As parents, we’re always teaching our toddler or preschooler how to behave. It means we’re often correcting her or telling her no. “You have to pet the cat like this,” we tell her, “from head to toe.” Or, “Stop! Shoes go on your feet, not in your mouth.” Or, “Please, drink your milk without spilling it!” Because kids so often hear that they’re behaving badly, it’s easy for them to feel ashamed, yet it’s just as easy for parents to prevent shame from forming in their child.
Unlike guilt in which we feel we have done something bad, shame is the feeling that we are bad. Shame can become a toxic feeling, especially when it accumulates in a child. It becomes the story of who the child is, and it radically affects a kid’s self-esteem.
There’s one other piece of childhood that makes kids even more prone to shame: young kids need to see their parents as all good in order to feel safe in an overwhelming world. (For more on this, see the post, “Why Young Children (Need To) Think We’re the Best.”) For little kids, having a “good” parent means that someone competent is in charge. To preserve parents as good and competent, little kids would rather blame themselves than blame their parents.
Shame is the feeling that we are bad.
But the truth is, we parents regularly screw up because we’re human, we have bad days, we’re dealing with a dozen things at the same time, we’ve got our own baggage, and…need I go on? We’re anything but perfect, and sh*t regularly happens.
So, let’s say we lose our cool and yell at our kid. Fine, that’s on us. But it’s likely our kid will feel that he is at fault, that his behavior was so bad that it caused his parent to lose control. But he won’t stop there; he’ll think he behaved badly because he is bad.
How to prevent shame from forming? Here are five ways.
1. Be Proactive
This amounts to giving frequent positive feedback to your kid. If you’ve heard the phrase, “Catch your child doing good,” that’s what we’re talking about. But it’s not just telling your child, “Wow, you cleaned up the crayons without my asking. Good job!” It’s adding something like, “You’re considerate in this way. You’ve got a great heart!” It’s telling your kid not just that you love her, but why. And it’s not just that she did something you like, but that this action speaks to how she is in her core.
2. Helping your child recognize the good in herself
It’s fine to praise your child for cleaning up the crayons and letting her know how you appreciate the help. But consider another approach you can add to your toolkit.
Instead of you appreciating your child’s work, can you help her appreciate it?
It might look like this: “Wow, you cleaned up the crayons without anyone asking! You’re doing things on your own like a big kid, and I bet that feels pretty good.”
Rather than doing something to win your approval, you’re helping your child both approve of herself and recognize the good within her.
3. Bad behavior, not bad kid
There are no bad kids, just bad behavior, and this idea can be communicated to your child.
You’re basically saying that the behavior isn’t acceptable, though your kid still is. You might say, “I don’t like it when you throw the toy. I like you, but not the throwing of toys when you’re mad.” Or try, “You’re doing things that are not okay with me. I know there’s still a good kid in there; it’s just that your big feelings are coming out in this way.”
Essentially you’re preventing shame in your child by separating him from his actions.
4. Avoid labels
I hear parents tell their kid, “Good kids don’t hit.” First, this is not true because all kids hit because all kids lose control. It’s not fair to label a child as a bad kid because he’s acting like a kid. But the message that Good kids don’t hit can be very confusing and damaging to a child because he’ll see his hitting—or even his desire to hit—as an indication that he’s inherently bad.
Similarly, I’ve heard parents say, “Don’t say that, be nice to your sister. Don’t you want to be a nice brother?” Again, the parent is labelling the child rather than the behavior or the kid’s feelings. Labelling the kid doesn’t give him room to be angry at his sister, which is a normal enough state for any child with a sibling. He should be able to be angry and also think of himself as a nice brother—i.e. a good kid.
In this way, you’re not just preventing shame in your child but promoting self-acceptance.
5. Make proactive repairs
Keeping in mind that kids would rather see themselves as bad than see their parent as bad, it can be enormously helpful to repair things when you make a mistake. (See the post “Ruptures and Repairs: The 4 Steps You Need to Know” for more on this.)
For instance, let’s say you lose it and scream at your kid. While losing control and yelling isn’t the best parental strategy, it happens to all of us. Just know that there’s always plenty of opportunities to repair things when everyone has calmed down.
The goal here is to own your part so that your kid doesn’t feel it’s all his fault and therefore a bad kid.
Start by explaining how you lost your cool and behaved badly—not that you’re a bad parent but that your feelings got out of control. Repairing means that you take responsibility for your actions. This isn’t necessarily the time to tell your kid how he, too, acted badly.
A repair could look like, “This morning, I got super mad and I screamed at you. I’m really sorry about that. You didn’t deserve to be yelled at, and I acted badly. I was really stressed about other things, and I took it out on you which isn’t fair. I’m working on that, and I’ll try not to do it again.”
Some parents are hesitant to admit wrongdoing, especially when they already feel their own shame about their actions. Just know that you’re not a bad parent or a bad person, only that you’re struggling like everyone else, and everyone screws up.
Repairing with your kid can be a powerfully healing thing—hopefully for both of you! It lets your kid have a realistic view of you, it repairs hurt feelings, and most importantly it helps strengthen the bond between the two of you.
As parents, we are role models, and none of us are perfect. And that’s okay. We might feel our share of shame, too. Hopefully, as we help our kids free themselves from shame, we can do the same for ourselves.
For more on how children experience and manage shame, check out the story, Friday Dinner, about three siblings who try to cope with their parents’ absence.
Related Posts
Ruptures and Repair: the 4 Steps You Need to Know
All parents make mistakes, and repairing things afterwards with our kid is not just incredibly important, it can feel incredibly good, too. Here’s how…
The All-Important Link Between Feelings and Behavior
Kids desperately need us to understand their feelings. But for us to understand their feelings, we have to first look at their behavior.
Why Young Children (Have To) Think We’re the Best
Kids need to believe parents are near-perfect. It’s awesome for parents, but it can create some serious dilemmas (and issues) for children.
What Our Child Experiences When We Lose Our Cool
All of us lose our cool, and when we do, it’s good to know how it affects our child. Only then can we repair what has happened so that our child creates healthy narratives about herself and others.
