You must have heard your aunt or your mother’s friend bragging about one of their children who keeps the house “bright and cheerful”. But what’s wrong with the child’s brother? Just because he likes to keep to himself doesn’t mean he is shy.
Some people like their space and silence. Some people like their attention. But why are the latter more preferred? As observed, the silent bunch always seems to keep their cool, and don’t have any cravings for attention, whereas the preferred bunch tends to be extremely chatty, loud and boastful. In most cases, they have a certain aura about them that attracts everybody towards them. And what’s the name of the aura? Noise. Well, as they say, “the wheel that squeaks gets the oil.”
However, sometimes the way everyone behaves can be disheartening for the quieter kids. They begin to think that they are going wrong somewhere.
Visualize a common family gathering: you notice a particular corner where everybody is enjoying the talkative one’s wise-cracks; another corner where the reserved girl is sitting all alone either reading a book or maybe talking to one or two of her cousins. This sort of favouritism can cause loss in self-confidence of the quiet child.
At home, somebody will always be suggesting “cures” for the child to open up. What if he doesn’t want to open up? It’s not necessary that the child is unable to talk to people outside the house. Most probably he is extremely outgoing in school or college. It’s just that he is more comfortable with a different group of people and enjoys their company and that is why he doesn’t like to talk much at home. It is agreed that there are a few cases where the child doesn’t feel comfortable talking to anyone at all, and then they need to be advised to be more outgoing.
You might think that it is impossible to differentiate between the two but it’s quite easy if you keep your eyes open and observe him or her at social events and gatherings.
Now coming to teenagers, you might have already experienced the incident when you were insisting that they start conversing with people who come over to visit- be it aunts, distant relatives or elder cousins. Even if you mean to teach the child basic courtesy, what do you think your teen can talk to those people about?
Do you really want your 14 year old son going to his aunt and asking her about life in general? Just imagine the conversation that would take place-“Hello aunty, so how was your shopping spree last week with your daughter?” he would ask, “Oh beta, it was just amazing! We had a ball. She bought me a lovely peach-pink suit with embroidery on it. I would love to show it off…err… show it to you.” the aunt would say, “Wow! How nice of your daughter. By the way, what material is the suit? And how much was it for...” and so on your son would continue. Honestly, would you like this to happen? I really hope not. And any stranger witnessing this conversation would simply go into shock.

I suggest you let the kids and teenagers be. Once you succeed in this, they themselves will open up to you. Not only that, they will form a better impression of you; from a parent you might just end up being a good friend to your child.
Teenagers are more sensible and determined than any other age group. It is the family and parents who form an altered impression due to the fact that they have a blind eye to their babies growing up to be strong-minded adults. So parents, you have to grow along with your child during this period. Socially, if the teen does not to talk to many people, they are labelled as a person with a lot of attitude. Even if peo-ple have not talked to the person in question themselves, they tend to go with what they hear. How can anybody judge a person on the basis of looks or the way they like their time and space? Like I said before, some people like their silence. This way the impression of that particular person is bad on somebody he or she doesn’t even know.
Some people like to keep the company of a close group of friends and the way idle minds react is they label them as rude. Clearly these people seem to be in desperate need of attention from everybody.
I’d like to clarify that I’m not saying that all those who are talkative and outgoing are of this sort. But those who just want to know about what goes on in others lives are.
To conclude, the children and teens who like their space are NOT the ones who need help and advice. Let them be.