September’s here. It’s back to school time for children and teens across the country. But for many, a return to school is an instigator of fear. For as long as she can remember, Holly * has been shy.
"When my parents wanted me to start pre-school I didn’t want to go," says Holly, age 20. "From pre-school through most of first grade I felt so nervous before going to school. I couldn’t eat breakfast. I felt physically sick."
Holly is like many children who suffer from school phobia, or school refusal, which affects one percent of school aged children. School phobia relates to the larger problems of separation anxiety and social phobias which involve extreme, incapacitating discomfort in social situations.
"My parents made me go to school," continues Holly. "But I didn’t do the work. I wouldn’t even talk. Eventually my mom took me to the doctor. He said I was extremely shy. He told us I would grow out of it."
Holly’s experience typifies the most recent findings on shyness. Increasingly, research suggests that infants can inherit shyness just as they might inherit blue eyes or red hair. In fact, from more than two decades of research, Harvard child psychologist Jerome Kagan found that 15 percent of infants moved their arms and legs and cried when shown a new person. Kagan’s "inhibited babies" are now teens and many are extremely shy and anxious about socializing.
To get really technical, brain wave studies show that for very shy kids, excess right-brain activity develops in the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in fear and anxiety. If a shy child’s amygdala is easily overwhelmed, the child might make up for it by avoiding stressful social situations.
"It was so painful for me to speak in class," says Holly. "My participation was so bad that my teachers didn’t know if I had learned anything and they planned to fail me. Years later my mother shared why I passed the class. Without my knowing, she tape recorded me saying my ABC’s and counting at home and then played the tapes for my teachers. They knew I had learned so they passed me."
Other factors like language point to the complexity associated with shyness. Holly’s bilingual in Polish and English. She frequently spoke Polish at home with her grandmother, but English was the only language spoken at school. Although Holly continued to be afraid of speaking in school, she had no problem conversing at home in either Polish or English. Selective mutism is an inability to speak in social situations where one is expected to speak, while being able to speak in others. Perhaps Holly’s social phobia was due to a combination of anxiety, shyness, and choice of language spoken in the diverse worlds of school and home.
Holly is now a college student. While her shyness has improved, it continues to be her primary academic difficulty. "I can participate, but not without going through intense feelings of nervousness and anxiety."
Unlike her pediatrician’s prediction, Holly did not "grow out" of her shyness. While she is a successful college student, her experience raises the question of what we can do for children who suffer from this possibly overwhelming syndrome.
Michael, now 14, was a sociable child until about age 10, when he started a new school. "I never said a word the first day of class," says Michael. "And I stopped participating. I thought if I didn’t act interested in my classes, the cool, older kids wouldn’t pick on me."
"Suddenly my son was off in a little world by himself," says Claudia, Michael’s mother. "His grades began to drop. He wouldn’t talk in class. He just wasn’t interested in school. And he wouldn’t talk about it. Finally I told him if he didn’t tell me what was going on, I couldn’t help. That’s when he said he was getting pushed around by other kids."
While only 15 percent of people are born with the tendency to be shy, 50 percent say they feel shy, indicating that environment also shapes the shy child. Certainly Michael’s experience attests to this fact. "The kids pushed and assaulted me," he says quietly, lowering his eyes. "I was afraid to tell the teachers, because then the kids would hurt me even more."
Dr. Philip Zimbardo, renown psychologist at Stanford University, speaks about shyness: "Shyness may range from the common awkwardness felt entering a new social situation to the incapacitating phobia of people and inhibition to interact with others. Some shyness is inherited, but most of it is learned from negative transactions with others or imagined social failures and rejection. Shyness seems to be on the increase in countries such as the United States, perhaps due to reliance on electronic technology that is making people socially passive and substituting Virtual Reality for Face to Face Reality."
While there are no easy answers, there are options. Jerome Kagan says that often, inhibited babies become less so over time. Changing environments that promote shyness and anxiety is another strategy. Soon after Michael’s disclosure, his mother switched schools. "My Michael came back," she said. "He became more sociable and his grades gradually increased. The change was positive. He had more friends and it was a safer environment." Getting kids back to school has been shown to be the most important factor in combating school phobia.
Now in high school, Michael feels relieved. He’s talking in class, showing his knowledge, and knows there are good kids around. His message to New York City kids is, "Don’t make the negative bigger than it is, look for the positive."
His mother follows: "Talk to your kids. I think it is so important to communicate with your child and have your child communicate with you. Parenting is the starting point to the social aspect of your child’s life. Ask why your child is shy. Ask why your child can’t make friends."
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
When Going Back to School is Not Going On
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Wednesday, September 14, 2011
When Going Back to School is Not Going On
September’s here. It’s back to school time for children and teens across the country. But for many, a return to school is an instigator of fear. For as long as she can remember, Holly * has been shy.
"When my parents wanted me to start pre-school I didn’t want to go," says Holly, age 20. "From pre-school through most of first grade I felt so nervous before going to school. I couldn’t eat breakfast. I felt physically sick."
Holly is like many children who suffer from school phobia, or school refusal, which affects one percent of school aged children. School phobia relates to the larger problems of separation anxiety and social phobias which involve extreme, incapacitating discomfort in social situations.
"My parents made me go to school," continues Holly. "But I didn’t do the work. I wouldn’t even talk. Eventually my mom took me to the doctor. He said I was extremely shy. He told us I would grow out of it."
Holly’s experience typifies the most recent findings on shyness. Increasingly, research suggests that infants can inherit shyness just as they might inherit blue eyes or red hair. In fact, from more than two decades of research, Harvard child psychologist Jerome Kagan found that 15 percent of infants moved their arms and legs and cried when shown a new person. Kagan’s "inhibited babies" are now teens and many are extremely shy and anxious about socializing.
To get really technical, brain wave studies show that for very shy kids, excess right-brain activity develops in the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in fear and anxiety. If a shy child’s amygdala is easily overwhelmed, the child might make up for it by avoiding stressful social situations.
"It was so painful for me to speak in class," says Holly. "My participation was so bad that my teachers didn’t know if I had learned anything and they planned to fail me. Years later my mother shared why I passed the class. Without my knowing, she tape recorded me saying my ABC’s and counting at home and then played the tapes for my teachers. They knew I had learned so they passed me."
Other factors like language point to the complexity associated with shyness. Holly’s bilingual in Polish and English. She frequently spoke Polish at home with her grandmother, but English was the only language spoken at school. Although Holly continued to be afraid of speaking in school, she had no problem conversing at home in either Polish or English. Selective mutism is an inability to speak in social situations where one is expected to speak, while being able to speak in others. Perhaps Holly’s social phobia was due to a combination of anxiety, shyness, and choice of language spoken in the diverse worlds of school and home.
Holly is now a college student. While her shyness has improved, it continues to be her primary academic difficulty. "I can participate, but not without going through intense feelings of nervousness and anxiety."
Unlike her pediatrician’s prediction, Holly did not "grow out" of her shyness. While she is a successful college student, her experience raises the question of what we can do for children who suffer from this possibly overwhelming syndrome.
Michael, now 14, was a sociable child until about age 10, when he started a new school. "I never said a word the first day of class," says Michael. "And I stopped participating. I thought if I didn’t act interested in my classes, the cool, older kids wouldn’t pick on me."
"Suddenly my son was off in a little world by himself," says Claudia, Michael’s mother. "His grades began to drop. He wouldn’t talk in class. He just wasn’t interested in school. And he wouldn’t talk about it. Finally I told him if he didn’t tell me what was going on, I couldn’t help. That’s when he said he was getting pushed around by other kids."
While only 15 percent of people are born with the tendency to be shy, 50 percent say they feel shy, indicating that environment also shapes the shy child. Certainly Michael’s experience attests to this fact. "The kids pushed and assaulted me," he says quietly, lowering his eyes. "I was afraid to tell the teachers, because then the kids would hurt me even more."
Dr. Philip Zimbardo, renown psychologist at Stanford University, speaks about shyness: "Shyness may range from the common awkwardness felt entering a new social situation to the incapacitating phobia of people and inhibition to interact with others. Some shyness is inherited, but most of it is learned from negative transactions with others or imagined social failures and rejection. Shyness seems to be on the increase in countries such as the United States, perhaps due to reliance on electronic technology that is making people socially passive and substituting Virtual Reality for Face to Face Reality."
While there are no easy answers, there are options. Jerome Kagan says that often, inhibited babies become less so over time. Changing environments that promote shyness and anxiety is another strategy. Soon after Michael’s disclosure, his mother switched schools. "My Michael came back," she said. "He became more sociable and his grades gradually increased. The change was positive. He had more friends and it was a safer environment." Getting kids back to school has been shown to be the most important factor in combating school phobia.
Now in high school, Michael feels relieved. He’s talking in class, showing his knowledge, and knows there are good kids around. His message to New York City kids is, "Don’t make the negative bigger than it is, look for the positive."
