"You're Never Too Young"
Social Anxiety in Children
By Murray B. Stein, MD, MPH, and John R. Walker, PhD
Excerpt from Triumph Over Shyness: Conquering Social Anxiety Disorder, Second Edition

Severe shyness and social anxiety occur in children as well as in adults. Remember, many adults with social anxiety disorder say their problems began when they were much younger. Often though, their symptoms are not recognized as problems by teachers, counselors, coaches or, sometimes, even parents. In this chapter we'll describe the kinds of shyness problems kids can have, how to recognize them, and when to be concerned.
 
When children are very young, shyness is often viewed as an endearing trait, as in, "Look how shy she is, hiding her head in Mommy's shirt. Isn't that cute?" When children are of preschool age, it is common for them to exhibit shyness behaviors such as stranger anxiety (hiding, crying, or running to Mommy when a new person enters the room), remaining very quiet around people with whom they are not familiar, or clinging to Daddy when in a novel situation.

These kinds of behaviors are not, within reason, abnormal in a preschooler. They are, however, very much abnormal in a fifth-grader.

One of the difficulties we experience as parents is knowing when a child has moved from "that's normal" terrain to "this just ain't right" territory. What is developmentally appropriate for a three-year-old is rarely appropriate for an 11-year-old. But since we are so close to our children and see them develop over a long period of time, parents often have problems detecting "abnormal" in their own kids. A good rule of thumb is to observe and be aware of how your child handles social situations and friendships compared to other children of the same age.
 
It may come as a shock to hear that parents are, in general, pretty lousy at knowing what is going on in the emotional lives of their children. Studies have shown that children and parents differ tremendously in the way they rate their own emotions, particularly when it comes to assessing anxiety. Parents typically know when their children are very anxious but tend to rate them as less anxious than the children rate themselves. When children rate themselves as moderately anxious, their parents more often than not are oblivious to the anxiety.

What is the explanation for this phenomenon?
 
The truth is that we are too busy making lunches and driving carpool to notice much of what's going on in the emotional lives of our kids. We're not talking about bad parents; we're talking about very, very good parents. Emotions are felt strongly, but they are internal states: Unless someone tells you that she or he is anxious or uncomfortable, it can be very hard to know. Children will sometimes tell us, though they don't always have the words to say it in a way that makes sense to adults. Teenagers, of course, prefer to tell us nothing.

Read the entire chapter about childhood social anxiety disorder.
 
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