Many of us have a trait we didn’t like growing up. Whether it was insecurity, pessimism, seriousness, or shyness. Then, as parents, we wish not to pass it on to our kids. How does the relationship we have with that trait impact us as parents? Could the way you learned to cope with this trait growing up backfire? This article explains why acceptance of our traits is important in accepting our kids. As growth mindset role models, knowing our inner and deeper roadblocks is key to creating a roadmap toward the change we want to see. 

Let’s dive in.  

How did the acceptance of shyness begin?

The phrases I heard often as a child were “you are so shy”, “don’t be shy”, and “just say what you want, otherwise, you will miss out on things”.

Sadly, I learned to think about shyness as a “negative” quality that held me back. I didn’t like it at all and wished I didn’t have it. I wanted to exchange it with confidence. 

Growing up with shyness has also fostered a parent’s wish – I wished my kids wouldn’t learn shyness from me, so they could express themselves with ease.

That was wishful thinking…

While it was frustrating to live with my shyness, it was triggering in whole new ways to see or hear shyness in my kids. For example, I felt triggered when

• someone told my kids, “you’re so shy” when they hid behind me.
• my kids asked me to say things on their behalf because they felt nervous.
• my daughter came to me crying and saying, “why do I have to be so shy?”.

I wanted to change the way I handled experiences related to shyness, and feel at peace with my kids’ shyness. 

In the beginning, I thought “I’ll practice bravery and stop being shy, especially when the kids are around me”. I tried to fight shyness.

As you can imagine, it didn’t work.

Surprisingly, the biggest shift happened when I learned to accept my shyness, instead of rejecting it.

I learned that rejecting this part of me was a roadblock to accepting this part of my kids.

As long as I kept rejecting and not accepting my shyness, I felt triggered when my kids showed up with shyness or when others commented on it.

However, when I learned to view shyness as a normal part of my personality and accepted the fact that it will keep showing up, it guided me to experiment with new coping strategies and develop new skills, especially self-compassion.

The Mindset Shift

It took me several years to accept shyness and develop healthy relationships with it. At its core, this learning journey involved cultivating three beliefs:

• I can change my shyness – I learned to move from a fixed mindset (“I can’t change shyness”) to a growth mindset (“I can learn how to work with shyness and express myself with more ease”). This helped me to see myself and my kids as capable of changing it, in our own way and pace.
• Shyness has gifts and strengths – there are many skills and abilities I was able to hone thanks to shyness, from listening skills to being sensitive and caring. This helped me to appreciate my shyness and view it in a better light.
• Acceptance can lead to change – I had a belief that if I accepted my shyness, I would be stuck with it, and it would keep me from achieving what I wanted in life. However, acceptance didn’t stop my growth and curiosity. It opened the door to a new path toward meaningful and wholehearted change.

The roadblock to accepting our kids is accepting ourselves. Shyness is only one example of traits that many wish they didn’t have or that they had more control over such as perfectionism, short temper, or seriousness.

The sooner we work on accepting ourselves and focusing our learning efforts on creating change inside us, the sooner we can accept our kids and role model healthy and sustainable growth. 

Becomers’ weekly challenge 

Think about a trait that you want to change and explore to what extent you accept it.

• Reflect on how it showed up for you as a kid and as a parent.
• Clarify when you felt triggered by it.
• This week, practice reframing. When you catch yourself thinking “I can’t change it”, reframe “I can learn new ways to cope with it”.

As psychologist Carl Rogers said:

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself, just as I am, then I can change.”

Dare to accept. You have the answers within,

Liz

Become the change 🙌

💛 Join the Becomers community around the world to receive new editions of the newsletter, sent to you every Thursday. 👉 Sign up here: JOIN