His mother follows: "Talk to your kids. I think it is so important to communicate with your child and have your child communicate with you. Parenting is the starting point to the social aspect of your child’s life. Ask why your child is shy. Ask why your child can’t make friends."
"When my parents wanted me to start pre-school I didn’t want to go," says Holly, age 20. "From pre-school through most of first grade I felt so nervous before going to school. I couldn’t eat breakfast. I felt physically sick."
Holly is like many children who suffer from school phobia, or school refusal, which affects one percent of school aged children. School phobia relates to the larger problems of separation anxiety and social phobias which involve extreme, incapacitating discomfort in social situations.
"My parents made me go to school," continues Holly. "But I didn’t do the work. I wouldn’t even talk. Eventually my mom took me to the doctor. He said I was extremely shy. He told us I would grow out of it."
Holly’s experience typifies the most recent findings on shyness. Increasingly, research suggests that infants can inherit shyness just as they might inherit blue eyes or red hair. In fact, from more than two decades of research, Harvard child psychologist Jerome Kagan found that 15 percent of infants moved their arms and legs and cried when shown a new person. Kagan’s "inhibited babies" are now teens and many are extremely shy and anxious about socializing.
To get really technical, brain wave studies show that for very shy kids, excess right-brain activity develops in the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in fear and anxiety. If a shy child’s amygdala is easily overwhelmed, the child might make up for it by avoiding stressful social situations.
"It was so painful for me to speak in class," says Holly. "My participation was so bad that my teachers didn’t know if I had learned anything and they planned to fail me. Years later my mother shared why I passed the class. Without my knowing, she tape recorded me saying my ABC’s and counting at home and then played the tapes for my teachers. They knew I had learned so they passed me."
Other factors like language point to the complexity associated with shyness. Holly’s bilingual in Polish and English. She frequently spoke Polish at home with her grandmother, but English was the only language spoken at school. Although Holly continued to be afraid of speaking in school, she had no problem conversing at home in either Polish or English. Selective mutism is an inability to speak in social situations where one is expected to speak, while being able to speak in others. Perhaps Holly’s social phobia was due to a combination of anxiety, shyness, and choice of language spoken in the diverse worlds of school and home.
Holly is now a college student. While her shyness has improved, it continues to be her primary academic difficulty. "I can participate, but not without going through intense feelings of nervousness and anxiety."
Unlike her pediatrician’s prediction, Holly did not "grow out" of her shyness. While she is a successful college student, her experience raises the question of what we can do for children who suffer from this possibly overwhelming syndrome.
Michael, now 14, was a sociable child until about age 10, when he started a new school. "I never said a word the first day of class," says Michael. "And I stopped participating. I thought if I didn’t act interested in my classes, the cool, older kids wouldn’t pick on me."
"Suddenly my son was off in a little world by himself," says Claudia, Michael’s mother. "His grades began to drop. He wouldn’t talk in class. He just wasn’t interested in school. And he wouldn’t talk about it. Finally I told him if he didn’t tell me what was going on, I couldn’t help. That’s when he said he was getting pushed around by other kids."
While only 15 percent of people are born with the tendency to be shy, 50 percent say they feel shy, indicating that environment also shapes the shy child. Certainly Michael’s experience attests to this fact. "The kids pushed and assaulted me," he says quietly, lowering his eyes. "I was afraid to tell the teachers, because then the kids would hurt me even more."
Dr. Philip Zimbardo, renown psychologist at Stanford University, speaks about shyness: "Shyness may range from the common awkwardness felt entering a new social situation to the incapacitating phobia of people and inhibition to interact with others. Some shyness is inherited, but most of it is learned from negative transactions with others or imagined social failures and rejection. Shyness seems to be on the increase in countries such as the United States, perhaps due to reliance on electronic technology that is making people socially passive and substituting Virtual Reality for Face to Face Reality."
While there are no easy answers, there are options. Jerome Kagan says that often, inhibited babies become less so over time. Changing environments that promote shyness and anxiety is another strategy. Soon after Michael’s disclosure, his mother switched schools. "My Michael came back," she said. "He became more sociable and his grades gradually increased. The change was positive. He had more friends and it was a safer environment." Getting kids back to school has been shown to be the most important factor in combating school phobia.
Now in high school, Michael feels relieved. He’s talking in class, showing his knowledge, and knows there are good kids around. His message to New York City kids is, "Don’t make the negative bigger than it is, look for the positive."
His mother follows: "Talk to your kids. I think it is so important to communicate with your child and have your child communicate with you. Parenting is the starting point to the social aspect of your child’s life. Ask why your child is shy. Ask why your child can’t make friends."
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