Having a shy relative is another possible ingredient in your particular shyness recipe. If you are interested in doing some detective work, ask your whole family – even your third cousin twice removed – if he or she had a great-aunt or -uncle whose parents were shy. Every relative counts!
If you’ve dug through your genealogy with a fine-tooth hacksaw and there are no suspects, there is yet another possibility.
Is Shyness a Communicable Disease?
You can’t ‘catch’ a case of shyness. However, if your guardians, even if they weren’t your parents, were shy, there is a greater chance you will be too, because we tend to imitate the people we are around, especially parental types!
“ My wife and I adopted a son who seems to have a very outgoing personality. I am scared to death that unless I change the way I am, he will lose that part of him. I would love to be an outgoing role model for him.”
SHELLEY – NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND
A child hardly ever recognizes that a parent is shy.2 It’s only these many years later that I realize that my mother was. One Thanksgiving when I was about 14, we were visiting a slew of relatives we hadn’t seen in a long time. Aunt Lucy was jabbering away. Uncle Charley had a turkey hat on his head (and, I now suspect, a few drinks under his belt). My other relatives were chattering simultaneously. And there was Mama, sitting as quiet as a clam, hands folded. And I, like a little clamlet, sat silently beside her.
Parents, you are a role model for your kids. If you are shy, make an extra effort to whoop it up in front of your progeny. They will enjoy seeing you have fun and will follow your lead.
“ I never had any friends because we lived out in the country on a farm and there weren’t many other kids who were my age around. The mothers of the other kids arranged a lot of times when they all got together to play. But my mother never did. When I got older, my Dad told me she was shy. Looking back, I wonder if the reasons I didn’t have many friends is because she was too shy, and wonder if that’s the reason she didn’t call the other parents.”
DINA – LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA
If you’re being a shyness-sleuth, look for clues that your parents or guardians were shy. You could even ask some of their friends.
was it bullies in bygone days?
Those Nasty Kids in the Neighbourhood
No worries about money. No worries about the job. No worries about love or sex. Wouldn’t it be great to be a kid again?
Definitely not. Being a shy kid is worse than an adult who has no job, no money, and… Well, no job and no money.
Let’s say you have conducted your research and find you are not a HSS. In fact your relatives say you were a confident little hellraiser as a toddler and young child. You would have grabbed that ghastly rubber spider and hurled it back at them. And say you’ve also shaken your family tree and found no shy suspects among your ancestors.
Is there another way the shy bug can find and gnaw away at you? Yes. I know because it took a big bite out of me.
A Raspberry to Remember
Time: Third grade
Place: Maths lesson
Cast: My classmates and me
The most difficult part of my school day was maths. Not because the numbers were mind-boggling. Not because I hated my teacher. But because of my acute shy-attacks. The teacher often gave us an exercise and then left the room for a few minutes. With furrowed brows, the girls would finish the exercise. Then they would start clucking like a bunch of baby chickens until the teacher returned. But I, the shy ostrich, buried my head in my books and pretended to be still working.
One unforgettable day the teacher gave us an exercise and then, as usual, left the room. During those silent working minutes, I felt the urgent need to pass wind (commonly known then as ‘giving a raspberry’). I felt the wind flooding through me and I knew I would be unable to halt its escape. Thanks to our Maker, I managed to let the air out silently and slowly. It sailed away and, with a sigh of relief, I went back to tackling my assignment.
Fewer than 30 seconds later, one of the girls, Sonia, imitated a Japanese voice: ‘Ah zoh,’ she said, ‘I smell raspberries.’ Laughter from all.
‘I wonder where it’s coming from?’ another girl chirped. More uproarious laughter.
‘Let’s find out!’ Sonia pronounced. Then the nightmare began. Like an Easter egg hunt, Sonia began the festive search for the source of the scent.
Starting at the other side of the room, she crawled up and down each row dramatically sniffing everybody – much to the hilarity of all the confident girls who knew they were not culpable.
When she got to my row, I got hysterical. I grabbed my books and bolted out, tears streaming down my face. Racing down the hall, I heard a cruel chorus behind me chanting ‘It was Leilie. It was Leilie. It was Leilie.’
Looking back, that was the pivotal point when my shyness went from bad to excruciating.
Fifty eight per cent of Shys can recall a traumatic social experience near the onset of their symptoms.1 Forty four percent remember one intense episode, which they felt started it.2
Most little kids really don’t mean to be cruel but, without thinking, they can be vicious. The Journal of Clinical Psychology cites a study called ‘Peer Rejection in Early Elementary Grades’ confirming the harmful effects of these early episodes.3
One single experience doesn’t make a kid shy if he or she is not sensitive to start with. But it sure doesn’t help! Even if Shys don’t have one early horror story that they can point to, how well they feel accepted in school is crucial.4 It becomes a template for their expectations in later years.
Thoughtless youngsters can really mess up a sensitive little kid’s head. If you’re one of the 58 per cent of Shys who can remember one specific childhood experience, run it through your mind. Inevitably you will come to the conclusion that it was the other kids’ cruelty, not your conduct that was at fault.
Contemplate it until you are convinced. It helps clear the path to confidence.
“ Before I started school, therefore before I was even five years old, I had to go to hospital for what probably was only three or four days, but my memory is that it was an eternity. I was in a children’s ward. I had the bed in the corner. I was the only boy in the ward and all the others were girls. But I would have been too young to understand gender difference. I would not talk to anyone. Some of the other children were