What to Do When You Feel Too Shy: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Social Anxiety

What to Do When You Feel Too Shy is a book about handling your social anxiety. I learned that “when you have strong feelings of embarrassment or worries about others laughing at you or criticizing you, you might not join in on cool activities and you might miss the fun.” This is called social anxiety. I also learned that when you have a trigger, it usually creates worry thoughts that make you feel anxious. Then, the anxiety comes up and says, “Get out of here!” There are different kinds of worry thoughts, such as: mind-reading thoughts, spotlight thoughts, and self-doubting thoughts. I liked reading the stories about different kids, and I liked the examples used to illustrate the book’s concepts. In a way, this is like a workbook because there are places to write down your own thoughts and try strategies. I can apply some of these to my real life. For example, today I met a new friend at school. I tried to use some of the conversation skills from this book, like “ask questions” and “make comments.” I also liked the section where you can get rid of worry thoughts by relaxing. Did you know that there are different ways to relax? You can move, make, connect, or chill! I think this will be a great book for any kid.