Help with social anxiety
JTF125
My son is 11 and was invited to a cool birthday party today. He really wanted to go. He planned to go. But when the time came to leave, he got really nervous and decided not to go. He asked me what I thought he should do. (it was at Main Event and I was taking him and would have stayed with the other parents) I am pretty sure I was not any help. I told him who would be at the party and where it would be and said that only he could decide if he wanted to. The thing is, I know he wanted to! His fear, he said, was that the kids were older (not by much, and he does know them)and that they wouldnt talk to him. He has a hard time being the one to initiate conversations. I also stink at that which is why I am hoping to get advice on how to better handle these situations and help him to become more comfortable socially. If it helps to know, all the kids are from a homeschool group we are in and he likes them all but he is usually more comfortable with younger kids. What would have been a better way to handle it today when he balked at the last minute? He is second guessing himself right now and feeling bad about not going. Should I have kind of pushed him in the direction he seemed to want to go? And what can I say now to make him feel better?
Thanks!
Julie
Thanks!
Julie
Jennifer Schuelein
We deal with this issue, also. I have horrible social anxiety, too. So, when we have one of these moments, I tell my son about my own feelings and how I have overcome them at times. Of course, I am honest and let him know that sometimes I don't overcome my anxiety. He makes his decision and I support it. There are plenty of opportunities so if he misses one party, he isn't bothered too much.
Not knowing people at a party can be terrifying. We now don't attend large gatherings where there are more people my son doesn't know than does know. He seems content with this. It seems that your son does know most of the kids at the party, though. In a similar situation, I would re-stress this to my son. I would also focus on all of the positive, fun things happening at the party. Also, I give my son an "out" clause. If at any time when we are at a public function he feels very uncomfortable and wants to leave, we leave immediately. This does help my son a great deal, knowing that it's ok to leave at any moment. I also mention that no one will mind and it's perfectly ok.
Now that your son has decided to stay home and is feeling bad, I would just support him and tell him there are many other opportunities. My son has also done this and I hate to see him sad. I also offer to do something with him that's fun like building Legos or watching a DVD together. I hope this helps!
Jennifer
Not knowing people at a party can be terrifying. We now don't attend large gatherings where there are more people my son doesn't know than does know. He seems content with this. It seems that your son does know most of the kids at the party, though. In a similar situation, I would re-stress this to my son. I would also focus on all of the positive, fun things happening at the party. Also, I give my son an "out" clause. If at any time when we are at a public function he feels very uncomfortable and wants to leave, we leave immediately. This does help my son a great deal, knowing that it's ok to leave at any moment. I also mention that no one will mind and it's perfectly ok.
Now that your son has decided to stay home and is feeling bad, I would just support him and tell him there are many other opportunities. My son has also done this and I hate to see him sad. I also offer to do something with him that's fun like building Legos or watching a DVD together. I hope this helps!
Jennifer
--- In [email protected], "JTF125" <mfinc81642@...> wrote:
>
> My son is 11 and was invited to a cool birthday party today. He really wanted to go. He planned to go. But when the time came to leave, he got really nervous and decided not to go. He asked me what I thought he should do. (it was at Main Event and I was taking him and would have stayed with the other parents) I am pretty sure I was not any help. I told him who would be at the party and where it would be and said that only he could decide if he wanted to. The thing is, I know he wanted to! His fear, he said, was that the kids were older (not by much, and he does know them)and that they wouldnt talk to him. He has a hard time being the one to initiate conversations. I also stink at that which is why I am hoping to get advice on how to better handle these situations and help him to become more comfortable socially. If it helps to know, all the kids are from a homeschool group we are in and he likes them all but he is usually more comfortable with younger kids. What would have been a better way to handle it today when he balked at the last minute? He is second guessing himself right now and feeling bad about not going. Should I have kind of pushed him in the direction he seemed to want to go? And what can I say now to make him feel better?
> Thanks!
> Julie
>
Sandra Dodd
-=-Should I have kind of pushed him in the direction he seemed to want to go? -=-
Not push, but invite. Accompany. Team up.
When someone says to me "Only you can decide," when I've just asked them for help deciding, it sounds like "I don't care what you do."
-=-And what can I say now to make him feel better?-=-
You could say "I'm really sorry."
