by Ted Sherman

Created on: October 27, 2009

Our teen was always painfully shy as a child. Because both her parents worked full-time, she spent several years in day-long nursery schools before entering first grade. Through those years, she rarely played with other kids, preferring to be alone.

When she spoke, it was with a stutter, making relationships with other kids even more difficult. Later, she did poorly in grammar school classes, was often disruptive, took no responsibility for her behavior and her problems became more pronounced. Her education future, as well as prospects for a fulfilled life, looked bleak.

Finally, we parents realized we were at least part of the cause for her angry isolation. Our jobs may have forced us to push her into daily classroom and group situations before she was ready. It could also have caused her stutter and inability to relate to others. However, instead of wringing our hands and accepting our daughter's behavior, we took positive steps to change it.

At home, her problems were less evident, because she felt safe when relating to members of her family. From the age of three or four, she relieved her isolation by sitting in her room for hours listening to tapes of Broadway musicals and stand-up comedians. Her music favorites included Carousel, Cats, Oliver and Mary Poppins. Her talking favorites were Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart and George Carlin.

Despite her continuing school troubles, we always knew she possessed a streak of amazing intelligence. Her fascination with the music and comedy brought it out. As early as age four, she began to memorize the lyrics of the music and recite comedy routines. As she entered high school, we encouraged her to participate in school dramatics, as well as the debating team. After some disastrous beginnings and frequent outbursts of frustration, she gamely went back and persisted.

By the time she was a senior, her grades had greatly improved, and she was given a volunteer job on a local FM radio station as a news reader and disc jockey. Fortunately, her senior grades were so good, she was then accepted with a part-scholarship to an Ivy League university. There, she became a newscaster for the school's PBS TV station. She also began to do stand-up at local comedy clubs, some directly copied from Cosby and Carlin routines.

It was quite obvious that her sharp mind, ability at memorization and speaking in public had changed the shy little girl into a competent adult. She completed her college degree courses in three years of intensive studies, and still at the age of 19, was hired as a junior writer on a local TV afternoon talk show.

Today, our daughter is a writer-producer on a major network TV program. Did we actually teach our teen to become a responsible adult? We like to think so, at least in our efforts to steer her away from frustration and failure into using her natural talents to rise above her childhood problems and become the successful adult she is today.

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