Shyness

12 Pages 2908 Words

nhappy, such as being unpopular, not feeling comfortable around peers, and not being able to communicate thoughts or feelings directly, is hazardous to a person’s psychological well being (Kemple, 1995). Unfortunately children who suffer from shyness frequently go unnoticed by teachers and parents. Shy children are usually well behaved, quiet, and follow the rules they are supposed to (Zimbardo, 1981). Teachers may mistake a shy child as a content child, when in reality a child could be suffering within. This is why it is so important for teachers and parents to realize the pain many children hold in due to their shyness. After looking at the research, we found that there are three main reasons people are shy. The first, and what seems to be the most difficult for children, is shyness due to low self-esteem. In this type of shyness people are shy because they don’t like themselves and therefore think that others couldn’t possibly like them either. The second type of shyness is caused from having been teased and the fear that it will happen again. People with this type of shyness are often concerned about one particular trait of theirs or are only shy in specific situations. The last is that some people are just naturally quiet, so they seem shy when people try to talk to them. This type of shyness is not considered harmful compared to the other two since quiet people are not necessarily keeping themselves from doing things that they would like to do. We were able to find children’s literature books that address each of these types of shyness. The one children’s book we found that we feel fully addresses the distresses that shyness can cause is Let’s Talk About Being Shy, by Marianne Johnston. Let’s Talk About Being Shy is an informational book for children on shyness. We were particularly impressed with this book as it discusses the wide range of shyness and matches a lot of what the research states about shyness in childr...