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did I ‘catch’ a dose of shyness?

Shake Your Family Tree for Signs of Shyness

Can you inherit shyness? Again, the reliable and revered researchers have ascertained the precise and unassailable answer to this question: ‘Some do. Some don’t.’

I don’t mean to be sarcastic. Like inheriting long legs or brown eyes, it’s a role of the dice whether you inherit shyness or not. However, a study called Childhood Shyness and Maternal Social Phobia found that children who had shy mothers are eight times more likely to be shy themselves. Twenty per cent of Shys have first-degree relatives with a phobia.¹

SHYBUSTER 5:

Rummage Through Your Relatives

Having a shy relative is another possible ingredient in your particular shyness recipe. If you are interested in doing some detective work, ask your whole family – even your third cousin twice removed – if he or she had a great-aunt or -uncle whose parents were shy. Every relative counts!

If you’ve dug through your genealogy with a fine-tooth hacksaw and there are no suspects, there is yet another possibility.

Is Shyness a Communicable Disease?

You can’t ‘catch’ a case of shyness. However, if your guardians, even if they weren’t your parents, were shy, there is a greater chance you will be too, because we tend to imitate the people we are around, especially parental types!

“ My wife and I adopted a son who seems to have a very outgoing personality. I am scared to death that unless I change the way I am, he will lose that part of him. I would love to be an outgoing role model for him.”

SHELLEY – NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND

A child hardly ever recognizes that a parent is shy.² It’s only these many years later that I realize that my mother was. One Thanksgiving when I was about 14, we were visiting a slew of relatives we hadn’t seen in a long time. Aunt Lucy was jabbering away. Uncle Charley had a turkey hat on his head (and, I now suspect, a few drinks under his belt). My other relatives were chattering simultaneously. And there was Mama, sitting as quiet as a clam, hands folded. And I, like a little clamlet, sat silently beside her.

Parents, you are a role model for your kids. If you are shy, make an extra effort to whoop it up in front of your progeny. They will enjoy seeing you have fun and will follow your lead.

“ I never had any friends because we lived out in the country on a farm and there weren’t many other kids who were my age around. The mothers of the other kids arranged a lot of times when they all got together to play. But my mother never did. When I got older, my Dad told me she was shy. Looking back, I wonder if the reasons I didn’t have many friends is because she was too shy, and wonder if that’s the reason she didn’t call the other parents.”

DINA – LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA

SHYBUSTER 6:

Did Shyness Rub Off On You?

If you’re being a shyness-sleuth, look for clues that your parents or guardians were shy. You could even ask some of their friends.