littlebluejaye
New member
Hi All,
TIA for any advice on helping my 9 year old daughter with some introversion issues. I've never sought advice of this sort in a public forum so please advise if these are concerns I need to take to a professional.
I'm the father to a wonderful, beautiful, intelligent 9 y.o. daughter. Her key issue is the ability to make friends and interact with her female classmates. We just attended a father/daughter dance last night and I got to experience first hand her difficulty making friends.
- Before I even start, I should probably say that I have many/all of these same issues, having struggled with (self-diagnosed) introversion / social anxiety / mild spectrum disorder my whole life
- Daughter has a small group of close friends, which is great
- She has difficulty making other friends. I watched her interact with the other girls in her grade and she is nervous around them. Nervous to say hi. When she does say hi, it's clear the conversations are strained. Even with a girl she has had a great play date recently, the conversation is strained and usually ends with some of the other girls running off and DD left behind
- It's clear the other girls aren't excited to be around her. Not to the point of actively shunning her--I actually have the feeling that kids are nicer than they were when I was my age--but my only guess is this is a self-fulfilling situation where she is uncomfortable with social interactions and they feel this and respond in kind*
- We were contacted by her teacher a couple months ago about DD's reaction to a discussion in class around "do you love yourself?" Apparently, her teacher asked this in class and DD responded no. We spoke w/ DD at length about this and most of her reasoning was in ability to connect w/ friends. She said something to the effect that she feels like people don't want to talk to her
- Obviously heartbroken, my best advice was to lay out a tactical plan with her and her mother to help her establish more and better friendships
- This plan basically entailed wife and me helping DD arrange play dates, and so far this has gone well. We have also agreed to host family friends more. In other words, invite the family of a girl DD is trying to get to know better over for Saturday night dinner and drinks, on the hope we can help kindle more bonds for DD (and us!). I DO feel like, as adults, our own introversion has hampered DD in making more friends.
- Additionally, we are trying to push her to do more group activities, such as team sports. I regret, for instance, that we let her move on from Soccer to Lacrosse, and in doing so she lost a group of "friends" which I have seen stay together
- After the episode where she said she doesn't love herself, I've been (honestly) telling myself that she's not depressed and that I shouldn't be overly worried about that, but sitting here staring at this sentence is making me more worried. I guess I have been less worried just because she doesn't look depressed around me. She seems generally happy and well adjusted otherwise. Also, myself being an introvert and struggling to make friends as a kid, I kind of rolled with the punches and generally find myself a well-adjusted adult. But I don't want to under-think this either
- I feel terrible for even saying this, but as I am assessing how to make my daughter more popular, I am looking at her friends (less popular) and trying to figure out how she can make friends which are more popular. I'm not telling her to ignore the existing friends, but just to try and spend time w/ new friends as well. As I type this, I'm wondering if her best move is to establish and keep a smaller group of friends. This is something I've always thought better for myself as an introvert (?) but then when I try to be honest, I'd really rather have more friends but I just don't because not enough people want to be my friend. This now sounds exactly the same as * above
- I have been actively trying to get DD to be more outgoing. Standing in line for photos at this event, there was a classmate with her father right in front of us in line who DD refused to say hi to. My best guess is they just aren't close and DD is nervous to chat with her
- I can't help but feel that she spends too much time at home with us and we haven't encouraged her to be more outgoing. Part of this is just the "you can't be too careful" attitude of not wanting to let her run off to unsupervised play dates and impromptu summer hang-outs w/ the neighborhood kids that I enjoyed. I would put her mom and me in the middle of the spectrum. We DO let her get out and about (had a sleepover party she attended over the weekend) but admittedly, in hindsight, we could have been pushing her to get out more. She is now pushing us to let her go on play dates w/ the neighborhood girls
- DD had this amazing, wonderful instinct to hug her friends since before 1st grade and I'm sad to say this has diminished
- Coming out of the dance last night, we were coincidentally walking beside a daughter/father in her grade, and despite it being late, the other daughter was bubbly and outgoing and dancing to the car, while DD was reserved and looked nervous, despite having 2 cokes--this just cemented for me the difference between introversion and extroversion
- I desperately wanted to talk to DD after the dance and give her advice on being more outgoing, or just prompt her to talk about how she was feeling but I didn't because I thought she would just want to let the more enjoyable parts of the evening sink in without having to end the night with nagging heart to heart with Dad.
- In fairness, the one real heart to heart we did have (after the school "love yourself" talk) was productive and she opened up, so she is not opposed to working with us on her feelings
- DD loves to read, which is something that her mom and I LOVE. She can read for an hour or two easily at night before bed. But I'm starting to wonder if that love (which mom and I don't have) could be a symptom or cause of some of her introversion problems
- DD is on the younger side for her age, something that may be contributing to a gap between her and her peers
- DS, at 6, has some of the same characteristics (introversion)
I could go on and on, but that's probably enough. Thanks so much for any advice!