Maybe take him to buy a gift for the birthday kid to give him the next time he sees him, or to take by his house, and don't go into an explanation about why he wasn't there, or what the whole deal is. Just say (don't make your son say it; you can say it) "Sorry we didn't make the party, but we hope it was fun, and here's a gift."
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Not push, but invite. Accompany. Team up.
When someone says to me "Only you can decide," when I've just asked them for help deciding, it sounds like "I don't care what you do."
-=-And what can I say now to make him feel better?-=-
You could say "I'm really sorry."
Maybe take him to buy a gift for the birthday kid to give him the next time he sees him, or to take by his house, and don't go into an explanation about why he wasn't there, or what the whole deal is. Just say (don't make your son say it; you can say it) "Sorry we didn't make the party, but we hope it was fun, and here's a gift."
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Nina
For the future, look into the HANDLE Institute www.handle.org.
Social anxiety doesn't have to be a life long challenge for our children or us.
Social anxiety doesn't have to be a life long challenge for our children or us.
----- Original Message -----
From: JTF125
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2011 8:09 AM
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Help with social anxiety
My son is 11 and was invited to a cool birthday party today. He really wanted to go. He planned to go. But when the time came to leave, he got really nervous and decided not to go. He asked me what I thought he should do. (it was at Main Event and I was taking him and would have stayed with the other parents) I am pretty sure I was not any help. I told him who would be at the party and where it would be and said that only he could decide if he wanted to. The thing is, I know he wanted to! His fear, he said, was that the kids were older (not by much, and he does know them)and that they wouldnt talk to him. He has a hard time being the one to initiate conversations. I also stink at that which is why I am hoping to get advice on how to better handle these situations and help him to become more comfortable socially. If it helps to know, all the kids are from a homeschool group we are in and he likes them all but he is usually more comfortable with younger kids. What ! would have been a better way to handle it today when he balked at the last minute? He is second guessing himself right now and feeling bad about not going. Should I have kind of pushed him in the direction he seemed to want to go? And what can I say now to make him feel better?
Thanks!
Julie
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Joyce Fetteroll
> For the future, look into the HANDLE Institute www.handle.org.I debated letting this through but decided it was a good opportunity
> Social anxiety doesn't have to be a life long challenge for our
> children or us.
to discuss why an unschooler would definitely *not* want to look into
the HANDLE Institute or anything like that.
The most empowering thing we can do for our kids is support and help
them as they approach the challenges that life throws at them and
*trust* and *know* they can through trying out various ideas find ways
that work for them.
Moms can help kids enormously by not treating them as broken in need
of experts to fix them. It's disempowering to be told that they don't
have the skills to do anything and need to rely on an expert. Moms can
help themselves *and* their kids enormously by not reacting from a
place of fear a calm place that this is a problem (or series of
smaller problems) that, with some experimenting, solutions can be
found for.
That doesn't mean going it entirely alone. The unschoolers here are
great resources :-) (And why it's important that suggestions be
supportive of kids and soundly based on unschooling principles.) The
collective wisdom here can help parents get an objective grasp of what
outside factors might be causing or contributing to the problem and
what the range of normal is. (Feeling socially awkward at 11 is
certainly well within normal!)
You'll know when you need to consult an expert because it will come
from a place of knowledge not fear.
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
aldq75
"You'll know when you need to consult an expert because it will come
from a place of knowledge not fear."
----
It's also possible that a child may eventually decide for themselves that they want outside help if there's something they really want to be able to do and all of the methods tried at home haven't worked as well as they want.
Andrea Q
from a place of knowledge not fear."
----
It's also possible that a child may eventually decide for themselves that they want outside help if there's something they really want to be able to do and all of the methods tried at home haven't worked as well as they want.
Andrea Q
--- In [email protected], Joyce Fetteroll <jfetteroll@...> wrote:
>
> > For the future, look into the HANDLE Institute www.handle.org.
> > Social anxiety doesn't have to be a life long challenge for our
> > children or us.
>
> I debated letting this through but decided it was a good opportunity
> to discuss why an unschooler would definitely *not* want to look into
> the HANDLE Institute or anything like that.
k
Some people will be socially shyer or more cautious at any age than
some. For a variety of reasons. This doesn't mean a person is flawed.
Is this social anxiety talk about fitting norms instead of fitting a
person's preferences, at different times in life and development. When
a child is a toddler that child may not want a lot other than mom,
including dad. As they get older they probably continue having social
preferences. The desire for friends just wants the lucky off chance of
meeting people one likes. Not everybody likes the same kinds of people
and some people just don't have much in common. There's no flaw there.
