Quiet (42 page)

It was only when I suggested that Joyce's daughter might be an introvert, and explained what that was, that Joyce started thinking differently about Isabel's experiences at school. And from Isabel's perspective, things didn't sound alarming at all. “I need a break after school,” she told me later. “School is hard because a lot of people are in the room, so you get tired. I freak out if my mom plans a play date without telling me, because I don't want to hurt my friends' feelings. But I'd rather stay home. At a friend's house you have to do the things other people want to do. I like hanging out with my mom after school because I can learn from her. She's been alive longer than me. We have thoughtful conversations. I like having thoughtful conversations because they make people happy.”
^*

Isabel is telling us, in all her second-grade wisdom, that introverts relate to other people. Of course they do. They just do it in their own way.

Now that Joyce understands Isabel's needs, mother and daughter brainstorm happily, figuring out strategies to help Isabel navigate her school day. “Before, I would have had Isabel going out and seeing people all the time, packing her time after school full of activities,” says Joyce. “Now I understand that it's very stressful for her to be in school, so we figure out together how much socializing makes sense and when it should happen.” Joyce doesn't mind when Isabel wants to hang out alone in her room after school or leave a birthday party a little earlier than the other kids. She also understands that since Isabel doesn't see any of this as a problem, there's no reason that she should.

Joyce has also gained insight into how to help her daughter manage playground politics. Once, Isabel was worried about how to divide her time among three friends who didn't get along with each other. “My initial instinct,” says Joyce, “would be to say,
Don't worry about it! Just
play with them all!
But now I understand that Isabel's a different kind of person. She has trouble strategizing about how to handle all these people simultaneously on the playground. So we talk about who she's going to play with and when, and we rehearse things she can tell her friends to smooth the situation over.”

Another time, when Isabel was a little older, she felt upset because her friends sat at two different tables in the lunch room. One table was populated with her quieter friends, the other with the class extroverts. Isabel described the second group as “loud, talking all the time, sitting on top of each other—
ugh
!” But she was sad because her best friend Amanda loved to sit at the “crazy table,” even though she was also friends with the girls at the “more relaxed and chill table.” Isabel felt torn. Where should she sit?

Joyce's first thought was that the “crazy table” sounded like more fun. But she asked Isabel what
she
preferred. Isabel thought for a minute and said, “Maybe every now and then I'll sit with Amanda, but I do like being quieter and taking a break at lunch from everything.”

Why would you want to do that?
thought Joyce. But she caught herself before she said it out loud. “Sounds good to me,” she told Isabel. “And Amanda still loves you. She just really likes that other table. But it doesn't mean she doesn't like you. And you should get yourself the peaceful time you need.”

Understanding introversion, says Joyce, has changed the way she parents—and she can't believe it took her so long. “When I see Isabel being her wonderful self, I value it even if the world may tell her she should want to be at that other table. In fact, looking at that table through her eyes, it helps me reflect on how I might be perceived by others and how I need to be aware and manage my extroverted ‘default' so as not to miss the company of others like my sweet daughter.”

Joyce has also come to appreciate Isabel's sensitive ways. “Isabel is an old soul,” she says. “You forget that she's only a child. When I talk to her, I'm not tempted to use that special tone of voice that people reserve for children, and I don't adapt my vocabulary. I talk to her the way I would to any adult. She's very sensitive, very caring. She worries about other people's well-being. She can be easily overwhelmed, but all these things go together and I love this about my daughter.”

Joyce is as caring a mother as I've seen, but she had a steep learning curve as parent to her daughter because of their difference in temperaments. Would she have enjoyed a more natural parent-child fit if she'd been an introvert herself? Not necessarily. Introverted parents can face challenges of their own. Sometimes painful childhood memories can get in the way.

Emily Miller, a clinical social worker in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told me about a little girl she treated, Ava, whose shyness was so extreme that it prevented her from making friends or from concentrating in class. Recently she sobbed when asked to join a group singing in front of the classroom, and her mother, Sarah, decided to seek Miller's help. When Miller asked Sarah, a successful business journalist, to act as a partner in Ava's treatment, Sarah burst into tears. She'd been a shy child, too, and felt guilty that she'd passed on to Ava her terrible burden.

“I hide it better now, but I'm still just like my daughter,” she explained. “I can approach anyone, but only as long as I'm behind a journalist's notebook.”

Sarah's reaction is not unusual for the pseudo-extrovert parent of a shy child, says Miller. Not only is Sarah reliving her own childhood, but she's projecting onto Ava the worst of her own memories. But Sarah needs to understand that she and Ava are not the same person, even if they do seem to have inherited similar temperaments. For one thing, Ava is influenced by her father, too, and by any number of environmental factors, so her temperament is bound to have a different expression. Sarah's own distress need not be her daughter's, and it does Ava a great disservice to assume that it will be. With the right guidance, Ava may get to the point where her shyness is nothing more than a small and infrequent annoyance.

