The Shy Child: Helping Children Triumph Over Shyness. - Review - book review

Adolescence, Fall, 2000

SWALLOW, Ward K. The Shy Child: Helping Children Triumph Over Shyness. New York: Warner Books, 2000. 275pp. $13.95 (p).

Shyness is the personality style of forty percent of all children and young adults. Shyness has its good side: your child is probably imaginative, perceptive, and thoughtful. Yet shyness can hinder a child's development. This interactive guide focuses on the problems of shyness and provides parents and children with pragmatic, step-by-step solutions. It will help you achieve wonderful results--stronger, warmer relationships with family and friends, and a happy, empowered, less fearful child who looks confidently to the future. The book reveals: the signs of shyness in children, from infancy to adolescence; how the shy child responds physically and mentally to stress; how your child's artwork reveals his or her emotions, and how drawing together can reinforce trust and understanding; scriptwriting, rewriting, role-playing, and rehearsing--important tools for the shy child; why shy children are so vulnerable to bullies and how best to intervene; and how to teach your child to cope with anxiety-producing situati ons.