Is She Shy?

Is Holly shy? We thought she was. Jane and I aren’t so sure now.

When Holly was a baby and a young toddler, she didn’t show much shyness or “un”-shyness. She just seemed like a regular kid with separation anxiety at the daycare. When she was put on the spot, she would often speak quietly or not at all and would bury her head in our legs. She did appear nervous when we would go to a party or an unfamiliar place but always got into the groove eventually and had a good time.

Jane and I always assumed she was shy for a couple of reasons. The first is that I was very shy. When I was young, relatives and friends would come to my parents’ house and I would hide behind the couch. I was always a quiet child and would only interact after a long period of acclimation. I would get butterflies in my stomach at the thought of going to the mall. I was an alter boy at our Catholic church. At first, I could barely do the job. After a few times, I was perfectly fine with it and experienced no shyness. Perhaps a lot of my shyness was really a fear of failure as I discussed in a previous entry.

The second reason is that she didn’t seem overly social. She waited to be approached rather than approaching someone else. Her brother, as I recall, was basically the opposite. He’d walk right up to someone and ask their name or just start playing. Holly was never like this.

Our view started changing recently, especially after her ice skating show. She wasn’t nervous before the show. Both Jane and I would have been sick to our stomachs prior to an event like that. She was excited about the show. She wanted to go “backstage” and get ready long before the show. When she got out on the ice, she jumped around and seemed comfortable. If you watch closely in the You Tube video (link on Jane’s site) you’ll notice Holly is comfortable enough during the show to look up at the camera and wave.

During the school year, we received hints that Holly might not exactly fit the shy picture that we had painted in our minds. I asked her teacher midway through the year if Holly was doing ok socially. I asked if she interacts well with the other children and can relate to them. I asked if she had a group of friends she followed.

Her teacher looked at me like I was crazy. She said that Holly was an excellent leader. She said that she is outgoing, has a group of friends and offers to help other children when they are struggling. The teacher said that sometimes Holly’s group of friends would want to do a specific thing and Holly would happily engage with them. Other times, Holly didn’t want to do that activity and would slip off and entertain herself. She painted Holly to be confident, self-sufficient, helpful and a strong leader in her classroom. Jane and I were both surprised to hear this. Our little, shy, quiet daughter did not seem as such any longer.

Holly has been in some sort of third-party care for most of her life. Several weeks after Holly was born, Jane returned to work and we placed Holly in a woman’s home for daycare. For several months, Holly was the only child there. Later, a baby boy joined her but they were both so young that they didn’t really interact. When Holly was about a year old, this woman called us one Sunday evening, crying, and told us that she couldn’t take care of children anymore. It was too stressful.

A few days later, Holly was attending a KinderCare in a group with a few children. She seemed to adjust without major issues and remained at KinderCare until Jane lost her job to a “workforce reduction” in 2003. Jane watched Holly during her unemployment, but took her to a part time cooperative daycare twice a week. We did this for a couple of reasons. For one, we were interested in ensuring interaction with other children. Another reason was that Jane could enjoy a few hours of alone time. It turned out that Jane liked participating at the cooperative daycare and volunteered many times.

When Jane started working again in 2005, we scrambled to find full time care. We were lucky enough to come across a daycare that heavily focused on education, self-sufficiency and interaction. They were also structured differently than many of the daycares that we’ve seen in that they grouped 3, 4 and 5 year old children together. They had 3 classrooms and could have easily placed them in an age-specific room but chose this to encourage learning from older and younger children. Occasionally an age related conflict would arise, but, for the most part, it worked well. Holly formed many friendships at this school during the 18 months she spent there. Occasionally, she still talks about some of those friends. Unfortunately, we’ve lost contact with them as none lived in our area of the city.

I would theorize that the nearly constant attendance at daycare helped break the shyness mold or, perhaps, prevent it from ever forming. Holly seems very well adapted to walking into a room of strangers and finding a friend by the end of the day. We’ve seen this happen at the before school care during elementary school and at this summer camp.

Maybe I should just ask her if she thinks that she is shy.