Shyness, embarrassment, guilt and pride: helping your child navigate new emotions

Does your child seem to be shy, embarrassed, guilty or proud now, is this something you haven’t noticed before?  

You might feel a bit concerned if your confident, lively child seems to be becoming shy or embarrassed – maybe you’ve been wondering if something has changed or if you need to do something quickly in response to this change. What you might be noticing is an important part of your child’s development as they become more self-aware.

Your child demonstrating what are described as ‘self-conscious emotions’ shows that they are taking another step in their development.  

They are developing their understanding of themselves and realising that some of who they are is linked to how other people see them.  

These emotions develop as your child’s social awareness and cognitive skills develop. 

They need to be able to think about themselves and make a judgement about how something appears in order to have these emotions. Self-conscious emotions can be helpful – they can prompt us to think about how we behave with other people and encourage us to repeat behaviours that make us feel proud.  

Your child will probably need some support to regulate these emotions, they might feel shy when somewhere new or feel guilty when they do something that they shouldn’t.  

You can help them to acknowledge these emotions, but take care to make sure you don’t translate these feelings into how they understand who they are – it is important to talk about the feeling as just that, a passing feeling, and not label your child as shy, naughty or whatever they might be at that moment.  

They did the wrong thing that time, but they are not a bad person; they felt shy at the party, but they are not anti-social. Focusing on the feelings and not talking about them as a personality trait is a powerful way to avoid this kind of thinking.