<p>My D is a rising HS sophomore. She’s a fairly bright kid by normal standards (probably not by CC standards), but she’s quiet and shy, doesn’t stand out at all and wasn’t recommended by most of her middle school teachers for honors classes when she went to the high school. She did well her freshman year - she had a GPA of 3.85 UW and 3.94 W. She took one honors course (all she was recommended for), one accelerated course and the rest standard college prep. She’s in a competitive suburban public that sends well over 90% of its graduates to 4 year colleges. Next year she’s ramping up a bit and taking 2 honors courses and an AP, plus an accelerated course and 2 standard college prep courses. What I’ve noticed this year is that she has very high A’s or A+'s in her coursework until class participation is taken into account, and then she drops to a low A or A-. She does not like to talk in class, to the point that she’s told her spanish teacher she doesn’t know the answer even when she does because she’s not confident about her accent (at one point early in the year the teacher told her her accent was terrible) - I heard this from her best friend who’s in the class, not from her. She participates in a couple school sports (JV) but no other ECs. She is a follower, not a leader. I doubt she’ll ever hold any leadership positions. She’s not comfortable meeting new people or doing new things alone, although she’ll try new things with a friend. I think she has a combination of shyness and lack of confidence. I don’t want to try to make her into someone she’s not, but I’d like to see her get over this because I do think it holds her back a lot. Can anyone share their experiences with a child like this, or make suggestions on whether (or how) I should try to help her overcome her shyness/lack of confidence?</p>
<p>S2 was so shy in 8th grade that he took an F rather than give an oral book report. Through trial and error we let him flourish in other areas. He played instruments, developed a small group of friends. One thing that helped him start to turn the corner was involvement in a program called Odyssey of the Mind. A team of kids solves a problem and has to present the solution with a skit. There are other similar programs. </p>
<p>He signed on to a team as a technical person with some friends who wanted his help. The deal was he was not going to perform. They slowly got him to participate in a small fashion until in the end he was a dancing trash can with 1 line that was taped to the can so he could read it. He seemed to turn a corner. He is by no means outgoing. He leans to math and technical things. But he can now speak to people, answer questions in class and participate. He is also 25 now and back in school. Sometimes it also takes just allowing time for maturity. </p>
<p>So is there an activity that interests her that might slowly draw her out, especially one with a friend. Can she play an instrument. Be involved with the drama group as a support person. Something besides sports. If not that, then a church group or other youth group or a volunteer organization. Nothing to take your mind off your own troubles like helping those with real problems.</p>
<p>You could be describing my second child. She just finished her freshman year at a small LAC where class participation is very, very, very highly stressed. She went in knowing that this would be a challenge for her; she sort of wanted to go to a large school where she could hide in a lecture hall of hundreds. She refused to apply to any school where an interview was mandatory.</p>
<p>And she’s gotten B+'s in a couple of classes where her written work was solid A’s, just because of class participation.</p>
<p>Finally, now, she’s determined to conquer this, and we’re working on a strategy. It seems to help if she has specific ideas of questions to ask or things to say when she visits the prof’s office hours. My advice is, start with small, achievable goals, e.g. “I will greet the teacher when I enter the room” or even “I will smile at the teacher when I enter the room” and build from there.</p>
<p>She doesn’t flirt, either. I suspect it’s all related, somehow.</p>
<p>Push her to get a summer job. A retail position would be great. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a grocery store, a department store, your local Target, etc. The environment and the tasks will put her in an environment that will encourage her to learn to communicate with people. After a few weeks on the job, there’s a very good chance that you will notice a more self confident and talkative young woman emerge.</p>
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<p>My introverted daughter had a retail job one summer and thought of it as 12 weeks of torture. In retrospect, almost any other kind of employment would have been preferable. She has been quite happy in office-based summer internships and working as an undergraduate teaching assistant at her college. She even found working as a day camp counselor tolerable (although she really does not enjoy working with children). But she was a poor match for the retail environment.</p>
<p>A high school rising sophomore is probably too young for most types of employment anyway. But she might want to see whether the local public library uses kids her age either as volunteers or paid book-shelvers. It’s not an intimidating environment, but there would be opportunities to interact both with the other kids working there and with the adult library employees.</p>
<p>The OP’s D is a rising high sch. soph. so is prob. fifteen at most. All the retail stores where we live require kids to be 16 due to work permit restrictions. </p>
<p>I will agree that a grocery store job did help my S2. He’s not super shy, does well with oral presentations, just doesn’t really like talking to people he doesn’t know.</p>
<p>OP, how has your D’s experience with JV sports been?
S2’s playing football all through high school was the best thing he ever did. Once he found out he was good at it,his confidence really went up. He got to know so many people through football that he would have otherwise never met/talked to.</p>
<p>We live in an area where many 14 year olds begin working at summer jobs. It’s kind of a right of passage around here (live in a summer tourist area). Some of the jobs: sell beach permit stickers at the entrance to the beach, work at summer camps, work at beach concession stand, work in stores, bus tables or wash dishes in restaurants, work with landscapers or pool cleaning guys, work at the boatyard, etc. Any job that gently nudges a shy kid to jump a little bit outside of their comfort zone is the step in the right direction. It seems to work for the kids around here.</p>
<p>I can relate to your daughter. I was extremely shy in HS much to my own detriment. What drew me out were 2 things. I played an instrument and joined a local chuch folk group and i started volunteering as a candy striper in a hospital. It was in those 2 places, I became more confident. As a hosp. volunteer I was engaged in doing a lot of tasks, like delivering supplies, passing out trays, going wherever I was told to go.While I didn’t really have to engage in too much conversation, I was enjoying the work, getting thank yous and feeling good about what i was doing. Playing my guitar in church was great, because I was with like-minded people doing what I like to do. Thoose 2 things literally saved my life. Your daughter might enjoy being a CIT in a summer camp where she would be under the direction of other counselors. Not everyone is meant to be a leader. Many times the shy person just needs the protected space of an opportunity to “be and do” in order to feel more comfortable in their own skin.
