The Shy Child: Overcoming and Preventing Shyness from Infancy to Adulthood

by Shirley Radl and Philip G. Zimbardo

Book Overview

Two out of every five people in the U.S. regard themselves as "shy." Yet shyness can be cured, says Dr. Philip Zimbardo, the nation's leading authority on shyness. With co-author Shirley Radl, Dr. Zimbardo presents a program for overcoming and preventing shyness from infancy to adulthood. The book is based on pioneering research conducted at the Stanford Shyness Clinic, including surveys of children, parents and teachers in the U.S. and abroad...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1883536219
• ISBN13: 9781883536213
• Release Date: August 2017
• Publisher: Malor Books
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Good, basic resource for helping shy children

I found much of this book to be very helpful, with some great tips on helping the shy child. My child is on the very extreme end of being shy, with some SID to make matters worse. Even so, I thought this book had enough helpful items to make the purchase worthwhile. I'd also like to say something about another reviewer's comment that the book doesn't mention Asperger's Syndrome. This reviewer thought it was a serious ommission on the author's part not to mention AS. However, in the author's defense, I think it should be noted that this book was originally written in 1982, well before most people/professionals became aware that there even was such as thing as Aspgerger's Syndrome. That didn't happen until the 1990's, ten years after this book was written.

Zimbardo's Shy Child is the ONLY book you need

Professor Philip Zimbardo has done it again! His The Shy Child offers great ideas and insight into shyness and its origins. He analyzes the development and shyness and its effects on youth. It is a great tool for parents and anyone interested in discovering how shyness affets children. I can't imagine an easier to read book that is chock full of the details Zimbardo has placed in this one. I strongly encourage everyone to purchase this book and read it...you won't regret it.

Shy Child a classic

This is a lucid, informative guide to shyness in children written by a distinguished scholar. Here, Philip Zimbardo provides a summary of scientific and clinical understanding of shyness, as well as practical strategies for helping your child to overcome his or her social fears. Parents, teachers, and clinicians will welcome the return of this classic volume.

It's an outstanding work.

As a former shy child and currently somewhat shy adult, I found the shyness related issues Zimbardo and Radl write about extremely familiar. Their suggestions for how to transcend shyness and modify unhealthy behaviour (one's own and that of others) are refreshingly useful and practical. The one criticism I have is that issues of shyness for gay men and lesbian women are not addressed directly - but the book is so useful and direct in every other way that it should not be overlooked, even by those who aren't shy. It describes a world that too few find ways to immigrate from, and it tells you ways to cut through the red-tape.

Author is pleased The Shy Child is again available

This fine reprinting (by Malor Books) rescues "The Shy Child" for the many readers who contacted me about its availabity after it was put out of print by a previous publisher (in a cost-cutting institutional move). This book follows up on my earlier popular work, "Shyness: What it is, What to do about it." Whereas the research foundation, exercises, and advice I gave there was based on young adults and those upward in age, this book completes the earlier parts of the life cycle, from college age down to preschoolers. The information and ideas in "The Shy Child" came from several years' worth of observations that I and my co-author, Shirley Radl, made in schools at every grade level, from preschool, elementary, middle, high, up to college, supplemented with interviews, research, and workshops with teachers, parents, and students. We try to convey in accessible prose what we have learned about the meaning of shyness in the lives of our children, and what ways the negative impact of shyness can be reduced, minimized, and overcome through a variety of wise strategies and simple tactics. But we propose further that new efforts be directed at preventing shyness from taking hold of the child's life, some of which involve awareness of how parents, teachers, and institutions contribute to the problem and what they can do differently to create prosocial alternatives that make every child a winner. The response of earlier readers has been very enthusiastic, some even reporting "miracle" changes in their shy children, as can be witnessed in the ABC-TV prize-winning video, "The Pain of Shyness." My current concern is the steadily increasing prevalence of shyness in our society over the past decade from a 40% level of those reporting themselves to be currently, dispositionally shy to over 50% now. I think the technology revolution is contributing to this epidemic of shyness by making young people more socially passive and by substituting virtual social reality for the indispensable learning and engagement that comes from real world face-to-face reality. Making people our number one priority is a first step in a new agenda for combating the insidious inroads that electronic technology is and will be having on our interpersonal relationships. I hope you enjoy what you will learn in "The Shy Child, share that knowledge with friends and relatives, and put into practice some of its recommendations. Phil Zimbardo, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University