and she writes, hello, thank you for your podcast. I have a question. My daughter, two years old is pretty shy outside of the home. For example, she doesn’t like to play on playgrounds if there are other kids on the structures and will cry out to get rescued if she finds herself in close quarters with another kid, even if it’s a friendly situation. I was also extremely shy as a kid, and I know that impacted experiences that I had specifically that there were things I wanted to do but felt too paralyzed by my shyness to participate in. So I’m definitely cognizant of that and don’t want that to be the case for my daughter. However, in my pushing her to be a bit more outgoing, I don’t want her to feel like her shyness is something that’s wrong with her. I’m struggling with striking a balance in pushing her to participate in new social experiences, but also not trying to change who she is because of course, as her mom, I think she’s perfect, would love some insight and tips and tricks. Thank you. Oh, this was such a good question.

Dr. Emily (02:02):

How well stated. I know.

Dr. Sarah (02:03):

I know. And also I think this is also very helpful. It’s helpful for us in answering the question, but it’s really helpful for this mom is that she is recognizing that there’s two things going on here. There’s her own experience of having been shy and the things that meant to her and the stories she has in her head of what that means. And she is aware that there is sometimes possibly a projecting of that onto her daughter. And there are also these sort of objective experiences happening in real time where her daughter is crying out to get rescued or having these anxiety. Anxiety is a little intense, but these moments of overwhelm in the context of being around too many people or the stimulation of what’s going on. And that also makes me think about, she’s talking about this as shy, but I almost feel like we could unpack that a little bit too. Like what’s shy? What’s anxiety, social anxiety versus shyness? I think there’s a little bit of a blurry space there too.

Dr. Emily (03:11):

Yeah, I mean, my first thoughts were very similar to yours, which is this mom has a lot of insight. How much of me is trickling out in what’s happening in the relationship or how much of this is happening in her social interactions? The thing I like the most thinking about the most in this person’s question is how do I know if this is something they want to do and they need a little bit more encouragement? Or how do I know and respect that this is their boundary and they don’t want to do something? And I think that that’s a great, really tough but great nuance to this that’s really important. I think a lot of parents of shy children might feel either one way or the other, either protecting them or pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And so a little bit of what this question inherently has is a little bit of insight like, oh, I sort of have to to do both at different times. I might have to encourage my child attune to, I can kind of tell they want to do it. My gut is they want to get on that slide, and so I’m going to really try to facilitate that. And then other times where you have to attune to your child and know that it’s maybe too overwhelming and too much and how to respect that boundary. And to your point, which it is a little, where does anxiety and where is the overlap? Where is a little bit of that? How does that come in?

Dr. Sarah (04:39):

Right. And what do those terms, how are they loaded? I even think on the one hand, talking about it in terms of social anxiety or social from even a stimulation standpoint, I find that kids who sometimes get categorized as shy are actually very sensitive to stimulation.

Dr. Emily (04:59):

Sure.

Dr. Sarah (04:59):

Not so much that they are shy. To me, shy doesn’t really tell me a whole lot. I don’t know what if a parent says, my kids really shy. I usually find myself asking a tremendous amount of follow-up questions to really get the flavor of this shyness, because shy in and of itself doesn’t really tell me that much information. Maybe because it’s not a term that we use in our work. It’s not a psychological term, it’s a social, colloquial term.

Dr. Emily (05:27):

I mean, I think it’s like, people think it’s temperament. Like, oh, this is a part of who my kid is. I want to respect this parent said, I want to respect who they are, and I don’t want them to think anything is wrong with them. But I think then what we hear often with these types of cases is, but at home you would never be able to shut them up. You can’t believe how different they are. And then outside in the world a totally different kid. And so I think that’s the piece that might feel distressing to parents. And that’s the piece that I think when we come in, we’re able to facilitate how to smooth that over. And I think that that’s where you’re probably thinking, I mean, I know all your thoughts, but where I think you might be thinking, is the parent accommodating a lot? If I have a shy kid, am I slipping into helping them, essentially accommodating meetings, sort of helping them more than they might need to stretch themselves a little bit on their own. And I wonder if that’s sort of what you’re trying to assess when you’re deciding those things when we’re talking about.

