Childhood Memories: Let’s Play the “Quiet Game!”

Unlike many children, I never had much trouble being quiet. And it wasn’t necessarily just because I was raised in a home where the rule ”Children might be SEEN, but should not be HEARD” was reality.

Purple irises

I was just not a noisy or ”fidgety” kid, nor was I ever particularly active, preferring instead to sit quietly in a corner with a book. In fact, a lot of noise and activity made me feel quite uncomfortable, so whenever one of the teachers resorted to ”The Quiet Game” to try to ”tame” an unruly class, it was always my favorite time!

The "Quiet Game" was usually offered up about 10 minutes before the end of a period, and entailed the entire class having so sit completely still and not even whisper a word for five whole minutes, as a reward for which we'd get to start recess five minutes early.

Of course, most children tend to be boisterous and restless… so sitting still and not saying anything for five minutes was a considerable challenge! It was not unusual that one of the noisier kids blew it for everyone...

For me? Not so much of a problem!

European wagtail

A lot of adults in my extended family just figured I’d ”grow out of it” once I hit my teenage years, but that turned out not to be the case… I just kept on being ”that quiet kid in the corner.”

Now that I’m an adult, things aren’t really all that different.

Many societies — the USA, in particular — don’t really regard ”quietness” as a positive personality attribute. As part of growing up, I had to learn to fake being chatty and outgoing, but it has never been my natural way of being.

I even managed to work in sales and marketing for a while... two very outgoing and talkative professions!

My quietude has nothing to do with anything like ”social anxiety” or not liking people! It’s just that I like my people to be soft spoken and quiet mannered, and I prefer one-on-one companionship to large boisterous groups. Fairgrounds and amusement theme parks are probably among my least favorite places to be… and that held true even when I was quite young.

In an otherwise outgoing world, I made peace with my quiet nature sometime back in my 30’s. Among other things, I learned about something called ”Sensory-processing Sensitivity” which helped explain why I would so readily start to feel exhausted in large crowds, without necessarily feeling anxious about them. It also explained how — as a kid — I would just somehow ”know” to seek out the quiet spots.

And why playing ”the quiet game” was never much of a challenge for me!

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Are you generally a quiet or a more "chatty" person? Do you find it easy to sit still and entertain yourself, or do you need a lot of external stimulation in order to be happy? Do leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210712 22:43 PDT
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