Infant shyness, main features

According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, the term shyness refers to a fearful person. From psychology, shyness is recognized as those individuals with difficulty starting or maintaining social contact with one or more people, This is sometimes reflected through certain manifestations from childhood, for this reason we will talk a little more about the subject.

Content

• What happens at the cognitive level?
• What happens emotionally?
• What happens at the social level?
  • In conclusion…
  • Bibliographic references

What happens at the cognitive level?

At the level of thoughts a shyly child maintains a negative perception of himself compared to others, It also tends to anticipate the negative consequences of social contact.

Sometimes this can happen due to the type of contact that the child has with his family, that is, they tend to say things like: "You are useless", "Do not talk to me", "I do not want to listen to you", "You are useless ”; With which the only thing that the family environment achieves is to start creating in the child the idea that he does not do anything well and that for that reason it is better not to do anything. It is common that when there is a deficit in social contact at the cognitive level there is a lot of activity, since shyness produces that many things be planned and that few of them are done.

What happens emotionally?

Regarding emotions A shyly child tends to present generally low self -esteem, which is evidenced in feelings of guilt and inferiority. In some cases this produces certain psychosomatic disorders, that is, physical discomfort produced by inappropriate emotional management. In addition to this there is a constant fear of any situation that implies contact with others, for example: normal situations such as going to the front in the room, that they ask something in a family reunion, among others.

What happens at the social level?

As we all know the human being is social by nature, for this reason, evidence. On a social level a shyness presents Motor disability, that is, the child tends to paralyze in their movements, which in turn produces a great physiological activity (that is, the heart rate, breathing, sweating, muscle tension) increases, accompanied by great cognitive activity that together as a whole instead of promoting interaction tends to inhibit it.

The child tends towards avoidance behaviors (It is a style of coping with situations, which implies not having contact with an aversive stimulus or that generates a certain fear or insecurity), such as going to recess only. In addition to this, at the body level it can be seen that there is no contact, that is, it does not maintain visual contact, you can create certain ICTs (that is, some body movements that are repetitive that help perceive security in situations that generate fear or nerves), among other manifestations.

Among which it should be noted that if any of these characteristics are detected in your son or daughter and does not know how something that can be modified if it is a timely manner.

In conclusion…

Being social beings, we must remember that since we are born until we die we interact with all the people around us, the type of interaction tends to vary according to the relationship of trust you have with the other person, that is to say you do not greet the same to your spouse that your work employee.

Know the proper way of interacting with others helps the promotion of healthy development during childhood, since it allows friendship links and later stable relationships in different fields, that is; affective, labor, social, academic, among others. Which in the medium or long term When the child exceeds shyness and becomes an adult he can be able to manifest what he thinks, feels and does positively, Without keeping anything, allowing it to create some autonomy to be able to make decisions for your life.

Bibliographic references

• Ballester, r., & Roselló, B. (2011). Timidity in childhood: concept, measurement and clinical implications. Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Psychology, 16 (1), 1-13.
• Chapel, a. (2012). Children's shyness: concept, manifestations and treatments. Psychology Yearbook, 42 ​​(1), 61-74.
• Méndez, x. (2016). Children's shyness: concept, etiology, manifestations and treatment. FMC-continued medical formation in primary care, 23 (5), 252-259.