Dr. Sarah (06:35):

That and how is the parent interpreting this child’s behavior in the moment? Because we were saying, if this mom has a story in her mind, I was a shy kid. I felt paralyzed at times. It got in the way of me being able to do what I want to do. I don’t want that experience for my child. Then this parent has a story about what shyness means that’s loaded. And I would encourage a parent who recognizes that loaded story or that loaded narrative in their consciously to be able to then say to themselves, okay, what does shyness actually mean to me? And can I rethink that? Because I will often help parents think of shyness more as a feeling state rather than a character trait shyness. And I remember even once I posted something on Instagram a while back about talking to our kids about, I don’t remember something about validating them in the moment and saying, yeah, you’re feeling shy right now. It’s okay to feel shy, and I know that you could handle this. Whatever. It was a quote supportive statement, which we can talk about in a second, what a supportive statement is. But someone wrote back in the comments being like, I thought we’re not supposed to call our kids shy, labeling them.

(07:51):

And I was like, oh, interesting point. And I think my distinction here is that I’m not saying, oh, it’s okay that you’re shy. I’m saying it’s okay that you feel shy right now. And to that linguistic twist, that subtle distinction of saying this is a feeling that comes and goes. And I do think that we don’t often talk about shyness as a feeling, but I actually think that’s a more accurate way of thinking about shyness.

Dr. Emily (08:22):

Well, I think you’re talking about it as a not necessarily permanent state, which goes back to the thing I was saying at home. They’re this, and I…

Dr. Sarah (08:30):

Like, yeah, they’re boysterous and outgoing.

Dr. Emily (08:32):

And I like the idea of depersonalizing it a little, making it a little bit of a thing that sometimes happens versus a part of who I am is ingrained as a part of who I’m, to your point, it’s not very descriptive. It’s not like, oh, I prefer to be around only smaller groups of people. But that’s something that we, in terms of our sensory input and what we learn over time, but if we just say we’re shy or our child is shy, it doesn’t really give us a lot of.

Dr. Sarah (09:04):

Yeah, we don’t know what the problem we’re trying to solve for. So for example, to follow what you’re saying, get more specific. Is it because saying when she’s on playgrounds and there are other kids on the structure, she’s going to cry out to get rescued if she’s getting too close to other kids? To me, I usually hear that and I’ll say something, I’ll be like, oh, is it possible that they’re finding other kids to be unpredictable? And a lot of kids have young kids. This is a 2-year-old, this a very young kid. They’re probably pretty used to this sort of steady, predictable, contained, very regulated nature of adults because a two year olds probably spent more time with adults than other kids. Probably not always, but adults are sort of like this much. Not always, but often, hopefully generally more even keeled, predictable forces in a two year old’s life, physically, other two-year-olds or three-year-olds, six year olds on the playground are chaotic, unpredictable.

(10:15):

They can get right up in your space. They can take things away from you. You do not always know how to anticipate their behaviors. And that could be really overwhelming for a little kid. And that may actually be more of what might be driving some of the crying out to get rescued on a playset or wanting to avoid groups of kids. And then that’s getting interpreted or labeled as shy when in fact, I actually think it could be about helping a child. If we can land on, oh, that’s the thing that’s driving this response in the kid, then the next step would be to help prepare them for what they can expect at the playground to maybe start with a smaller setting that feels a little more controlled. Maybe we start with a one-on-one play date with a kid who’s generally a little calmer, maybe their age, not older, so that we can start by creating a hierarchy and the first step or a ladder and the first step rung on that ladder would be a little exposure to unpredictable other children, whereas maybe the 10th step on that ladder is actually playing on a place set with complete stranger children.

(11:36):

And in a situation, I can’t have any predictable control over how many kids are going to be on this place at any given moment or what they’re going to be wanting to do with me.

Dr. Emily (11:46):

And I think in a real life scenario too, if you can’t necessarily build that out this step wise, maybe you show up at a playground and a play set and you choose a less popular thing or a less crowded thing or a less, I think those are some real life tactics. But I think the other thing is how quick we as parents come to rescue is your child being like, come get me. We all know as a parent, is that that a 10 where you’re like, oh God, it’s an emergency, or is that a, I’m uncomfortable, I don’t love this, come get me, but I could stretch that or I could be okay, or I could have a less of an intervention instead of you coming and picking me up. I could as a parent say, Hey, you know what? You can move. You’re allowed to come down.

(12:39):

You can come down. If it feels like too much here, why don’t you walk this way? I think that there’s a lot of different levels of intervention we can give to sort of stretch out some of that without, to your point, sometimes when we have a preexisting narrative, I was shy, I felt scared, or I was intimidated by things, we might jump in to rescue those feelings really quickly or rescue that perception in our child when that might not be their lived experience at that time. And you can stretch them a little bit more and give them a little bit more of that. Oh, I can handle this feeling.

Dr. Sarah (13:14):

Yes. And I think thinking about shyness and talking to our kids about shyness as a feeling is important, right? She’s saying this mom is saying, I don’t want her to feel like her shyness is something that’s wrong with her. One way we do that is by helping a child understand, oh, that feeling of feeling shy right now. I feel like this comes up a lot where if a kid is in a situation where they’re having to sort of have a outgoing statement to another person, someone comes up to them and says hello, and they cower and crawl behind mom too stimulating to have that kind of attention on them. That might be a moment where I would name for my kid, oh, you’re feeling a little shy right now. How about I say hi for you and move on? Or can we give, again, this is about previewing with a child what they can expect to keep things less unpredictable for them.

(14:13):

But if they struggle with saying hi, because that gaze is too overstimulating sometimes it’s helpful to give a child something they can do that’s not a verbal hello, right? Can you give a wave or a thumbs up instead of saying, hi, so this is scaffolding, right? You’re giving them something a little bit lower on the ladder to try, but you’re going to give them that cue ahead of time. Hey, we’re going to be seeing your grandma today when she says hello. You tend to want to hide behind my back. It’s hard to say hello, and you can just wave if you want or give a thumbs up. And so then they can try that. But if they can’t in that moment, it’s okay to say, oh, you’re feeling shy. I can do it for you today and we’ll work and we’ll keep working on it. But again, that’s not saying like, oh, you’re so shy, but you are feeling shy. And this feeling is a feeling that comes and it goes. It’s not always there. I don’t know. That’s just the way I kind of talk about shyness with kids in real time.

Dr. Emily (15:25):

I think that’s really, that’s a really nice way to ease kids in. And then the other part of my brain is like, oh, but don’t accommodate too much. I don’t know that you have to swoop in. I think it’s okay for a child to advocate for themselves. And I think we get as parents very in the example, it was a beautiful example of, oh, saying hi is a really tricky one that comes up a lot actually with shy kids. And do we force them, do we not? And I think that’s more about us as adults wanting to comply to social norms. And so we are like, oh, well, crap, we really got to get our kid to be behave like they should in public.

(16:08):

And so I love your idea of giving them a replacement thing, but I also like the idea of as parents really feel like being emboldened to say, I know this is okay, and I can just say hi to this person and not have to speak for my child and not have to force them to do something and just sort of be confident enough that nothing’s wrong with them. Be confident enough that this is okay. And right now they’re not ready to do this for a lot of the valid reasons that you’re stating. And still walk through that without doing too much rescuing of them because of our own anxiety about being socially appropriate, frankly.

Dr. Sarah (16:45):

And I’m also, I think it’s important to think about age. We’re talking about two year olds, so I actually wouldn’t necessarily do some of the things I’m describing with a 2-year-old because I think I’d be more in your camp of I don’t actually have a problem with them not responding because too, I don’t expect that in my head. I actually think I was thinking more in my head, I was thinking about it, a family that I’ll work with who’s got a 6-year-old who’s still getting really frozen. And in that point where you’re at an older age where you’re having to negotiate and navigate these social expectations more frequently and there’s more friction as a result of not being able to feel comfortable in that space, that’s probably when I would use these more targeted. I’m going to give you some strategies and we’re going to work on them slowly at two. I actually wouldn’t expect a 2-year-old who tends towards that shy end of the spectrum who does get overwhelmed by people asking them to say hi to them. I would just kind of like exactly what you’re saying. So I do think age matters too.

Dr. Emily (17:46):

That’s true. And I think you’re talking about something really important, which is age, developmental appropriateness, social expectations, it all sort of goes, I always laugh when I get parents, a lot of parents, and I feel so, it’s such a hard position when they have a really tall kid who’s very young and people who look older than they are. Yes, they look so much older parents. Other people in the world expect that child to have skills that are just not where they are appropriately. And so some of the time, that’s where I say as a parent, self-regulating, not feeling embarrassed yourself and really being able to communicate, I don’t need to jump in. You’ve got this kid. You can either not say hi to them or say hi to them. I stand behind you. That I think is also a nice sort of, it’s just a little bit of, I just want to put that out there for parents.

