{"id":3241,"date":"2026-02-10T14:55:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T19:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/?p=3241"},"modified":"2026-02-11T09:59:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:59:51","slug":"the-shy-coaching-the-shy-by-megan-degroot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/2026\/the-shy-coaching-the-shy-by-megan-degroot\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shy Coaching the Shy By Megan DeGroot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n The Shy Coaching the Shy By Megan DeGroot\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

The Shy Coaching the Shy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Megan DeGroot<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Believe it or not, shyness does not always end in childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were lucky enough to grow out of your shyness (or, even luckier, have never experienced shyness at all), you\u2019ve probably come across adult friends, family members, or colleagues who are shy. These individuals likely appear quiet, reserved, or even self-conscious when they are around other people, especially people they do not know well. Have you considered, though, how these individuals fare in their day-to-day lives, particularly in their jobs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, my graduate supervisor and I conducted a research study that attempted to determine how shy youth sports coaches perceive the youth that they work with. To do this study, we sent out an online survey to sports organizations across Canada. Over 400 adults with experience coaching youth sports filled out the survey, which asked a variety of questions about their personality and how they would respond to and perceive different types of youth athletes. We specifically focused on the differences in how coaches perceive shy and talkative athletes, given that these two types of kids behave very differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we found was that shy coaches, compared to coaches who are not shy, were more likely to worry about both shy and talkative athletes. They also were more likely to believe that both kinds of athletes would experience problems with their teammates, such as being excluded or ignored. Finally, and I think most interestingly, shy coaches were more likely to feel that they are not prepared to deal with either shy or talkative athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These findings tell us that shy coaches may be more tuned-in to the potential problems that can come with being a shy or overly talkative kid. This could be because, as a shy person themselves, they\u2019ve likely experienced some of these problems. People who are shy also tend to struggle with their self-confidence, which may explain why these coaches said that they did not feel prepared to deal with shy or talkative athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what can be done to help these shy coaches? As with most things, practice makes progress. Simply making an effort to work directly with both shy and talkative kids can boost these coaches\u2019 confidence and problem-solving abilities. There is also the tried-and-true idea of \u201cfake it \u2018till you make it\u201d. That is, shy coaches may be able to boost their confidence just by pretending that they are already confident in their abilities to coach shy and talkative athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is important to note that shyness is not a personality flaw. It is simply a different way of perceiving and experiencing the world. Shy coaches have the unique advantage of being able to relate to and understand shy athletes, which can make them the best kind of person to support these kids. Sometimes, understanding is what is most important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read the full article here!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Shy Coaching the Shy By Megan DeGroot Believe it or not, shyness does not always end in childhood. If you were lucky enough to grow out of your shyness (or, even luckier, have never experienced shyness at all), you\u2019ve probably come across adult friends, family members, or colleagues who are shy. These individuals likely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":489,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[42,43,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grad-student-blogs","category-grad-student-research","category-news"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/489"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3242,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions\/3242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/mental-health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}