Moreover, social withdrawal at seven years predicted loneliness, depression, and negative self-regard at 14 years.

– Social Withdrawal in Childhood

This taxonomy places behavioural solitude (i.e., lack of interaction in presence of peers) as the over-arching, observable behaviour of shyness.

– Effects of interventions for social anxiety and shyness in school-aged children: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The PSLE Oral examination is around the corner. Part of the examination involves engaging examiners in conversation based on some stimulus. This component is worth 20 marks, as much as the Open-Ended comprehension section in Paper 2 and more than the Situational Writing component in Paper 1. The stimulus will be something children can easily relate to.

One aspect candidates will be assessed on is how well they interact with examiners. Ways of determining if a candidate is interacting well include the following. The candidate does not seem to be avoiding eye contact. The candidate does not require several prompts to elaborate on answers. The conversation flows naturally and the candidate does not seem very uncomfortable. Some nervousness is understandable but so long as candidates ease into the conversation before long, they can be said to have interacted well.

This will be welcome news to those to whom interaction with peers and others comes naturally. There are others though who even if they could perform well in written components are less expressive in their daily lives. They can be described as naturally shy. They may perceive the stimulus-based conversation as slightly stressful.

Though the naturally expressive have an advantage, the shy can still do well in a very methodical way. All students are trained to answer oral examination questions in a structured way. While it is possible to get through the exam by sticking to a formula, the same cannot be said about real life which is what the exam aims to get students prepared for.

The school experience of shy students could differ materially from those less so despite every effort by teachers and school systems. They might answer less or not at all in class and may be described as a quiet student. Recess may not mean the same thing it does to others. Presentations may be frightening and require tonnes of mental preparation.

Wang and others (2020) state that shy students do have best friends, citing a 2006 study which found that 6 in 10 shy students had at least one best friend and this proportion was similar to students who were not as shy. The friendships of shy students differed in two ways. They had fewer friendships and their friendships had a more superficial quality. These friendships “lacked emotional expression” and “responsiveness” (Schneider, 1999 as cited in Wang et al., 2020). They also cited research which suggested shy students tended to be “verbally reticent” and since they did not speak much, they found it difficult to be heard.

The words ‘reclusive’ and ‘billionaire’ go well. One reason for this could be that everyone wants a piece. Being available might become a nightmare. For everyone else, the adage ‘no man is an island’ is the applicable truth. Given how resources flow within networks, being able to reach out and forge connections is as important a skill as hunting is for animals in the wild.
While the school environment provides many opportunities for interaction, there is bound to be in every setting, especially mandatory ones, someone hanging around in the outskirts. In those situations, merely placing a student in a group or advising them to be more social may not be enough. Wang et al. (2020) explain that shy students “want to approach and engage with others, but are too fearful and anxious to do so”.

This is not to say that this is all teachers anywhere in the world do. It is to say that there is a limit to what others can do within existing structures. Indeed, Cordier and others (2021) in a very comprehensive systematic review of shyness interventions, state that teachers employ strategies such as, “verbal encouragement, praise and modelling behaviour”, “peer-focused strategies” and “encouraging joint activities”. They add that, such attempts “may not impact poor psychosocial outcomes for shy children in broader contexts”.

Also, technology now allows everyone to market themselves and competition will get intense. The shy stand to lose out in a big way. While basic social skills are taught in schools, given how networking is such an essential life skill which could fundamentally alter the quality of a person’s life, social skills or how to win friends and influence people could be given as much attention as academic subjects. For a given client-facing discipline, a university which focuses on grounding in theory may produce graduates who are less employable than another which prioritises and trains presentation. Unlike professional knowledge which now has to be acquired on the job over the years because of a rapidly evolving landscape, social skills have to do with neural networks. Given that neural networks formed when young require a lot of effort to alter when older, there can be much more frontloading of social skills.

Even though as people grow older, there is a tendency to become slightly less social because competing demands for attention means less time to maintain as many friendships, meaningful and deep connections require expressiveness. Shyness is an obstacle to fulfilment. Shyness might also mean not being able to speak up to right a wrong or to bargain to get a better deal. Being reticent to speak in public settings could lead to hard work not being recognised. Indeed, a shy person might be willing to do all the heavy lifting just to avoid having to present. With quite a bit at stake, we could take a closer look at shyness and what it takes to overcome it.

Cordier and others (2021) cite the seminal work of Rubin and others (2009) and state that shyness is “lack of interaction in the presence of peers”. This could be because the student chooses to avoid interaction. This choice could have been based on disinterest or fear. The former has to do with the birds of a kind flock together phenomenon. A student could be afraid for the following reasons. The environment is new. There has been a bad experience in the past and there is an anticipation of a repeat event. There could be a fear of being judged negatively. There could be people looking at the interaction and the student prefers engaging in private.

Cordier and his colleagues (2021) are of the view that there must be active and targeted intervention to reduce, “academic and concomitant psychosocial difficulties in school for shy children”. They went on to review 25 published studies on interventions to overcome shyness. These interventions included, those where the student attended alone such as cognitive behaviour therapy and emotion recognition training programmes, those that the student was with peers such as, Social Skills Training Facilitated Play and those where the parents were also roped in such as parent education programmes for techniques to deal with different temperaments.

One interesting intervention is known as Buddy Bench. This was a ten-week, school wide programme where the teachers and even the principal was trained. It involved placing two decorated benches in the school playgrounds. Every day there were announcements broadcast to remind students to use the bench if they needed to. Students were told that if they felt alone, they could sit on the bench. Students were asked to invite those on the bench to join them in games. The student on the bench could either accept or refuse.

Imagine if all students shy or not, were trained from a young age to be engaging and to be confident socially regardless of setting. This would give students so trained an advantage in every domain vis a vis those who are not.

A personal journey will take interpersonal skills to complete.

The Brain Dojo