(18:45):

I think it’s really hard when we are trying to fit into the social norms and be a parent because children are not controlled by us, and that’s a really important aspect of this, and I love that this parent says, I want her to be her. That’s great. So I think part of our biggest role is trying to figure out that balance of letting them be them and then having to figure that out a little bit on their own. We can support them in that, but that’s one of the things that they’ll, and having confidence that they will, that they’ll sort it out, that they’ll ask us for help, that they’ll figure these things out is a little bit of the overarching theme I want this person to take away, which is, you’re attuned to your kid. This parent is attuned to their kid, they’ve got this. So I think it would help them to filter out some of the noise and really give their kid, like you were saying, circle right back to a support statement. Like, Ugh, that feeling of shyness doesn’t feel good, but you know what? I know you can handle that.

Dr. Sarah (19:52):

Like my daughter, and again, my daughter’s five, this is different than a 2-year-old, but my daughter will often say, what if I feel shy? We’re going to be going somewhere. And she’ll be like, what if I feel shy? And I will say to her, I’ll say, well, then you’ll feel shy and you feel shy all the time, and that’s an okay feeling, and we just move on. I really, really do want her to know I put shy in the same category as sad, scared, mad, happy, whatever, frustrated. These are all feelings and our feelings really, they come and they go, and we are really capable of surviving ’em all. And even if I’m not going to say all those words, that’s my attitude about it

Dr. Emily (20:37):

In general. It’s also, and that picks up on the situational, you’re not saying you’re shy again as a characteristic. You’re saying this scenario, this situation, maybe a crowded playground engenders this feeling for you, right? You’re not saying this is you we’re just saying, oh, that’s how you’re feeling right now when you go to this context in this space in this time, and that makes a big difference instead of making that the identity.

Dr. Sarah (21:00):

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, my daughter says I might feel shy because that’s the way we talk about it, but she’s still worried about it. And so we’re still, my attitude, my tone, my affect around it is modeling for her kind of like, well, how threatening is this situation?

Dr. Emily (21:22):

Well, yeah, I think my daughter used to say, well, I’m just being shy right now, as in I’m just being shy. Don’t judge me. I’m just being shy right now.

Dr. Sarah (21:34):

Which is awesome. I love a child that makes me so happy that a kid can, to your point, defend that state and say, I get to have this state.

Dr. Emily (21:45):

And it’s a behavior in that moment. Again, I think we’re coming back to, it’s not the whole of you.

Dr. Sarah (21:52):

Right? But also, and I’ll say this one more time and then we’ll get off this soapbox, but your daughter is eight, my daughter’s five. This is a 2-year-old, and I even forget this because I actually get a lot of parents who have a lot of anxiety about certain behaviors that a two-year-old or three-year-old is showing that in an older kid might be worth saying like, Ooh, that’s a little still going on. Let’s see if we could support them. It seems to be now a lagging skill, for example, regulating their shyness and being able to stretch in certain places. Maybe that’s a bit lagging at two or three. I would say shyness is not only developmentally normal, it’s a healthy and appropriate response. We are still in that space, that very, very early space of learning how to separate from our secure base, our parents, and anything that’s even a step away from our secure base is going to be potentially a little overwhelming and even threatening.

(22:57):

And it’s a normal and appropriate response to seek out the rescuing of that secure base caregiver primary attachment figure when you feel that overwhelm. So at two years old, being pretty shy outside the home, I’m quoting this person’s question is actually super on track for average, typical developmental, how we show up in the world at two. So I would also be careful of just saying, this is shyness versus this is what a 2-year-old is supposed to be kind of doing as they navigate this early exposure to separation and reunification that is just on track developmentally.

Dr. Emily (23:41):

Yeah, that’s a great point.

Dr. Sarah (23:44):

Well, thanks Em. And we got more questions that we’ll tackle next week.

Dr. Emily (23:51):

Sounds great.

Dr. Sarah (23:52):

Bye.

Dr. Emily (23:53):

Bye.

Dr. Sarah (23:55):Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.