The shyness in adolescence, how to overcome it?
The shy teenagers They tend to worry too much about what they will say and fear a negative criticism. All this causes an anxiety that prevents them from carrying out some activities normally and makes them try to avoid them, due to a lack of self-confidence and fear of making a fool of themselves. For example, when you have to interact with friends, especially the opposite sex; when you want to start or end a conversation; when dealing with strangers; in the face of the need to take the initiative or assume responsibilities; and at the moment of speaking in public or expressing feelings.
The consequences of shyness in adolescence they are clearly negative, affect psychological stability, personal satisfaction and relationships with the environment. Shyness creates social problems, makes it difficult to meet new people, make new friends and enjoy them.
How to help the adolescent overcome his shyness
If our son is excessively shy and insecure, we must strive to ensure that this introverted character is not necessarily a break in their relationships with their peers. Adopting a protectionist attitude is a temptation: on the contrary, the child needs, gradually, to be forced to fend for himself as long as his age admits it.
It is essential to talk (talk and listen) with the shy adolescent and avoid making comparisons that may hurt his susceptibility. We have to let him expand, get out of his world, learn to share his concerns and fears and minimize his own burdens.
In this sense, it is important to strengthen your security by promoting and praising those points where you have special ease. The contact with other boys or girls with their same hobbies can be the starting point so that it begins to loose and integrate.
The three worlds of teenagers
Between thirteen and sixteen there are three essential areas where the lives of boys and girls develop:
1. The family, where the child feels loved by himself and knows disinterested love.
2. The school, where he learns basic knowledge and prepares for the future.
3. The street, where he sees others with their joys and sorrows and begins to value them as people of flesh and blood for whom life is not a subject that is approved easily.
The same age requires them to be integrated in each of these areas although, if you do not "feel" the need for it intuitively, it will be the parents who should make you understand that there is a moment for everything. Forcing him out of the house to find friends would be counterproductive. But he has to understand that friendship is another step in his process of maturity.
Tips for parents about shyness of teenagers
1. The adolescent must be helped to assimilate the value of concepts as effort, will, struggle, delivery, etc. It is a first step for friendship relations, which require several of these virtues.
2. We must abandon the excessively protectionist stances to demand the solitary adolescent some effort in the home: to set the table, to make the bed ... We have to break their lazy habits, not allow comforts that reinforce their laziness, how to let them get up at the time they want, or be all the day in pajamas on weekends.
3. He who does not go out with friends and stay at home it can be a symptom of some other problem such as, for example, the existence of complexes, bullying at school, etc.
4. We can motivate you to share your hobbies withon other boys or girls your age. You can be pointing at an academy for an activity you like, in a youth association, in a volunteer group * If you do not put interest, you have to use some mischief to make friends, but without forcing relationships.
5. It's okay to hear your music and that they love being isolated with their helmets and their MP3 player, but they can not do it at lunchtime or in the family gathering.
6. Limit the hours of insulator video games, establishing a daily time limit with him.
If we have a very shy child, we can turn the problem around and use our own home as an instrument to make friends easy. He must have the opportunity, in practice, to be able to bring friends from his class to study together, do homework, etc. How? A sufficient place, tranquility, not to disturb, books, a good snack, a time for the console ... We will have to insist at the beginning, but we will kill two birds with one stone: it will foster friendship and we will know how their friends are.
Silence is also necessary
Do not forget, however, that adolescents need a certain amount of isolation to think and reflect on who they are, their new experiences and ways of feeling the world. The adolescent realizes that he has something within himself and wants to develop it. It is the moment when something is born in someone and to discover it you need to be alone and quiet.
The silence that has to do with the search for intimacy is normal at this age. It is a reflection that is expressed with the tendency to isolation. It is important to understand that foreign activity is not the only alternative, internal activity is also key.
Ricardo Regidor
