Throughout my many years of teaching voice and presentation skills, I have found that those who experience a truly debilitating and heart-wrenching fear of public speaking have had a bad experience at some point during their elementary or even middle school years when they were He has asked you to stand up and speak. And while that event may not affect all children in the same way, for some the damage can be traumatic.
Please understand that I am not talking about the usual nervousness most of us experience when giving a presentation or speech. That nervousness is good. It’s beneficial: that extra shot of adrenaline can help make your labor exhilarating. In my business, I don’t advocate the elimination of nervousness; instead, I teach people how to control it, allowing it to work for them, not against them.
Here, however, I am talking about a fear of public speaking that is extreme and is the result of an embarrassing or humiliating experience during childhood that the individual cannot forget. By the way, those who tell me they don’t remember such an event have often repressed that memory, hoping to never think about it again because it’s too painful.
Public speaking is difficult without a doubt. Getting kids in their elementary years to stand up and talk to a group of their peers is more difficult. All it takes is one mispronunciation of a word, one memory lapse, one embarrassing misstep, one demeaning comment from another student or the teacher, and that child will never want to stand up and speak again. Being laughed at by classmates is agonizing.
Obviously, I’m not a fan of public speaking in elementary school. I think it’s a mistake and I don’t think we should put our children in that scenario at that young age. In today’s schools, where kids are meaner and less disciplined than ever, we’re just adding fuel to the fire. Certainly not all children will have a bad experience; but is it worth it for those children who are going to suffer? [I am not talking about class plays which I think are a positive experience because they involve group participation. With the play, the child is not being singled out and has the entire class as support.]
One of my clients, a Toronto psychiatrist whose specialty was working with severely abused adults, was asked to speak at various symposiums and conventions in Canada and the United States. She came to me because of her inability to get on that stage. In talking to her, I found out that at the age of 7, she and her cousin had performed a song in front of a group of people. When it was over, her father told her it was terrible. It’s true that Frances had lived through years of abuse by her father, but she was an incredibly resilient woman and she was certain that it was that particular event that caused her to avoid public attention ever again.
While working with Francis, I was able to build his confidence level because he had a really great voice. She tried it and I also knew that she could sing; therefore, I was able to assure her that when she was 7 years old, she probably sang well and that her father was a stupid and wrong man for treating her the way he did. (Actually, he died during the time I was working with her and she flew back to Ireland to ‘nail her coffin shut’.)
While you may think that Francisco’s example is extreme, it really isn’t. If you knew all the horror stories I’ve heard over the years, you’d understand. In today’s world, where growing up is more difficult than ever, do we really need to subject our children to an experience that could cause irreparable damage to their self-esteem? Let’s take that pressure off them and use other positive means to bolster their confidence and self-image.