TIA for any advice on helping my 9 year old daughter with some introversion issues. I've never sought advice of this sort in a public forum so please advise if these are concerns I need to take to a professional.
I'm the father to a wonderful, beautiful, intelligent 9 y.o. daughter. Her key issue is the ability to make friends and interact with her female classmates. We just attended a father/daughter dance last night and I got to experience first hand her difficulty making friends.
- Before I even start, I should probably say that I have many/all of these same issues, having struggled with (self-diagnosed) introversion / social anxiety / mild spectrum disorder my whole life
- Daughter has a small group of close friends, which is great
- She has difficulty making other friends. I watched her interact with the other girls in her grade and she is nervous around them. Nervous to say hi. When she does say hi, it's clear the conversations are strained. Even with a girl she has had a great play date recently, the conversation is strained and usually ends with some of the other girls running off and DD left behind
- It's clear the other girls aren't excited to be around her. Not to the point of actively shunning her--I actually have the feeling that kids are nicer than they were when I was my age--but my only guess is this is a self-fulfilling situation where she is uncomfortable with social interactions and they feel this and respond in kind*
- We were contacted by her teacher a couple months ago about DD's reaction to a discussion in class around "do you love yourself?" Apparently, her teacher asked this in class and DD responded no. We spoke w/ DD at length about this and most of her reasoning was in ability to connect w/ friends. She said something to the effect that she feels like people don't want to talk to her
- Obviously heartbroken, my best advice was to lay out a tactical plan with her and her mother to help her establish more and better friendships
- This plan basically entailed wife and me helping DD arrange play dates, and so far this has gone well. We have also agreed to host family friends more. In other words, invite the family of a girl DD is trying to get to know better over for Saturday night dinner and drinks, on the hope we can help kindle more bonds for DD (and us!). I DO feel like, as adults, our own introversion has hampered DD in making more friends.
- Additionally, we are trying to push her to do more group activities, such as team sports. I regret, for instance, that we let her move on from Soccer to Lacrosse, and in doing so she lost a group of "friends" which I have seen stay together
- After the episode where she said she doesn't love herself, I've been (honestly) telling myself that she's not depressed and that I shouldn't be overly worried about that, but sitting here staring at this sentence is making me more worried. I guess I have been less worried just because she doesn't look depressed around me. She seems generally happy and well adjusted otherwise. Also, myself being an introvert and struggling to make friends as a kid, I kind of rolled with the punches and generally find myself a well-adjusted adult. But I don't want to under-think this either
- I feel terrible for even saying this, but as I am assessing how to make my daughter more popular, I am looking at her friends (less popular) and trying to figure out how she can make friends which are more popular. I'm not telling her to ignore the existing friends, but just to try and spend time w/ new friends as well. As I type this, I'm wondering if her best move is to establish and keep a smaller group of friends. This is something I've always thought better for myself as an introvert (?) but then when I try to be honest, I'd really rather have more friends but I just don't because not enough people want to be my friend. This now sounds exactly the same as * above
- I have been actively trying to get DD to be more outgoing. Standing in line for photos at this event, there was a classmate with her father right in front of us in line who DD refused to say hi to. My best guess is they just aren't close and DD is nervous to chat with her
- I can't help but feel that she spends too much time at home with us and we haven't encouraged her to be more outgoing. Part of this is just the "you can't be too careful" attitude of not wanting to let her run off to unsupervised play dates and impromptu summer hang-outs w/ the neighborhood kids that I enjoyed. I would put her mom and me in the middle of the spectrum. We DO let her get out and about (had a sleepover party she attended over the weekend) but admittedly, in hindsight, we could have been pushing her to get out more. She is now pushing us to let her go on play dates w/ the neighborhood girls
- DD had this amazing, wonderful instinct to hug her friends since before 1st grade and I'm sad to say this has diminished
- Coming out of the dance last night, we were coincidentally walking beside a daughter/father in her grade, and despite it being late, the other daughter was bubbly and outgoing and dancing to the car, while DD was reserved and looked nervous, despite having 2 cokes--this just cemented for me the difference between introversion and extroversion
- I desperately wanted to talk to DD after the dance and give her advice on being more outgoing, or just prompt her to talk about how she was feeling but I didn't because I thought she would just want to let the more enjoyable parts of the evening sink in without having to end the night with nagging heart to heart with Dad.
- In fairness, the one real heart to heart we did have (after the school "love yourself" talk) was productive and she opened up, so she is not opposed to working with us on her feelings
- DD loves to read, which is something that her mom and I LOVE. She can read for an hour or two easily at night before bed. But I'm starting to wonder if that love (which mom and I don't have) could be a symptom or cause of some of her introversion problems
- DD is on the younger side for her age, something that may be contributing to a gap between her and her peers
- DS, at 6, has some of the same characteristics (introversion)
I could go on and on, but that's probably enough. Thanks so much for any advice!