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was it bullies in bygone days?

Those Nasty Kids in the Neighbourhood

No worries about money. No worries about the job. No worries about love or sex. Wouldn’t it be great to be a kid again?

Definitely not. Being a shy kid is worse than an adult who has no job, no money, and… Well, no job and no money.

Let’s say you have conducted your research and find you are not a HSS. In fact your relatives say you were a confident little hellraiser as a toddler and young child. You would have grabbed that ghastly rubber spider and hurled it back at them. And say you’ve also shaken your family tree and found no shy suspects among your ancestors.

Is there another way the shy bug can find and gnaw away at you? Yes. I know because it took a big bite out of me.

A Raspberry to Remember

Time: Third grade

Place: Maths lesson

Cast: My classmates and me

The most difficult part of my school day was maths. Not because the numbers were mind-boggling. Not because I hated my teacher. But because of my acute shy-attacks. The teacher often gave us an exercise and then left the room for a few minutes. With furrowed brows, the girls would finish the exercise. Then they would start clucking like a bunch of baby chickens until the teacher returned. But I, the shy ostrich, buried my head in my books and pretended to be still working.

One unforgettable day the teacher gave us an exercise and then, as usual, left the room. During those silent working minutes, I felt the urgent need to pass wind (commonly known then as ‘giving a raspberry’). I felt the wind flooding through me and I knew I would be unable to halt its escape. Thanks to our Maker, I managed to let the air out silently and slowly. It sailed away and, with a sigh of relief, I went back to tackling my assignment.

Fewer than 30 seconds later, one of the girls, Sonia, imitated a Japanese voice: ‘Ah zoh,’ she said, ‘I smell raspberries.’ Laughter from all.

‘I wonder where it’s coming from?’ another girl chirped. More uproarious laughter.

‘Let’s find out!’ Sonia pronounced. Then the nightmare began. Like an Easter egg hunt, Sonia began the festive search for the source of the scent.

Starting at the other side of the room, she crawled up and down each row dramatically sniffing everybody – much to the hilarity of all the confident girls who knew they were not culpable.

When she got to my row, I got hysterical. I grabbed my books and bolted out, tears streaming down my face. Racing down the hall, I heard a cruel chorus behind me chanting ‘It was Leilie. It was Leilie. It was Leilie.’

Looking back, that was the pivotal point when my shyness went from bad to excruciating.

Fifty eight per cent of Shys can recall a traumatic social experience near the onset of their symptoms.1 Forty four percent remember one intense episode, which they felt started it.2

Most little kids really don’t mean to be cruel but, without thinking, they can be vicious. The Journal of Clinical Psychology cites a study called ‘Peer Rejection in Early Elementary Grades’ confirming the harmful effects of these early episodes.³

One single experience doesn’t make a kid shy if he or she is not sensitive to start with. But it sure doesn’t help! Even if Shys don’t have one early horror story that they can point to, how well they feel accepted in school is crucial.⁴ It becomes a template for their expectations in later years.

SHYBUSTER 7:

Replay the Early Show

Thoughtless youngsters can really mess up a sensitive little kid’s head. If you’re one of the 58 per cent of Shys who can remember one specific childhood experience, run it through your mind. Inevitably you will come to the conclusion that it was the other kids’ cruelty, not your conduct that was at fault.

Contemplate it until you are convinced. It helps clear the path to confidence.

“ Before I started school, therefore before I was even five years old, I had to go to hospital for what probably was only three or four days, but my memory is that it was an eternity. I was in a children’s ward. I had the bed in the corner. I was the only boy in the ward and all the others were girls. But I would have been too young to understand gender difference. I would not talk to anyone. Some of the other children were quite loud and extroverted, they clowned around a lot. Particularly the girl in the bed in the opposite corner. I often cried. She would be the one to notice, and loudly make fun of it to all the others. I would roll over face-down and pretend to be asleep.

I was too shy to ask where the toilets were, so at least daily I would wet the bed. The nurses got increasingly angry that I kept doing this and yelled at me in front of the girls.”

NATHAN – GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN