ive been freaked about this too. seth is a sensitive child, and shy most definitely it takes him a while to warm up to people, but im ok if thats his nature.

when he was younger i worried even as recent as two months ago i worried. but he has blossomed while going to preschool. hes moving out of parallel play and into imaginative play where he wants interaction with other kids. he's 3.5

parallel play is totally normal for toddlers.

__________________
Home of the original Kitten Mittens! MEEEEEE_OWWWW!!

The shyness sounds normal to me. My little girl is 3 (3years and 2 months) old and she is so UN-shy that I worry about THAT. I know that I wouldn't put a kid in daycare just to socialize them, but I would take them to the park or other places where they can play with kids or just be around kids watching as much as possible.

I have honestly never seen a little kid be less shy than my daughter and it bothers me for several reasons, although I don't do anything to try to influence her any other way, I have to constantly pull her away from strangers in stores and people who don't really want her *rightthere* in their face babbling away, and I have to watch her carefully with other kids or she will pester them to death and she tends to try to take over and boss, or the other kid obviously doesn't want her to be right up on them and she won't back off etc.

I;m not trying to make her sound abnormal because I think my daughter is behaving just as normally as the kids who are extremely shy, I do want to be able to guide her out of it, I just don't know what to do without making her feel bad, you know? She's still very young but if you saw this behavior in an older kid you;d think they had a boundary issue.

Here are some examples....it really does bother me! We are in the grocery store and she's walking around waving at everyone. Someone doesn't even have to make eye contact with her, they canjust walk past and she will yell out "Hey! My mommy has tomatoes, I like tomatoes!" and if the person is browsing and pauses within earshot, my daughter will continue to talk to them even if they don't show any interest. When I am pushing her and trying to grab something off a shelf, someone WILL make eye contact with her and say "Hey cutie" or something and she will start talkind a mile a minute to them about anything "I have a horse at home named Sweetie Pie, and I am going to eat macaroni and on birthdays you get birthday cake and I like cars!" etc on and on. I have to just wheel the cart away and she will keep talking. She also *approaches* strangers ALL the time in parking lots and anywhere and it freaks me out. Most of them are nice enough people, some talk back, others just smile and wave and go on but in every case my daughter tries to follow them or get them to stay and talk to her. I watch her closely but don't trust other people to watch her --when my mother was with us in a store she thought it was cute the way my daughter was doing and she wasn'ty watching her too close and was letting people talk to my daughter while she did her shopping, and wasn't standing right there with her. My mother seems to think that these other people are helping her to watch my daughter so she can shop for a minute. I hate the way my daughter just doesn't know a stranger and wants to talk to **everyone***, I have tried like crazy to make her stop this. I explain that she just can't talk to *everyone*, and also she can't expect everyone to talk to her or stand there for 15 minutes while she talks. Ack. I am so terrified of how easy a target she would be for a predator!

Also, thing like this bother me and I wish she WAS a little bit more shy. At the park the other day a lady was there playing with her two daughters on one little piece of play area. Her daughters were older and they were pretending to play ice cream store, and the lady was ordering ice cream and her girls were fixing it for her. My daughter went right up and got in the middle of them, in between the lady and her daughters and just butted in, talking loud. I was embarassed- the lady talked to her and didn't seem annoyed and tried to include her in their play, but my daughter then was taking over and would not let the lady's daughters play! I kept trying to get her out of there. I have never seen another kid just get right up in the middle of things like that and just take over, most kids are shy and you would have to coax them to join in. The lady handled it well- she didn't ignore my daughter, she was responding to her while also focusing on her own daughters too but I kept trying to get my daughter to stop trying to take over and eventually had to just coax her out of there by getting her excited to go swing. It's great that my daughter isn't shy and joins in but she needs to learn not to just, you know, butt in and dominate and talk over everyone else. I felt truly bad, and told my husband it seems like my daughter has no boundaries, when we teach her to share, take turns, not to interrupt people, etc. I sort of feel like this is because until the baby comes she is still an only child and never been in daycare so she acts like she is starving for other people's interactions. But the truth is she gets plenty of attention and we take her to the park and other places to play a lot.

I know a lot of people worry about their kids for being shy....I worry just as much about my daughter being the opposite and I hope she grows out of it to a good extent. Does this sound odd?

I'm really worried sometimes that my daughter will start school "behind" since she will not have been in any preschool or daycare situation. I am so afraid she is going to have problems with restraint, with discipline of staying in her seat and staying in line, etc. Im am starting to really worry that I made a mistake by staying home with her!

ummm you just said you would never send your child to preschool to socialize them and now youre whining about how your child may be behind?

i take offense to your high and mighty SAHM attitude and i take double offense to your pointing out my post, highlighting my preschool experience and then whining.

seth has stayed at home with me until this summer. im the breadwinner, but im lucky enough to only have to work two days a week and make a wage good enough to support a family and a mortgage. i put seth in daycare exactly for socialization. his experiences with playgrounds as you so pointed out you would do instead of preschool did not work. consistent kids and caregivers have helped him immeasurably in a way that sporadic inconsistent playground friends never did. even the playgroups we joined didnt provide the consistency he obviously needed. he goes two days a week for five hours at a time and loves it.

__________________
Home of the original Kitten Mittens! MEEEEEE_OWWWW!!

nick isent shy at all, but we are starting to have a problem with him wanting to hug and kiss every little girl we see, today at bibleschool as soon as this gril about nick age walked in he ran up to her and huged and kissed her, she huged back the first time but then after like the 20th time she was annoyed
but aneyways i was very very very shy intill i was about 15 or so, i really just prefered not to talk to aneyone ever, not every child is ment to be outgoing, some are suposto be shy, im sure he will find his way