The 10-minute trick that helps quiet kids speak up at school
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Family rituals that build classroom confidence before the school year starts, from child development expert Sheila Fortson.
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Every fall, a fresh crop of kids walks into a classroom knowing the answer and saying nothing. The hand stays down. For a lot of parents this reads as shyness, a fixed trait their kid got issued at birth. Sheila Fortson would like a word before you file your child under “quiet, and that’s just how they are.”
Why kids go quiet in class.
Fortson is a teacher, child development expert, and executive director of The FAME Center, a nonprofit where she works with hundreds of kids a year. Her read on classroom hesitation is blunt. Most of the time, she says, it isn’t temperament. Kids just haven’t had enough low-stakes moments of being watched and heard, so their body hasn’t learned yet that being seen is survivable.
“Confidence isn’t a personality, it’s a rep count,” Fortson says. The more chances a child gets to be seen at home, the less foreign it feels to be seen anywhere else.
She was a shy kid herself, and what changed things wasn’t a big talk, it was reps piling up over time. Here’s where she’d start.
The family presentation ritual
Fortson’s core ritual is quite simple. One kid, one little “stage” (standing in front of the couch counts), and a couple of minutes to share something. A book they read, a joke, a thing they built, or just their day told like a story. The rest of the family sits, listens, and claps at the end. Two to five minutes is plenty.
The content barely matters. “It’s about the standing up, being seen, and finishing,” she says. That’s the muscle, and that’s how we build it.
The shape shifts a little by age.
- Toddlers and preschoolers. Keep it playful. Show-and-tell with a favorite toy, or acting out a nursery rhyme. When they finish, clap and praise the bravery, full stop. At four, the win is that they did it.
- Older kids. Ask for more structure. Have them walk you through a book, teach you the rules of a game, or report something new from school. You can offer gentle feedback and the option to try again, but keep it to one thoughtful redo, praised for effort. Making a kid run it back until it’s “perfect” breeds frustration.
Reading aloud does quiet, sneaky work
Fortson calls reading aloud one of the most underrated confidence tools going. It lets a child use their voice, their volume, and their expression in front of an audience without the pressure of coming up with their own words. She calls it “confidence training in a literacy costume.” Once a kid is used to filling a room with their own voice, using their own words in front of people feels less steep. It can happen nightly, in small doses.
When there’s no sibling audience
The crowd doesn’t have to be big. A parent, a grandparent on FaceTime, or a lineup of stuffed animals all count. What matters is a clear “okay, now it’s your turn” moment.
For the kid who refuses
Drop the word “perform.” Fortson says it does real damage, and that most refusal comes from feeling put on the spot rather than disliking attention. Don’t announce a big event, ease in sideways. Ask them to “tell me about your day like you’re a news reporter,” or “explain the rules of your game to Grandma.” Let them pick the topic, and frame it as sharing.
What to say when they finish
Clap first, every time. Fortson calls this non-negotiable, because you’re building the confidence that comes from doing something brave, and flawless was never the assignment. With older or more confident kids, a little feedback is fine after the applause, something like, “I loved how you looked at us, want to try once more and slow down at the end?” If they do it again, praise what improved.
The most common way parents blow it, she says, is turning the moment into a critique session. The urge to help is understandable, but leading with “next time, try this” right after they finish can undo the safety you just built. Save the coaching for later. Right after they’re done, your only job is to celebrate that they did it.
Keep the stakes low and hand your child as much control as you can, over what they share, how long it runs, even whether they do it that day. An anxious kid needs this to feel optional and safe before it can feel fun.
Start tonight, in ten minutes
Fortson’s go-to opener is what she calls the “character retell.” Have your child invent a character, the sillier the better, then tell you about their day as if it happened to that character. “Once upon a time there was a boy named Zippy, and Zippy went to school, and…” The made-up distance lets a kid tell the story freely, without sweating every detail. Have them stand up while they do it.
No props, no prep. Ten minutes of a kid using their voice, their imagination, and their body in front of an audience of one who adores them. That’s where confidence starts, Fortson says, and by a few months into the school year, it’s the kind of thing a teacher notices. A hand up more often. A volunteer to read aloud. A little more projection, a little less hedging. Rarely a dramatic before-and-after, more a slow unfolding, a kid who stops shrinking in moments they used to duck.
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