The Importance of Peer Acceptance and Parenting Styles on the Preschooler’s Shyness Reduction

Abstract

Shyness among preschoolers is a topic that concerns many parents. In a world where the dare rules, shyness seems, in comparison, a handicap. But it is not so. It is a stage of development and a smaller force of expression. Often, shyness is born from a lack of confidence, and a lack of confidence from a lack of satisfying activities that show the child that he can, he just has to try. Parenting is particularly important in children's social development because how parents care for children can critically and permanently influence children's social functioning. The aim of the present study was to measure the effectiveness of an educational intervention program on the reduction of shyness among preschoolers, respectively the increase of the level of acceptance by peers. The results demonstrated, first of all, that preschoolers whose parents adopt an authoritative, respectively uninvolved parenting style have a high level of shyness, and secondly, our educational intervention program demonstrated its effectiveness in terms of reducing preschoolers' shyness and the acceptance of colleagues, obtaining an average effect.