Fight Shame With Presence
Recently, we checked out a bunch of books from the library from the A Kids Book About collection. If you’re not familiar with these books, you can take a look at their website. They are well-written books on different topics that can sometimes be hard to discuss with kids.
One of the books that we read from the collection was about shame.
Did you know that shame is an inherent human emotion? All humans on Earth feel shame. Even dogs! (Makes me wonder if we had anything to do with it. I don’t know of any animals in the wild experiencing shame.)
Anyway, I’ve been aware of shame in my life for a long time. It’s prevented me from doing many things that my heart dreamed of doing. It mostly makes me want to hide from the world.
Related: Talking About Our Experiences
When I became a parent, I was very intent on trying to avoid causing my children to feel it.
But of course, this can’t be avoided. At least not all the time. And although it is very painful to admit it, I did unintentionally shame my kids a couple of times … Ok, fine, more than a couple.
So, while I was reading the book about shame to my kids, I asked them if and when they ever felt shame.
And, lo and behold, they told me what I knew but didn’t want to hear.
They mentioned that they feel shame when *people* get angry at or yell at them, question, doubt, exclude or criticize them.
So, today I’d like to invite us all to think about shame.
What is shame, really?
When I explain it to my kids, I like to put it simply like this: shame is when you feel like there’s something wrong with you and like you’re not good enough.
It’s so easy to cause our children to feel not good enough!
Whenever they spill their soup and we rush with an exasperated grunt to clean it up.
When we ask them, again kind of huffy, “Why did you do that?!” As if they had any idea!
By the way, when we ask this question, we imply that our children intended to cause harm or damage by doing whatever silly thing they did. In reality, their little brain just didn’t have the software to think through all the steps and consequences of their actions. Or their body didn’t execute the commands precisely.
So what can we do to avoid shaming our kids?
First of all, I think it’s important to say out loud to ourselves that we don’t want to shame our kids. Just like they didn’t intend to spill their soup. We love them and would never intentionally hurt them.
Then we need to admit that we do it anyway. And we do it because it’s simply a pattern that we learned unconsciously over the course of our lives. And we had no control over this software that got installed in our brains at a time when we didn’t know how to process what was happening.
For this reason, it is not helpful to linger in guilt and self-flagellation.
1. Awareness
The first important step is to be aware of the fact that we shame our kids. Recognizing the ways we do it and the situations that trigger us to react in these ways is the first necessary step to change.
2. Intention
After that, we must have the intention to change. But you know what? Even this is not enough.
Because I must say, although I have the best intentions, just like you do, it’s so hard to stop the automatic reaction of criticism, anger, or annoyance.
3. Slowing down
The third element that’s needed is a special tool. What I have found to be effective so far is to slow down. This is magic!
When we slow down, we can be aware of our thoughts, feelings, reactions, and consequences of our reactions. Interestingly enough, our brain can process all these incredibly fast. It only needs a few milliseconds.
So if we can slow down just a little bit, we actually have time to process all these internal steps and external consequences, unlike our children (ahem!).
If we can slow down, we can challenge our assumptions in the moment and put our focus on our child, which gives us more patience and the ability to respond with empathy.
Of course, this takes consistent practice. But it’s a skill that we can develop. Our children deserve it. And we deserve it also! Try it with me!
