toddler attitudes- not wanting to say hi

Bryan seems to not like to say hi- esp to me. He tells me that he does not want to say hi when he goes to school( daycare) to his teachers and when I come home from work he says to my husband who get home first- " I dont want to say hi to mommy or give her a hug and kiss" I get upset because I look foward to seeing him all day after work and also I want him to be happy to see me. After a few minutes he is very talkative and fine- same with daycare but its the intial hello that gets him. Very strange- any suggestions? Ive tried haviing a talk about how saying hi is a nice thing to do and that it hurts peoples feelings that you dont want to say hi to them.

Another thing is weird is that I have had a similar problem growing up and even now. I find it hard to make the first move so to speak as far as starting up conversations with people and I fear he has inherited this bad trait from me.

Re: toddler attitudes- not wanting to say hi

We had a similar issue with my stepdaughter. She was OK with her parents or people she was very very close with(but she would do it with them too). But if someone else spoke to her she wouldnt say anything and act all shy. After a ton of reading basically it came down to a control issue of sorts. It goes along with eating...they have such little control over their lives that they soon figure out what they can control and how to do it....

We dealt with it for a while. Handling it very gentley etc...It wasnt until DH got pretty firm with her that things changed...Basically in his mind he felt that shy or not you speak when someone speaks to you and it was better to nip it in the bud now rather than later. He explained to her how she was being rude and it was bad manners not to speak when spoken to. She could chose not to give kisses or hugs but she needed to say hello or answer "how are you" when people spoke to her.