By Dr. Kalman Heller, Child and Family Psychologist
Question:
Our 5 year old son, Donnie, appears to lack confidence. He resists trying new things, gives up easily if he doesn’t get something right away, and occasionally calls himself stupid. Most of the kids in his neighborhood are older, and he’s one of the younger children in his kindergarten class. In school, he seems more interested in playing than learning new skills. He needs a lot of adult supervision and encouragement to stick with anything challenging. He’s not a demanding child and this is how to build confidence in a shy child. We almost wish he was. He has an easy-going personality and is often content to play by himself for long periods of time. We often find ourselves doing too many things for him because we get impatient waiting for him to finish. We have so many questions. Should he repeat kindergarten? Does he have an attentional disorder? How can we build his confidence?
Answer:
These parents came to me describing a type of child I see often in my practice. Their concerns were understandable, but they were also caught up in the fear that what they saw now is what they’d still be seeing in ten or twenty years. It helps to remember that kids don’t develop in a simple straight line. They handle some stages of childhood and adolescence with ease and others with real difficulty. This particular child was an easy baby and a joy to his parents. Still, he’s struggled with some of the developmental tasks tied to socialization and work.
Start With His Strengths, Not His Weaknesses
A more detailed history suggested shyness ran in the parents’ background, and it seemed to fit Donnie’s behavior too. He tends to stay on the edge of group activities and enters slowly, so it’s best to give him the time he needs to warm up. But that’s not always true of him either. One of the keys to evaluating a child like this is helping parents identify and focus on his strengths, and Donnie had his fair share. He disliked organized team sports (a concept I question for kids this young anyway), but he turned out to be a genuinely agile kid who loved gymnastics and swimming. His parents had been pushing soccer and baseball out of fear he’d be left out socially if he didn’t learn those popular sports. That concern isn’t unreasonable. In a lot of suburban communities, kids who skip the popular sports can have a harder time making friends. But it’s far too early to make that call with Donnie. Right now the focus should be on what he does well, so his confidence has something solid to build on.
He Has More Interests Than They Realized
Besides gymnastics and swimming, Donnie loves building complex Lego structures, enjoys drawing, and likes being read to. One of my main messages to his parents was to focus on what Donnie CAN do and worry less about what he can’t. Their initial description of him left me with the false impression that he had few interests or skills, when he actually had several. We agreed the parents would increase his time in gymnastics and look into a drawing class for him. I also suggested photographing his Lego structures and posting the pictures around the house as a reminder of what he’s capable of building.
Building Confidence, One Small Step at a Time
Socially, I suggested the parents focus on arranging one-on-one playdates, which Donnie tends to handle well, especially with kids who share some of his interests. For more complex tasks at home and in school, break them down into smaller steps and have him tackle one piece at a time, with praise or a sticker after each one he completes. For more ideas along these lines, Child Mind Institute’s guide to raising confident kids has some practical, age-appropriate suggestions.
The Kindergarten Question
The question of whether to repeat kindergarten clearly needed input from his teachers. Donnie is a shy child whose social skills weren’t quite ready for most group activities. Add in his lack of confidence, his tendency to get overwhelmed by more demanding tasks, and the fact that he’s already one of the younger kids in his class, and I leaned toward having him repeat. The school staff felt the same way, and they could offer him a different teacher so it wouldn’t feel like he was simply redoing the same year.
Donnie seemed able to accept the idea that kids grow in different ways and that he needed an extra year to be ready for some of the academic work ahead. If anything, he seemed relieved not to have to do what he currently saw as “hard work.” Donnie is a kid who may just take longer to learn to put work ahead of play. As for the other question his parents asked, there was no clear evidence of an attentional disorder. My read was that he was mainly avoiding tasks he perceived as too difficult, not struggling to pay attention to them.
Where Donnie Ended Up
Donnie was promoted to the next level in his gymnastics program, which became a good, concrete example of his own special talents. His parents spent more of their time simply enjoying their son, and grew more confident that he’d turn out just fine, even if his path was occasionally bumpy and didn’t look quite like everyone else’s.