If that makes any sense.</p>
<p>Your daughter sounds alot like my younger son, who will be entering his sophomore year or college in the fall. I’m sure there were some HS grades that were affected by his lack of classroom participation. Almost all of his teachers would comment on his quietness in class. Like your daughter, he’s not only shy but lacks confidence.</p>
<p>He found activities to involve himself in that didn’t require much talking. He’s played piano since he was in first grade & participated in several instrumental groups in HS (he’s minoring in music in college). He also wrote articles for the school newspaper. He only went to one school dance that we made him go to…we never did that again after he called to be picked up after 2 hours. </p>
<p>He’s preferred jobs that didn’t require much contact with other people, but this summer, with the poor job market, he couldn’t be so particular. He’s working for an activism group where he has to talk to lots of people to inform them of the issues, get them to sign petitions & ask for donations. I’m sure he’s not especially comfortable doing this, but he knows he doesn’t have much choice & I’m hoping it’ll help him gain some confidence and comfort with talking to people.</p>
<p>OP here. Thanks for the suggestions and for just letting me know that there are other kids out there like this! I was shy in high school also, but not to this extent, so it helps to hear that some of your kids have BTDT and ultimately found their way. </p>
<p>PackMom, D’s experience with sports is basically good. She’s strictly JV material, but she shows up day in and day out, works hard, does what the coaches ask and enjoys it. It doesn’t do much for her self confidence because she’s far from the top of the pack, but she meets people she otherwise would not have and likes the comaraderie of a team.</p>
<p>As for an instrument, she played the piano when she was younger and played clarinet in the school band through middle school (she was one of their better clarinet players), but she didn’t want to continue with band in high school. That’s partly because music isn’t a passion for her and partly because the band director isn’t a person she wants to spend time with.</p>
<p>D was a CIT last year, but couldn’t do it this summer because of a family vacation smack in the middle of the summer. Frankly, she doesn’t enjoy working with children anyway, although she did fine with it last summer. Even if D got a work permit, there’s no chance of a 15 year old getting a retail job in our area in this economy, so that’s out. It’s a good idea, though, and something I know she’s willing to do next year.</p>
<p>Thanks again, and I welcome any other thoughts and suggestions.</p>
<p>Not to derail the thread or anything, but Shellfell, wouldn’t writing for the school paper require conducting interviews in which he’d have to come out of his shell a tad?</p>
<p>What about doing some community service over the summer? She could volunteer at a nursing home, a school recreation program, a food pantry, an animal shelter, a hospital, a library, etc. </p>
<p>If she doesn’t plan on working this summer, she might want to consider getting involved with some fun workshops/programs. Are there any schools in your area that have summer programs for teenagers? For example, there is a private school in our area that offers 6 weeks summer programs for high school students such as film making, drama, writing, yoga, and other options. Yes, it does cost some money but it might be a good way to have to step out of her comfort zone a little, explore a new activity, and meet some new people.</p>
<p>CIA: He actually managed to only write pieces that didn’t really require interviewing like articles on what was going on in pro sports & political opinion pieces. Shy kids can be very clever at avoiding talking to people.</p>
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<p>I was somewhat like the OP’s daughter in high school - perhaps a bit less extreme - and I would have considered a retail position to be hell on earth (and would have been awful at it). I probably still would, but I would be able to cope with it better now.</p>
<p>In college, I ended up becoming very social - still introverted, still requiring my privacy and time alone, but with a lot of friends that I hung out with and did stuff with - and I became much more confident, and ended up doing tons of leadership activities.</p>
<p>The big reasons for the change were 1) being among people that I liked and related to, who were mostly also undersocialized and provided a “safe space” for all of us to learn how to be social in a non-judgmental environment, 2) challenging myself in various ways, not necessarily related to socialization, that gave me more self-confidence in general, and 3) being in a community that I really cared about, to the extent that I wanted to suppress my shyness and step into a leadership role if I saw something that I thought needed fixing.</p>
<p>I made the transition many years ago. I will always be an introvert but learning to do public speaking is extremely valuable and a necessity for almost every decent paying job. I guess some people would make a certain level of transition by having a “safe” and low stress environment. Many of us need to go through repeated pain and stress leading to a major change. After the terror subsides, there can be a high satisfaction that goes with the achievement.</p>
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<p>This made me kind of sad. Your daughter sounds like a lovely young lady. Appreciate her for who she is. Stop worrying about how everything will affect her college applications.</p>
<p>My daughter was like this. Every time we talked to teachers they mentioned she did not speak up in class. Daughter knew this was an issue, so she made the effort. (I asked her every day after school if she participated in discussions). We found that if there were topics she was passionate about, she would talk. It was not easy for her, but she did it.</p>
<p>She was involved in theater (set building), but then decided to move to the technical part, then announced she wanted to be head, as it would help with the college application procress. Sure enough by Junior year she was co-head and head in Senior year and was forced to do leadership things. I also insisted she take a speech class as an elective in high school.</p>
<p>Now as a rising college sophmore, I see more risk taking and less standing the shadows. I think its part of the maturation process.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>