I have 3 children aged 8 years and 6.5 year old twins. Shyness at the level they display it seems quite unusual. I got alarmed when other parents, on first meeting at a group, would say ‘My Child is Shy Too!’, but then their kid would be swiftly be running off and chatting within the first few minutes. My kids were not even smiling at other children or adults we had seen at these groups for months… even years after first meeting. Surely their shyness was something ‘more’? And Google confirmed this fear: selective mutism.
What Is Selective Mutism?
Google defined selective mutism as a childhood anxiety disorder. It stated that a person experiences a phobia of speaking in certain situations. Often at school or around unfamiliar people, despite speaking freely in other settings, like at home with family.
Journey to Selective Mutism
For a variety of reasons, I was not able to take my babies out when the twins were first born unless my husband was there. He worked 6 days a week with no holidays. On his 7th day he was generally burned out so we didn’t go out much together either. We were pretty much house-bound in a similar way to the whole world during COVID lockdowns. Then when the kids reached an age I felt able to take them out, COVID lockdowns struck. With type 1 diabetes, we stayed well away from people even when lockdowns were relaxed, until I was vaccinated. Our first trip out was when my oldest was 4 years 3 months old.
As the years of socialising ticked on, we had done so many social activities I can’t even name them all. We did play groups, 1:1’s, large family gatherings, small family gatherings, swimming group, forest schools, animal parks, play parks, you name it. After all of those, they had formed one friendship with an extroverted teenage boy who took them under his wing. Yet our children had not felt comfortable with their peers, other parents, teachers or family who we saw about once per year. Not one word was said. They wouldn’t even smile at familiar people.
Other People’s Concerns: Are You Sure About Home Education?
I mention the above, as there is so much societal pressure about socialising children when young. It naturally made me worried during that time as to whether our situation had been causing them any social harm. When we did first start going out, one of our twins would scream if anybody came within a metre of us. They would scramble up my body, hide under my hair, scream like someone was kidnapping them! I challenge anyone to make friends in this scenario… In fact, I challenge anyone to not be stared at like you’ve abused your babies.
When you choose to follow a different path which you know is the best fit for your children, the last thing you want is for your children to look ‘strange’, ‘weird’, ‘odd’. If they do look different to their peers, you want it to be for positive reasons! You want to inspire others to join the journey if it suits them too. Not to be the shameful example of gossip. Well, even some family members were concerned about our children’s social skills with others. Understandably so; who really wants a relative to grow up being anti-social?
Even fellow home educators often passed their opinions around freely. One lady asked, looking concerned, whether I thought my daughter would always be this way?! Looks of horror at me and my children did often happen unfortunately. Even in one group, two parents didn’t realise I was sat near them as they gossiped. My daughter screamed because another child went near her and they said something like “That child is so weird *chuckle*!” (you know the sort of tone and judgmental gossip talk). I stood up, said our goodbyes and both mums looked moritifed to realise I had been in ear-shot of them.
Which eventually led me to Google. Oh the wonders of Googling for whether something unusual is ‘normal’, as I’m sure you’ll all be chuckling. Of course Google verified it is not normal! That if a child is excessively shy for more than a few weeks they have this dreaded anxiety disorder called selective mutism. Oh my word! How did I not know about this?!
Google continued to say that the quicker you get treatment the better the outcome, and treatment should not be delayed. I was devastated! My oldest daughter was nearly 8 and I had not sought her treatment. Was I too late? Would they hate me when they were older that I’d not stepped in and helped them when they were ‘young enough’? Would they ever talk to other people? How could my children be suffering with anxiety when I had done everything in my power to keep them mentally healthy? Was this all because of our challenges socially when they were younger?… The panic rose within me and I was highly alarmed. I even grew to feel anger towards Dr Gordon Neufeld, my favourite psychologist of all time. I had taken confidence from his view that shyness is a healthy sign of attachment. Whereas it looked like I should have sought medical help sooner!
Once my awareness of selective mutism had chance to settle, I decided to search Gordon Neufeld and selective mutism. Since I had trusted his belief in shyness for all these years, perhaps he would be the answer to how to ‘fix’ my children. Hey presto! He even has a course which encompasses selective mutism. I was so relieved. The psychologist I had valued for many years, the reason we are home educating, actually had a course on the disorder I knew nothing about. I immediately signed up. I had to wait another few weeks for the course to start. That’s when I cut back all group social meetups, since they clearly weren’t working for my children’s anxiety. I needed to know more about selective mutism in order to help them socially in these settings.
Dr Gordon Neufeld’s View On Shyness
In Neufeld’s wonderful book ‘Hold On to Your Kids’ he stated: ‘It’s not shyness we ought to be so concerned about but the lack of shyness of many of today’s children’. I first read this book when my oldest was 2.5 years. I have to say, it gave me great confidence not to worry about my children’s shyness. So on discovering selective mutism, you can see why I would feel angry that I had missed something important.
Dr Neufeld’s Alarm Spectrum course started. I asked ‘how would you know the difference between selective mutism (a bad thing) and shyness (a good thing)’? Tamara Strijak instantly assured me that our society has gone about pathologising everything, and that it is just shyness. What a relief! My children did not have some anxiety disorder, they were completely and utterly fine. If anything, they were completely and utterly healthy. This was a monumental relief. Then I could focus on the wonderful Alarm Spectrum course, which helped me understand my own anxieties. If you suffer with anxiety, I would highly recommend this course.
I also was able to understand shyness better, which Neufeld describes as being “reserved for one’s people”. In other words, until my children shift developmentally or developed attachments to these other people, they would continue to be shy. The conclusions I took were that selective mutism is not a real thing at all! It’s just something they decided to label very shy children at school with so that they can deal with it.
Dealing With the Shyness
So now I knew there was everything right about my children’s behaviour, and everything wrong with how our society has decided to label people, I could relax. I continued not taking them to groups though, since that had rarely worked. I tried to message other home educators and arrange play dates. We have done quite a few with different people, but they haven’t yet been regular enough for my kids to grow attachment roots with the other families. My kids lost their shyness with one extrovert child, but his Mum is too busy to meet very often so it’s just an occasional luxury at the moment. I completely understand that other families haven’t got the time to commit to meeting shy kids weekly, but once every few months is not enough for roots to form, so our relatively lonely life is continuing as it always did for now.
In the meantime, we continue to do the intensive swimming lessons at our local independent school. My kids attachment roots have been slowly developing with the lovely teacher there. Finally a couple of sessions ago they all started talking to him. Zero shame about using their words, zero alarm that they spoke, just ‘hey, look at this!’ and that was that!
I’m growing more aware of how my children’s shyness exists, that it is the dark side of our perfectly healthy attachment, and is perfectly natural. That unless they grow attached to others they will always be shy with them. And that since they are attached to me, I could potentially be a key player in them forming more attachments. Which explains why my kids were comfortable quickly with my school / university friends’ children. Whereas with new families I personally didn’t have a pre-existing friendship with, and therefore wasn’t attached to either, it was natural my children would remain shy.
Conclusion
The past year had me stumble upon selective mutism. I did an alarm spectrum course, where I discovered selective mutism is just a label for shyness. Shyness is just the opposite side of attachment – so where there isn’t an attachment with a group or person, shyness will be there. And once attachment develops with a group or people, the shyness falls away. This allowed me to relax and continue to have every faith in my children’s healthy and natural development.
Gentle Parent 