Who doesn’t remember their first day of elementary school? For most of us, that’s the first day of the first grade. Elementary school can be an exciting experience for children because it gives them a taste of real education and social engagement with other kids their age. However, not every child is going to enjoy elementary school, especially shy and timid ones. These kids aren’t going to have any fun in the strange and scary new experience of schooling. Most parents can tell if their child is shy if they send them to kindergarten because teachers usually tell parents about their child’s behavior. Luckily, you can do a few things to help your child prepare for elementary school so that it is a fun and rewarding experience.
Do you have a shy child? Talk to them long before the first day of school.
You shouldn’t try to prepare your child for the first day of school the night before, so plan ahead. If you know that your child is typically shy or reserved, then you should start talking to them about it a few weeks in advance or even earlier. Without a doubt, you cannot make the mistake of talking to them too late about their shyness. Such a trait in children can ruin a good portion of their elementary school experience. In rare cases, children can develop issues socializing with others and other problems. More than likely, your child won’t have such severe timidness.
It’s simple enough to approach a child and talk to them about their shyness. More often than not, your child will be open to talking about it since you are their parent. You have to figure out why your child is so shy and help them through it. Being so shy does more harm than good, but it’s not like a child needs therapy or intensive care to be less shy. Still, it’s a good idea to try and make your child more outgoing, but you can’t be too overbearing about it. Ask them to consider what they want out of their first year of elementary school. Should they desire to make friends and get good grades, then you need to point out to them how they must be social and less shy. From there, your child should see the problems associated with them being shy. We can now move on to the process of actually making your child more outgoing and social.
There are plenty of solutions and options. Try some of them out.
In reality, you shouldn’t have any trouble helping your child out when it comes to being more outgoing. Such a trait is desirable because a person who is more social and upbeat is more likely to succeed and make more friends. Anyways, parents have various options when dealing with timidness in young children. Consider some of the following techniques and ideas:
* One of the best things for helping your child become more social is introducing them to another child before school starts. Hopefully, you know another family that has a child entering into the first grade at the same school as your child. This gives you the perfect opportunity to help your child make a friend before school even starts, assuming they aren’t already friends. A shy child entering into school for the first time will be much happier and more social if they already have a friend to socialize and play with. So then, attempt to find a friend or neighbor with a child the same age as yours that is also getting ready to go to school for the first time.
* Otherwise, you can encourage your child to make friends on the first day of school. Simply tell him or her to talk to some other random person in their class. Also, you should let them know that there are other children in their same position, so they aren’t necessarily alone in their shyness. Tell them to be outgoing enough to at least say “hello” to a few kids during their school day. Your child can become more social the sooner he or she begins to at least attempt to make friends.
* For a third option, you can bring your child to more social occasions than usual. Bring them to a playground and tell them to try and meet a friend while playing. Your son or daughter might not have this friend with them at school, but it will help them break out of their timid shell. In the end, you could even encourage your child to interact more with the adults in their life because this will still make them more outgoing when it comes to talking to acquaintances or strangers.
* Talk to their teacher before school begins. Right away, let the teacher know that your child is shy and has issues socializing with others. Most teachers will be sympathetic to your cause and will try to help your son or daughter out. On the first day of class, the teacher could put your child in a group with more talkative children, which will force them to become social. A teacher probably has the highest chance of encouraging your child to be more outgoing around their peers since they will see your child daily in the school setting. Obviously, someone who teaches by promoting group efforts is going to really do well in helping your child become more social.
Your child doesn’t need to be the life of everything; they just need to be a little social.
Undoubtedly, there are plenty of other things you can do to help your child liven up around strangers and new people. It’s better to have a talkative child than a shy one because children need to have friends to enjoy themselves with. As a parent, you could even try to get your child to be more outgoing by enrolling them in some sort of extracurricular activity. You obviously need to place your kid into something that they’ll enjoy. In the end, there are hundreds of different things you can do to promote your child’s socialization with others. Most children are much happier interacting with friends than sitting around by themselves. However, a shy child will usually need that initial push to get themselves to break out of their shyness and enjoy moments with others.
