My 5.5yo daughter is very shy, so I’ve been pushing her into hobbies to help managing her shyness. I’ve talked about how being shy is fine, but it’s something to work on, otherwise she’ll have a really hard time making friends. I’m shy and told her about that.
I took her to a gymnastics class (we do gymnastics together at open gym), but she refused to join the class. I said if she does one activity (even just a game at the end), I’ll get her ice cream. We spent the time sitting on the side.
She didn’t do it, so I figure no ice cream then. She’s pretty mad. I’m not mad with her, but just of the opinion that we had a deal, and if she wants the reward, she needs to earn it.
Too harsh? Too soft? Alternatives?
EDIT:
So I took a two prong approach. 1. hard rule for no screaming at me or arguing. 2. we can just sit and watch, but if she joins, we leave after 1 exercise, each time slowly staying longer. She seems to feel safe when she’s in control of when she leaves, which makes sense. Seems to be working. She expressed that she was surprised the kids and teacher were nice to her and loved it more than her art class.
I’m not 100% sure why she’s so afraid of other kids. Maybe something happened at school I don’t know about, but she’s way less anxious about the class now.
This reminds me of my childhood, where adults always tried to push you to social more. For them, a little child only wants to do things on their own has a problem. This need to be fixed. They always remind you of that.
For me, at kindergarten, I didn’t have a problem for playing alone. Annoying kids didn’t trouble me. It was the teachers that gave me trouble, for they always wanted to push me to social with others, even though I had a friend, for them that’s not enough. Sometimes I didn’t want to go there, because the first thing they wanted you to do, was to team with other children.
Late until school, I finally realized that it was those adults that wanted you to be sunshine and outgoing, to always expressing and talking, to smile more, to have lots of friends, otherwise you have a problem, are the ones who didn’t understand what introverts are. I’m not even autistic.
It’s a bit different. My daughter tells me she wants more friends, but is afraid of kids.
Maybe, perhaps, she is an only child? Just some thoughts, when I was older I had penpals, for face to face interactions with people can be demanding and energy-consuming, but even a very introvert child did have social needs. So hidden behind an envelope, contact on my own term, seems to me like a good middle ground. I can also ignore them when I didn’t want to reply. I quite enjoyed the level of control that I had. But that was when I learned to write, and it’s not social media. The thought is, maybe there are some indirect ways that she can make friends.