The first question that comes up is always the same: are we to blame? Is it how she grew up? Is it a bad thing? And then, a little quieter: not all of us need to find it easy to make friends, right?
Two very different girls
Our first, V, makes friends effortlessly. Put her in any new class and within minutes she’s chatting with a girl she has never met. By the end, she usually walks out hand in hand with someone, happily announcing, “I made a new friend!”
Our second, F, is different. She needs time to warm up.
Looking back, the signs were there. Drop-off as a toddler was much harder; she cried a lot during her first month of school. But for years she went to every sport and activity with her big sister beside her, and that gave her a safe feeling.
Lately the girls have been going separate ways with their activities. That’s okay, maybe even good, because now we suddenly see how hard it is for F to walk into a room where she barely knows anyone. She stays on the side and sits in a corner. Even when a few girls come over curiously to ask who she is or whether she wants to play, she says no. As a parent, that’s hard to watch.
Her recent school change made this especially clear.
Did it start with COVID?
F grew up in the middle of COVID in Singapore. No family visits, no friends dropping by, no baby groups. We sometimes wonder whether that played a role. Then school and sports always came with big sister, her safe haven.
Her previous preschool was also shrinking. Her class went from a bigger group to around ten kids, then six last year, then three this year. She had good friends there, real best friends, but her circle was small.
V’s class, meanwhile, has 24 kids and changes every year, so she’s constantly forced to make new friends. Practice, in a way.
In F’s new school, her class is around ten kids, and the level below has about 22. They mix often. Bit by bit her circle is growing, but it’s also a big change all at once.
The picnic and the rain
So what’s the best approach? We’re still working that out.
Yesterday there was a school picnic, which I had actually suggested, hoping to meet some new parents from F’s class, set up a few playdates, and watch her play with her classmates.
V immediately found a new best friend, and off they went to look for turtles. F stood next to me. “Go play with your friend,” I said. She didn’t.
One of her new best friends from class was there too, and funnily enough, she’s a bit shy as well. So there they sat, one on each end of the bench, each looking at her own toy. Her friend’s mum and I looked at them, then at each other, and smiled. Ah, that’s why they like each other.
After a while they warmed up and wandered over to look at the turtles too.
Then the rain came. Not a drizzle, but one of those giant Singapore downpours. It changed the picnic, maybe for the better. Everyone crowded under cover, close together, chatting. The kids stuck their hands out into the rain first, while parents warned them not to get wet. Then their legs. One kid jumped out and quickly back in. Before we knew it, most of the kids were jumping around in the rain, and the parents gave up. They were having so much fun.
And both V and F were out there, playing in the rain with their old and new friends.
What I see in training
There’s even a name for kids like F: “slow to warm up.” It’s a recognised temperament, not a problem to fix. These kids watch first, take it all in, and join when they feel ready.
It reminds me of how I work with the women and kids I coach. I never drop someone straight into the hardest exercises. We start easy, get the basics right, and progress from there.
Last week a new client was pleasantly surprised she could do every exercise in her first session. That’s on purpose. There’s no point in me giving her difficult moves she can’t do properly yet, so she walks out feeling bad about herself. Better to start where things feel doable. Once I can see it’s going easily, we add difficulty, reps or weight. Confidence grows from success, not from being shown how “bad” you are at something.
Maybe that’s what F needs too.
Push, or wait?
On the bus home, all of us soaked, my husband and I talked it over. Should we push F more to interact with others?
I think it will come, in her own time. I worry that if we push too hard, she might pull back completely, stop feeling safe, and stop wanting to play with others at all.
Maybe the answer isn’t choosing between pushing and waiting. Maybe it’s making the space, the way I would in training: the picnic, the playdate, the one familiar friend on the bench. Start small, let her feel it’s doable, and let her take it from there.
Not every child is the same, and that’s okay. I think. Actually, I’m pretty sure.
Do you have a child who needs time to warm up? How do you find the balance between encouraging them and giving them space? I’d love to hear.
Leave a comment