I didn't used to know that about people and social things. Seems
obvious to me now but as a teen I just thought I was an odd duck. :)
It may not have a thing to do with awkwardness. Or anxiety. And if it
does, that's still not about being flawed. Anxiety is emotion. It's
awful when emotion is discussed as though it were a disorder. When
some anxiety is perfectly well in order and right in some situations.
Karl likes people who are inventive storytellers. I learned to tell
stories a little better for him, not easy for me. He gravitates to
lots of verbal stuff, different lingo (last couple of days it's been
Jesus Christ in Spanish = Jesus Cristo), and new stories are the bomb.
Last night, I told him what I could remember of The Little Prince and
made up the rest, with the thought to get that book to read soon as
I've lost my copy somewhere. He asked me about Loch Lomon' and I
looked up the lyrics and sang the song to him. There was a back story
to that which was sad about Scottish history.
Other kids who aren't into that sort of thing are ok to play with but
maybe not as fun. That may change later. It probably will.
~Katherine
some. For a variety of reasons. This doesn't mean a person is flawed.
Is this social anxiety talk about fitting norms instead of fitting a
person's preferences, at different times in life and development. When
a child is a toddler that child may not want a lot other than mom,
including dad. As they get older they probably continue having social
preferences. The desire for friends just wants the lucky off chance of
meeting people one likes. Not everybody likes the same kinds of people
and some people just don't have much in common. There's no flaw there.
I didn't used to know that about people and social things. Seems
obvious to me now but as a teen I just thought I was an odd duck. :)
It may not have a thing to do with awkwardness. Or anxiety. And if it
does, that's still not about being flawed. Anxiety is emotion. It's
awful when emotion is discussed as though it were a disorder. When
some anxiety is perfectly well in order and right in some situations.
Karl likes people who are inventive storytellers. I learned to tell
stories a little better for him, not easy for me. He gravitates to
lots of verbal stuff, different lingo (last couple of days it's been
Jesus Christ in Spanish = Jesus Cristo), and new stories are the bomb.
Last night, I told him what I could remember of The Little Prince and
made up the rest, with the thought to get that book to read soon as
I've lost my copy somewhere. He asked me about Loch Lomon' and I
looked up the lyrics and sang the song to him. There was a back story
to that which was sad about Scottish history.
Other kids who aren't into that sort of thing are ok to play with but
maybe not as fun. That may change later. It probably will.
~Katherine
Joyce Fetteroll
On Feb 11, 2011, at 2:09 PM, JTF125 wrote:
flux. It's a very awkward time. So it's not the least bit surprising
that he should feel awkward.
He wanted to go but he *also* didn't want to go. And it's important
that he's the one who decides when the pros outweigh the cons.
One *piece* of the problem is not knowing what to say.
The problem with being an introvert is that when in a group there's
this constant worry about what everyone is thinking about you. And
because there's this "What's he thinking about me? What do I do now?"
constant stream, introverts miss all the social techniques others are
using that the extroverts naturally are picking and assessing and
building on all the time. An extrovert is, often unconsciously,
thinking "Oh, that felt good when she said that. That's a good thing
to do."
Help him think of times when someone approached him and invited him to
join in. Offer some of your own. You could team up together to help
each other get better at feeling more comfortable in social
situations :-)
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> The thing is, I know he wanted to! His fear, he said, was that theHe's hit the preteen years when his and other kids interests are in
> kids were older (not by much, and he does know them)and that they
> wouldnt talk to him. He has a hard time being the one to initiate
> conversations.
flux. It's a very awkward time. So it's not the least bit surprising
that he should feel awkward.
He wanted to go but he *also* didn't want to go. And it's important
that he's the one who decides when the pros outweigh the cons.
One *piece* of the problem is not knowing what to say.
The problem with being an introvert is that when in a group there's
this constant worry about what everyone is thinking about you. And
because there's this "What's he thinking about me? What do I do now?"
constant stream, introverts miss all the social techniques others are
using that the extroverts naturally are picking and assessing and
building on all the time. An extrovert is, often unconsciously,
thinking "Oh, that felt good when she said that. That's a good thing
to do."
Help him think of times when someone approached him and invited him to
join in. Offer some of your own. You could team up together to help
each other get better at feeling more comfortable in social
situations :-)
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]