Is this impacting on the children that are in your care or who you work with? Are you experiencing challenging behaviours? Then this may just be a light bulb moment!
According to Google, the definition of Shame is
Shame is a painful feeling we all experience at one time or another. It often involves a deep-rooted fear that someone is going to find out about a mistake we made or a character flaw we have. When we feel Shame we want to hide from everyone and it can lead to isolation and suffering.
A True Picture of How Shame Presents Itself
Over my 22 years of delivering direct work with children and young people this has to be the most paramount factor of what drives outward behaviours.
What I mean by this is I have watched children flip out, smash things, shout abuse, run off and climb the school fence then on the opposite scale of the spectrum, being withdrawn, frozen, anxious and isolated.
I have always been curious to what drives these behaviours as through no fault of their own some children have not gained the emotional regulating tools that come from healthy early life experiences.
You possibly have encountered these children with such challenging behaviours and may at times feel baffled as to what is really causing these outbursts.
Spending many years trying to find out the root causes to such challenging behaviours, I discovered an amazing lady named Brené Brown, who is a professor, lecturer, author and who spent many years researching Shame.
All of her clips are available on YouTube and I would highly recommend taking a look.
This then made me become more curious to understand what shame really was about and how it developed so when I discovered the Shield Of Shame and The Compass of Shame this really was like a light bulb moment for me.
What I was seeing in the outward behaviours of most of these children was in fact being driven by the root cause which was Shame.
Many of the children that I work with have experienced trauma, neglect and abuse, some even abandoned by their own birth parents, can you imagine how that must feel? Gut wrenching, heart breaking! then they are expected to show up everyday in school watching birth parents drop off their peers.
They must ask themselves, why me? What did I do wrong? I must be horrible! The deep shame and confusion these children experience must be overwhelming at times and as professionals sometimes we do forget.
But what about the children in the classrooms or who we care for that aren’t in the care system, can they still suffer Shame? Yes anyone can, children or adults.
Growing up, I had the worst acne ever and was continuously called names, this then led onto me having panic attacks, not going out after school, avoiding people and isolating myself.
I couldn’t even concentrate at school to do any work. I had never felt so lonely and ashamed but was an extreme people pleaser as I felt I had to work hard to be liked.
At this time in my life I did not realise I was suffering from shame and it led to a whole host of anxiety driven behaviours. I am not sharing this for any self pity but to try and put it out there that this can happen to any young person and I wonder if you can personally relate to anything similar like this growing up?
Maybe you experienced bullying or felt like you didn’t fit in.
We know how difficult it is now for young people growing up and the pressures they feel to look a certain way, dress in certain brands and want to be liked.
As human beings we are designed to be social and in tribes, when Shame is present children tend to isolate themselves or really do act in socially inappropriate ways.
So How Do You Know if a Child Is Suffering From Shame?
They will more than likely blame anyone or anything rather than themselves even if you know they are the guilty party as they can not let anyone see what they feel is the badness in them.
You more than likely have met these children where you know they broke something as you saw it with your own eyes but they still insist it wasn’t them and that someone else must have done this.
Children and young people who are suffering shame have a very poor concept of themself and have developed poor low self esteem.
The Children who can admit to mistakes and apologise are in guilt not in shame as they know they will still be viewed as a valuable human being which kids in shame feel like they are a disgusting one.
How Does Shame Develop?
Healthy Shame
With loving parents, when a child is beginning to explore their world as a toddler, they may for example go to touch a plug socket, the parent may shout “No” and the child experiences a sharp internal but healthy pain with a mild sense of abandonment.
The parent then explains why they said No, soothes the child to help them to regulate their emotions and the relationship is then repaired and reconnected. The child learns with repetition that their behaviour is not appropriate but they are still loved and cared for by their primary caregiver.
This helps children learn right from wrong with a safe well attuned consistent adult.
But what if the child hasn’t got a safe well attuned consistent adult?
Unhealthy Shame
When children experience poor parenting and have been told many times that they are naughty, a bad child, difficult to go away, children then do not learn how to regulate and they cannot move forward until the pain of shame is reduced.
They cannot develop morally because the guilt that motivates children to behave and change their behaviour doesn’t develop in children who are deeply shamed.
The child then develops an extremely negative self-image and has negative expectations of adults. They cannot become empathic as their own needs have not been met and they have no concept of other people’s needs and feelings.
So How Do We Repair Shame and Support Young People Who Are Suffering
Children begin to heal when they truly experience a continuous empathic response. When they feel they are being listened to, not judged, and adults actually want to get to know them and show acceptance.
This is not saying you have to accept inappropriate behaviour, by no means, but when a child can see you are really trying to support them, make a connection, and that they are liked by you, shame will start to shift.
Brené Brown talks about how shame cannot survive empathy.
I have linked one of her clips in the resource library section on the website called Empathy vs Sympathy, which I am sure you will find very useful.
I hope you have found our blog post very thought provoking and we would love to hear any feedback, please always feel free to make contact through our website: