Will They Grow Out of It?
Sources last read 2026-07-09.
The short answer
Some do, and the guideline that says so says the opposite a line later. In NICE's own words, a significant number of people who develop this in adolescence may recover before reaching adulthood. It also says that once it has persisted into adulthood, the chance of recovery without treatment is modest next to many other common mental health problems. NICE puts no figure on the first half, and neither will this page, so the honest reading is that the teenage years are the stretch where the odds are best.
What the guideline says, both halves
NICE sets out the course of this in a few sentences. Almost every page that quotes them quotes one and drops the other.
The first half: a significant number of people who develop social anxiety disorder in adolescence may recover before reaching adulthood.
The second half: however, if the disorder has persisted into adulthood, the chance of recovery in the absence of treatment is modest when compared with many other common mental health problems.
The same guideline gives an early median age of onset of thirteen years. It calls this one of the most persistent anxiety disorders.
Put together, those lines do not say wait and see. They do not say act now. They say the teenage years are when the odds are best, which is a fact about timing rather than an instruction.
Why nobody can give you a percentage
The first half is the one parents want a number attached to. There isn't one.
NICE does not quantify it. No sound figure for how many teenagers recover on their own could be found for this site. That gap is worth stating plainly. Pages that fill it are inventing the most reassuring or most alarming line on the page.
The pattern of waiting, as the guideline describes it
The same section carries a third finding that gets quoted even less. Only about half of people with the disorder ever seek treatment. Those who do generally seek it after fifteen to twenty years of symptoms.
That describes how the delay plays out across a population. It is not a prediction about your teenager, and it is not pressure. But if you are weighing whether to keep the question open, it shows you what the usual alternative looks like.
What withdrawal predicts on the longest view
A 2024 review in Frontiers in Developmental Psychology pooled 31 publications from 14 long running studies. They covered 19,806 adults. It asked what social withdrawal in childhood and the teenage years predicts in adult life.
The strongest link by a wide margin was to adult social anxiety. Links to adult depression and to other anxiety disorders were much weaker. There was no real link to physical health. Withdrawal was mildly protective against substance use.
The authors found a lot of variation between studies, so other things clearly shape the outcome. The plain reading is that the strongest thing withdrawal predicts is more of the same. That is worth taking seriously. It is a long way from the ruin that page one of a search implies.
If you do decide to do something
NICE recommends individual or group CBT focused on social anxiety for children and young people. The dose it sets out is eight to twelve sessions. Individual sessions run 45 minutes. Group sessions run 90.
It also spells out what those sessions should contain. Teaching about the condition. Exposure to feared or avoided social situations. Training in social skills. Chances to rehearse those skills in real social settings. Parent skills training alongside.
The word focused is doing real work there. One 2021 review looked at six trials covering 635 children and teenagers. Where social anxiety was the main problem, the recovery rate after CBT was 35 percent. For other primary anxiety disorders it was 54 percent. General anxiety work underperforms here, which turns straight into a question you can ask.
The wider evidence is mixed, and that is worth knowing too. A large Cochrane review found that CBT probably increases remission of primary anxiety diagnoses after treatment. The figures were 49.4 percent against 17.8 percent for waitlist or no treatment. The same review found little to no evidence that CBT beats usual care or other treatments. It said its confidence in that was limited by how much evidence there was and how good it was.
A worked example, for illustration
Kyle is fifteen. His father was quiet at that age too. He says he grew out of it in his twenties, and had treated that as the end of the discussion for about two years.
What moved him was reading both halves of the NICE passage in one sitting. His own history matched the first half. It told him nothing about which half Kyle was in, and no percentage anywhere would.
So he did not decide. He booked a conversation with the doctor for the following month. In the meantime he wrote down which situations Kyle had backed out of since the spring.
He was still not sure at the end of it. He was sure he had stopped answering the question with his own teenage years, which was the part he could actually fix.
What this page cannot tell you
Whether your teenager is in the group that recovers before adulthood. Nobody can. The guideline that describes that group declines to size it.
What it can tell you is that the two halves are usually served separately, and that either half alone produces a bad decision. One says relax. The other says panic. Together they say something quieter. These are the years in which the question is most worth keeping open.
Common questions
He is fourteen. Is there a rush?
There is no emergency in his age, and nobody should sell you one. The guideline says two things. The teenage years are the window where recovery is more likely. Once this has carried into adult life, recovering without treatment gets harder. That is a reason to keep the question open rather than close it. It is not a reason to act this week.
My husband says he was the same and turned out fine. Is that relevant?
It is relevant and it is not decisive, which is an unsatisfying pair. A significant number of people who develop this in adolescence do recover before adulthood, so his account is not unusual. It also cannot tell you which group your son is in. One adult's memory of being fifteen is a small sample with a lot of hindsight in it.
Is there a percentage for how many grow out of it?
No, and this is worth being firm about. NICE says a significant number and puts no figure on it. No sound figure for teenage recovery without treatment could be found for this site. Any page that hands you a percentage here made it up. Treat the rest of that page accordingly.
If we wait and it does not clear up, what have we lost?
The guideline is blunt about the pattern. Only about half of people with the disorder ever seek treatment. Those who do generally seek it after fifteen to twenty years of symptoms. That is not a threat, and it is not a prediction about your teenager. It is the shape of the delay that tends to happen, which is useful to know while the choice is still in front of you.
What should I ask a therapist before we start?
Ask two things. Is the protocol built for social anxiety specifically. Does it include structured exposure to avoided social situations. There is a real finding behind that. One 2021 review of six trials, covering 635 children and teenagers, found a recovery rate of 35 percent after CBT where social anxiety was the main problem. For other anxiety disorders it was 54 percent. General anxiety work underperforms here, so ask out loud.
Checked against
NICE CG159, social anxiety disorder, context
nice.org.uk
NICE CG159, social anxiety disorder, recommendations
nice.org.uk
Evans, Clark and Leigh 2021, CBT recovery rates in social anxiety
cambridge.org
Gazelle et al. 2024, social withdrawal and adult outcomes
frontiersin.org
Cochrane review of CBT for anxiety in children and young people
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov