Susan Cain: recommendation

Transcript context

…A boy, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it's very likely that he is going to be a little bit slow to warm up at the beginning. And it might be that all the other kids get dropped off at the door of the school, but your child might really want you to walk him all the way down the stairs to his classroom. And that's okay. It's not okay for it to stay that way forever, but remember when we were talking about desensitization with public speaking? Where you do things step by step by step. So you might walk him to the classroom a few times and then say, "Okay, we're going to do a game, and tomorrow I'm going to walk you almost all the way, but the last two steps you're going to do by yourself." And then you celebrate it with whatever little treat. Then the next day, maybe it's not two steps, maybe it's five steps. Little by little by little you are moving away, and he's going down that runway, and eventually he will get to the point where he doesn't even remember that he needed you to walk him into school. This is going to happen again and again. When he's learning to swim, a lot of quieter children are uncomfortable with the water at the beginning. And you might feel as a parent, like, what did I do wrong? Because I see all these other kids who are just jumping in the water and my kid's not doing that. So first of all, give yourself a break, because this is natural. And second, you apply the same technique. You maybe get to the pool on a day when there aren't a lot of people around, so it's not overstimulating. Quiet. And maybe the goal for that day is you're asking your child, do you think you can put your big toe in the water? And he puts his big toe in, "Yay, yay, yay," we're celebrating. And then you little by little go from there. And again, eventually you will not be able to tell the difference between that kid and the one who jumped in right away. Longer runway, it's okay. Okay. So that was my first piece of advice. My second is, self-confidence comes from mastery, and not the other way around. So we tend to think, we live in a culture that's really big on self-confidence, so we see self-confidence as the key to everything else. But in fact, if you master a skill, you become self-confident as a result of that mastery. And this is true for all children, it's especially true for quieter children. Introduce them to a lot of activities, and figure out which are the ones they really truly love, and gravitate to, and excel in, and those will pay off great dividends, not just in their mastery, but in their self-confidence. The third thing I would say is when they're feeling shy or uncomfortable, just talk about it openly in a light way. It's not a big deal. Share your own experiences. Let's say a child's afraid to go to a birthday party. You could say, "Oh yeah, I used to feel that way too. It's really common. Here's what I would do when I felt that way. And you know what? I still feel that way sometimes." d to go to a birthday party. You could say, "Oh yeah, I used to feel that way too. It's really common. Here's what I would do when I felt that way. And you know what? I still feel that way sometimes." And you could say, "So what I like to do is, I like to get to the party early before everybody else is there, because then I feel more comfortable. So why don't we get there early today?"…

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