My 5.5yo daughter is very shy, so I've been pushing her into hobbies to help managing her shyness. I've talked about how being shy is fine, but it's something to work on, otherwise she'll have a really hard time making friends. I'm shy and told her about that.
I took her to a gymnastics class (we do gymnastics together at open gym), but she refused to join the class. I said if she does one activity (even just a game at the end), I'll get her ice cream. We spent the time sitting on the side.
She didn't do it, so I figure no ice cream then. She's pretty mad. I'm not mad with her, but just of the opinion that we had a deal, and if she wants the reward, she needs to earn it.
Too harsh? Too soft? Alternatives?
EDIT:
So I took a two prong approach. 1. hard rule for no screaming at me or arguing. 2. we can just sit and watch, but if she joins, we leave after 1 exercise, each time slowly staying longer. She seems to feel safe when she's in control of when she leaves, which makes sense. Seems to be working. She expressed that she was surprised the kids and teacher were nice to her and loved it more than her art class.
I'm not 100% sure why she's so afraid of other kids. Maybe something happened at school I don't know about, but she's way less anxious about the class now.
I don't know if it's something you need to force on someone. From what I've seen it takes a lot of casual exposure to socialization to get someone to become "less shy."
Especially kids, you have to get them to do something they think is fun that also has people there so they kind of make the connection that socializing with people can also be fun.
I think trying a bunch of different hobbies to see what works is definitely the right approach though! That 5-10 age range is when they're figuring out what they even like, so it's prime exposure time for all kinds of stuff! If you can manage it try everything for like 2-4 meetups to see how she reacts and if she hooks onto something then boom you've found your socializing catalyst!
I've tried a number of different hobbies and it's a struggle usually. With an art class she was crying beforehand, but I sat next to her and she was fine after the first class. She has fun and laughs as she makes silly stuff.
The "forcing" is just the first couple times, but she'd literally just stay home eternally if I didn't make her do things. Other than at least one exercise/movement hobby for health, I kind of don't care what the hobbies are, but want her to do something.