But even parents who still have work to do on their own self-esteem can be enormously helpful to their kids, according to Miller. Advice from a parent who appreciates how a child feels is inherently validating. If your son is nervous on the first day of school, it helps to tell him that you felt the same way when you started school and still do sometimes at
work, but that it gets easier with time. Even if he doesn't believe you, you'll signal that you understand and accept him.

You can also use your empathy to help you judge when to encourage him to face his fears, and when this would be too overwhelming. For example, Sarah might know that singing in front of the classroom really is too big a step to ask Ava to take all at once. But she might also sense that singing in private with a small and
simpatico
group, or with one trusted friend, is a manageable first step, even if Ava protests at first. She can, in other words, sense when to push Ava, and how much.

The psychologist
Elaine Aron, whose work on sensitivity I described in
chapter 6
, offers insight into these questions when she writes about Jim, one of the best fathers she knows. Jim is a carefree extrovert with two young daughters. The first daughter, Betsy, is just like him, but the second daughter, Lily, is more sensitive—a keen but anxious observer of her world. Jim is a friend of Aron's, so he knew all about sensitivity and introversion. He embraced Lily's way of being, but at the same time he didn't want her to grow up shy.

So, writes Aron, he “became determined to introduce her to every potentially pleasurable opportunity in life, from ocean waves, tree climbing, and new foods to family reunions, soccer, and varying her clothes rather than wearing one comfortable uniform. In almost every instance, Lily initially thought these novel experiences were not such good ideas, and Jim
always
respected her opinion. He never forced her, although he could be very persuasive. He simply shared his view of a situation with her—the safety and pleasures involved, the similarities to things she already liked. He would wait for that little gleam in her eye that said she wanted to join in with the others, even if she couldn't yet.

“Jim always assessed these situations carefully to ensure that she would not ultimately be frightened, but rather be able to experience pleasure and success. Sometimes he held her back until she was overly ready. Above all, he kept it an internal conflict, not a conflict between
him and her.… And if she or anyone else comments on her quietness or hesitancy, Jim's prompt reply is, ‘That's just your style. Other people have different styles. But this is yours. You like to take your time and be sure.' Jim also knows that part of her style is befriending anyone whom others tease, doing careful work, noticing everything going on in the family, and being the best soccer strategist in her league.”

One of the best things you can do for an introverted child is to work with him on his reaction to novelty. Remember that introverts react not only to new people, but also to new places and events. So don't mistake your child's caution in new situations for an inability to relate to others.
He's recoiling from novelty or overstimulation, not from human contact
. As we saw in the last chapter, introversion-extroversion levels are not correlated with either agreeableness or the enjoyment of intimacy. Introverts are just as likely as the next kid to seek others' company, though often in smaller doses.

The key is to expose your child gradually to new situations and people—taking care to respect his limits, even when they seem extreme. This produces more-confident kids than either overprotection or pushing too hard. Let him know that his feelings are normal and natural, but also that there's nothing to be afraid of: “I know it can feel funny to play with someone you've never met, but I bet that boy would love to play trucks with you if you asked him.” Go at your child's pace; don't rush him. If he's young, make the initial introductions with the other little boy if you have to. And stick around in the background—or, when he's really little, with a gentle, supportive hand on his back—for as long as he seems to benefit from your presence. When he takes social risks, let him know you admire his efforts: “I saw you go up to those new kids yesterday. I know that can be difficult, and I'm proud of you.”

The same goes for new situations. Imagine a child who's more afraid of the ocean than are other kids the same age. Thoughtful parents recognize that this fear is natural and even wise; the ocean is indeed dangerous. But they don't allow her to spend the summer on the safety of the dunes, and neither do they drop her in the water and expect her to swim. Instead they signal that they understand her unease, while urging her to take small steps. Maybe they play in the sand for a few days with the ocean waves crashing at a safe distance. Then one day they approach the water's
edge, perhaps with the child riding on a parent's shoulders. They wait for calm weather, or low tide, to immerse a toe, then a foot, then a knee. They don't rush; every small step is a giant stride in a child's world. When ultimately she learns to swim like a fish, she has reached a crucial turning point in her relationship not only with water but also with fear.

Slowly your child will see that it's worth punching through her wall of discomfort to get to the fun on the other side. She'll learn how to do the punching by herself. As
Dr. Kenneth Rubin, the director of the Center for Children, Relationships and Culture at the University of Maryland, writes, “If you're consistent in helping your young child learn to regulate his or her emotions and behaviors in soothing and supportive ways, something rather magical will begin to happen: in time, you might watch your daughter seem to be silently reassuring herself: ‘Those kids are having fun, I can go over there.' He or she is learning to self-regulate fearfulness and wariness.”

If you want your child to learn these skills, don't let her hear you call her “shy”: she'll believe the label and experience her nervousness as a fixed trait rather than an emotion she can control. She also knows full well that “shy” is a negative word in our society. Above all, do not shame her for her shyness.