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We’ve recently written a book for parents
of children who suffer from social anxiety disorder. It
is published by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press
and was released January 2005. Order today!
Washington Post Review: It's Not Easy Being
Shy
"Nurturing the Shy Child: Practical Help for Raising
Confident and Socially Skilled Kids and Teens" by Barbara
G. Markway and Gregory P. Markway (Thomas Dunne Books)
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Advance Praise for “Nurturing
the Shy Child”
“I
have been waiting for a book like this to be written.
The special needs of shy children have been ignored
for too long. The Markways share their tremendous
understanding of childhood social anxiety, and
have given us a gem of a book that every parent,
teacher, pediatrician, and family friend of a shy
child should read.”
- Murray B. Stein
MD, MPH, co-author Triumph over Shyness: Overcoming
Shyness & Social Anxiety
“This
book should be required reading for all who work
with shy children. Teachers will gain sensitivity
toward the children and many techniques on how
to better work with and support the children and
their families. I wish this book had been available
when I directed an early childhood program. It
is easy to think back to how we could better have
helped Jonathan, Alana, Brianna, Brian....”
- Kathy R Thornburg, Director
of the Center for Family Policy & Research,
University of Missouri
“The Markways understand
that some children are just shy while many others
experience the impairment of social anxiety,
selective mutism and/or school refusal. They've
created a practical guide for parents to help
all such children to ‘be all they can be.’”
- Christine Stanley, Executive
Director, Selective Mutism Group ~ Childhood Anxiety
Network
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In this scale-model variation on their
2001 adult social anxiety primer ("Painfully Shy: How to Overcome Social
Anxiety and Reclaim Your Life"), Missouri-based husband-and-wife
psychotherapists Barbara and Gregory Markway make a persuasive
case that children's extreme shyness is disabling but highly
treatable. Such shyness can range in form from a reluctance
to join in play with other kids to throwing a tantrum at
the prospect of attending a social event.
To their credit, the Markways place do-it-yourself steps
by parents before professional counseling and even further
ahead of drugs. But they offer plenty of resources for further
help if it's needed, including questionnaires and checklists
that could provide useful background to a counselor.
While the Markways assure parents early
on that we are not to blame for our kids' social anxiety,
they argue persuasively
that we contribute to the problem. In a valuable chapter
titled "Laying the Foundation," they detail some
of the ways: We overprotect our kids, we don't listen to
them and we visit our own unresolved anxiety issues on them.
While they mainly focus on social anxiety, the Markways
also include chapters on more-serious problems including
selective mutism (choosing not to speak in certain situations),
school anxiety (which can be so extreme that kids refuse
to go) and conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.
They also suggest that their strategies for developing social
skills might also work for kids who are not particularly
shy or anxious.
It's easy to dismiss books like "Nurturing the Shy
Child" as the kind of stuff that everybody already knows.
But the Markways make a strong case that you don't really
know what your kids are going through, and that presuming
that you do may make matters worse.
- Gregory Mott (January 17, 2005)
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