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[quote=Anonymous]Try this group:
Jonah Green and Associates 
Therapy for children and families

Each LCSW specializes in different things, so it’s important to get someone who works on the things you want to.  You can look at their website to see what ages their therapists work with, etc - or just call them and they'll have a good sense of what you will need.

I direct a preschool with some very shy (anxious) children.  I mean a 12 out of 10 scale.  it can be very debilitating.  Some of them enrolled in the Preschool Shyness study at UMD.  That is done, now, but we learned some things as we worked with children going through it:

The children worked on "being brave" and "having courage" to do the hard thing (and when they did, they got stickers which led up to a BIG GIFT when they'd gotten 5 or 8 stickers).

It was explained as a "ladder" - you start at the lowest rung, which is the easiest thing to do, and then when the child has mastered that (90% of the time)  you move to the next rung (harder thing).

Example:  for a shy person, saying hello as you enter a room is HARD HARD HARD.  Because everyone is looking at you, you need to call attention to yourself (ugh) and then saying something to boot?  Yikes.

But, saying goodbye at the end of the day is easier - you don't even really have to make eye contact (at the beginning) - all you have to say, as you walk away is Bye! (loud enough to be heard)   (the next rung would be to stand and say goodbye, or to call a person's name to get their attention before saying Bye.

So we've had children who work on saying goodbye - their parents  say "we know this is hard, and we are going to help you be brave, but it's important for you to be able to say goodbye just as your friends do.  So from now on, when we leave somewhere, you will say goodbye or bye.  I'll be right there to help you and remind you to be brave.  (and if they didn't say it, the parent was to say "it's ok, I know you'll do it next time" - that's a positive way of saying it as the child already feels badly for not being able to do this really hard thing.

we had children who started with a WHISPERED bye and a have hearted wave with eyes cast down.  To then saying a louder goodbye.  To calling a name and saying bye (Larla, bye!) and so on.  Then they worked on entering the room and saying hello to one person.  And so on.  But just ONE THING you work on at a time, but each one builds strength and the knowledge that, if they are very brave, they 
CAN do it!  And that becomes a snowball of bravery (a tiny snowball at the beginning)

so find a therapist who knows how to coach you on helping your child to be brave.  Because it will be how you as parents coach (and don't pot pressure on to talk talk talk immediately) that makes a difference.

In about 12 months time, we had a child who could ask for what she needed (help with something, that she needed to use the bathroom, etc), chatted with friends all the time, even raised her hand (the first time it happened I almost fainted dead away) at morning meeting and TALKED loud enough for everyone to hear!  Oh, and said hello and goodybe like a pro.  Her shyness wasn't gone, but she knew how to start managing it and "being brave."  We talked about "being brave" a lot.  [/quote]

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