chapter 16
Moving From Shame to Empowerment
I’ve had the joy of working with many children over my years in education and during my training workshops. Sometimes I am afforded the luxury of being able to work with children over the course of a few years.
About 6 years ago, I met a young girl who struggled greatly in school, resulting in many emotional outbursts and a reluctance to attend. I was able to work with her intermittently over 2 years. We worked on understanding temperament and building resiliency. By the end of the second year, the girl attended school regularly without the emotional outbursts.
I changed job roles at that time and did not see the girl again until I ran into her at one of my focus groups. She and I had an opportunity to catch up on her life. The story below is her story of accepting her introversion and seeing the strength in her temperament. Her name has been changed, as well as the specific details of her story. But the theme of accepting one’s introversion remains intact.
School was a scary place for me when I was younger. We moved to a new town and I started a new school in fourth grade. Although I was excited to start school, I was very afraid. The class smelled like mildew and the bell that indicated the start of class was loud, as were the announcements that also interrupted the morning schedule. The school seemed to be stuffed with too many students, and I felt crowded in class and at recess.
Every day I went to school, feeling more and more anxious. I cried whenever the teacher called on me, struggled when the routine changed, and failed to make any meaningful friendships. I still loved to learn, but as the days moved on, even the academic part of school was no longer something I was looking forward to.
Things were just as hard at home. I hated spending time with my mom. She always asked me about school. I never knew what to say, so I said nothing. But she wasn’t satisfied with that. So she’d ask again and again, until finally I’d just yell an answer to her.
After several months, I started to see a counselor at the school. We did some questionnaires together to start. She asked a lot of questions about how I felt when there was too much noise or when the other students spoke loudly. She also asked about what I liked to do at home when I was alone and what kinds of things made me feel relaxed.
After all of the questions, the counselor told me that I was probably an introvert. She explained that as an introvert, I was overwhelmed by things like strong scents or loud sounds. She also said that my anxieties and apprehension were likely related to the introversion, as it seemed like I was overwhelmed.
Over the next several months, we tried different strategies to help me. I started getting more sleep. I learned to ask for “alone” time and started bringing a book to school to help me anytime I just needed to “escape” for a little while. My counselor worked with my teacher to allow me to go to the library at lunch, giving me a quiet place to decompress. She also worked with my parents and explained to them that I needed time right when I came home to relax—time without questions or pressures.
One of the things that helped the most was learning to take a “mini-vacation,” as my counselor called it. She taught me how to visualize myself in the mountains (my favorite place) whenever I felt like I needed to disappear for a little while. And she taught me how to explain to others what it meant to be introverted.
It took several months before I stopped feeling overwhelmed. But once I started learning these techniques, things got better.
It has been 4 years since I worked with that counselor. I am in high school now. I no longer have emotional meltdowns at school, nor do I struggle with my need for solitude. I’ve come to find out that a lot of others need downtime, too. It isn’t something to be ashamed of and it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with me.
I’ve also learned that there are a lot of good things about being an introvert. I can concentrate a lot longer than most of my friends. I don’t rush my artwork, nor do I need to constantly be around other people in order to feel “whole”—something that some of my more extroverted friends struggle with. I have leadership qualities and feel things very deeply.
Most of all, I am no different than everyone else. I want friends who understand me. I have dreams of going to college and finding a successful career. Yes, there are many things that still make me uncomfortable: talking to strangers, for example, or the first day of school. But I know that my extroverted friends struggle with things too.
In the end, I have a lot more in common with my friends than I have differences. Temperament is just one of the few differences. It is neither good nor bad. I am neither proud nor ashamed of being an introvert. It is just one aspect of who I am and how I interact with the world.
In this story, one teen shared her experiences with being an introvert. She learned how to avoid becoming overwhelmed and how to recognize her strengths. She also learned what temperament means for her.
Everyone’s experience with temperament is unique in some way. What’s important is that we help our children embrace their own unique way of interacting with the world, enhancing the positive attributes of temperament and working around those attributes that can become obstacles. It’s my hope that the strategies presented throughout the book have helped in some way as you work with your introverted children.