Our 5 years old (in a month) daughter has excessive apprehension about being immerged in new environments with people (especially children) she doesn't know. Call it "excessive timidity" if you wish. Basically, she will cry her heart out when we try to leave her in such an environment, then she will stay away from the group, near an adult if possible. I feel there is more than just timidity, I guess this qualifies somehow as social anxiety disorder ?
It has already reached a bothering level, because we cannot always prevent such situations to happen (e.g. during summer we can't afford to keep her at home so she had to follow a holiday camp, it was like sending her to Guantanamo every morning…), and because she is starting to miss fulfilling opportunities (we are cancelling a music and dance initiation program because she doesn't want to attend the class, despite her loving the topic and liking the teachers). This is less an issue in school because she already knows most children from the last two years (and she has good friends with whom she knows how to behave quite excited), yet teachers seem moderately concerned by her lack of involvement in group activities.
She went to a child psychiatrist last weeks, but he didn't help much, beside saying she was quite anxious (which was actually the reason for which we sent her to him, she is constantly and litteraly eating her fingers) and a bit egocentric, but had no strong issue (I guess he was only looking for some psychiatric disease).
What can we do to help her dealing with this issue ?