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Good Inside with Dr. Becky
Detecting Shame in Your Kid
00:20:04
This week on the podcast, Dr. Becky teaches all parents a very important lesson: how to become shame detectors with their kids.
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Do you hear that siren? I'm recording in my studio in New York City, and there's an active siren outside. And actually, oddly enough, that really relates to the topic. I want to talk to you about shame. Okay, I know what you're thinking. What shame? A siren. Here's why this matters. Shame in our kids has to activate a siren inside of ourselves. We have to develop the ability to recognize when shame is present. Because when we see shame, the truth is our whole intervention has to change. At least it has to change if we want to be effective and not get into a power struggle or an explosive argument with our kid. And so the fact that this episode just began with a siren is kind of perfect. When there's a siren, everything else changes. If there's an ambulance on the street, we might have to go a different way. We might not get the most direct route, but that siren takes precedence. We respect it. Shame is really powerful. And in today's episode, I'm going to define what I mean by shame. I might even clarify what my kid already feels. Shame. They're so young. We'll get into all of that. And I want to help you become a better shame detector to recognize this siren when it exists, because I promise you, it's going to make you such a more effective parent. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is good inside. We'll be back right after this. So when I talk to parents, there's often huge variety in kind of the top quality they wish for in their kid. Some people say confident, some people say caring, some people say bold. And there's almost universal agreement in the number one quality. Parents don't want their kids to have entitlement. Over and over, I have parents asking me, are there things I can do now so that my kid doesn't become entitled later on? And the truth is, there are. And so I wanted to put all of my thoughts down in one place, and I created something brand new, a How to Avoid Entitlement guide. It's all practical strategies and specific scripts you can use so you know your kids are building the skills they need and that they are going to avoid that entitled outcome. It's available within membership. So if you're already a member, just search Avoid Entitlement within our member library. Or if you're not yet a member and want to check it out, check the link in the show notes. When it comes to shame, some kids feel things deeper, more intensely and for longer than other kids. For these kids, shame sits so close to vulnerability that they reject you. They even Yell I hate you. Go away. When you try to connect to them or to their feelings. If this is your kid, no, you're not making it up. Their meltdowns are more explosive. It does take longer for these kids to calm down. I call these kids Deeply feeling Kids. I love these kids. I have one of these kids. And I have developed an approach to working with these kids that I know is unlike anything you've read or seen elsewhere. If you, like me, have a deeply feeling kid and you've been considering getting the Good Inside app, I believe now is the perfect time to join. And here's why. I'm hosting a Live Deeply Feeling kid workshop on November 20th. You'll walk away with a whole new understanding of your kid and with strategies and tactics that actually work. Yes, joining this workshop gives you full access to the GoodInsight app. Yes, it's effective for a wide range of kids, toddler through tween. And yes, it's been known to be helpful for parents of neurodivergent kids. Tap the link in the show notes or go to goodinside.com to learn more and save your spot. Okay, I want to share two scenarios that parents have approached me about, both of which involve shame in ways that might not be immediately obvious. So let me just describe these scenarios and then we'll get into what shame is, how it was present in these scenarios, and importantly, what we can do about it. Okay. The first situation is what I would call an explosive reaction. So a friend of mine was telling me the other day that her six year old daughter had this enormous and in her words, animalistic meltdown after accidentally spilling juice on her favorite stuffed animal. So there's the six year old. She has her own favorite stuffed animal. She's the one who spills juice. Tiny accident on her stuffed animal. Now, it's true, the stuffed animal is probably going to be washed. It's sticky. Okay. And my friend, her mom was just saying, it's okay, it's not a big deal, we're going to wash it. It's not a big deal, it's okay. But her daughter just went to a 10 out of 10 explosive reaction and stayed there for a while. There was yelling, there was blaming her mom for spilling the juice. You spilled the juice. You made this happen. And my friend said, becky, I swear I wasn't even in the room. And I believed her because I've been in this type of situation. And things even escalated further. There was scratching, there was growling. I think this was the animalistic word. My friend Described and just a really long meltdown. My friend called me and said, I just, I'm concerned about my kid. And we ended up talking about shame. Okay, second, totally different situation. I was talking to parents in a one on one session about their nine year old son who was refusing to do his math homework. And the parents were saying, like, my son is academic, he tends to be pretty responsible. Flat out refusal. And we've tried a million things, right? And he kind of said, we're only coming to you because we've tried everything else, okay, We've tried to just sit with him during the homework. And they said kind of almost bashfully, we've kind of tried doing half the homework for him, right? Thinking maybe he could just finish the rest. We got him a tutor, but nothing was changing. They felt so stuck. He just refused. They get into an argument and the parents were just saying to me, I know he's capable, he's a smart kid. We're becoming so frustrated. It's becoming this like dreaded part of our day. And we just, we just literally don't know what to do. What did we end up talking about? Shame. In both of these situations, the explosive blaming others, meltdown. The kind of cross my arms, I'm not doing it and you can't make me. Homework, struggle, shame is at play. So let's understand shame and then let's learn what to do about it. Shame is a really powerful emotion that goes way beyond feeling bad about a specific action or behavior. Shame is an emotion that actually starts to relate to how we think about our self, like our identity, our worth. There's a really key difference between shame and guilt, right? Where guilt is a feeling we have about behavior, I always say guilt is a feeling we have when we watch our behavior become out of line with our values and our identity. So if I yelled at a taxi cab driver in New York City for going a direction I didn't want them to go in, I would feel guilt. I would say, becky, that's not within my values. It's not my identity. I don't think about myself as someone who would do that. My behavior was out of line. I feel guilty. And guilty is actually a useful feeling. I could reflect on why that happened. I could get my behavior to be more in line with my values. That's guilt. Guilt says to me, I'm a good person who did something not so good. I'll even go so far I'm a good person who did something bad. But that difference is huge. And my hands are separated in this moment, I look at one hand and I'd say, I'm a good person. I have good identity. I have self worth. On the other hand, I would say I did a not so good thing. That's my behavior in guilt. My behavior is separated from my identity and value and worth. Two different things. Shame says something different. Shame says I am bad. If I really expanded it, I'd say, shame says I did something bad. That means I am bad. If we go back to the difference, the gap between my hands where I look at behavior and guilt and say, not so good. And I look at identity in the other hand and I say, still good shame, there's no gap. I did something bad means I am bad. And this difference is massive. It leads to a 180 degree difference in how we react and intervene. It also is a 180 degree difference in how much we can learn in the moment. In order to learn about why we engage in bad behavior and to change that behavior the next time, we actually have to preserve our good identity. If not, we go into defense mode. I have to defend who I am, right? And I actually have to almost ignore the behavior. And so this explains when we feel shame, we do shut down. We do feel unreachable because we are so almost buried into this belief and conviction in our own badness that we shut out the outside world. We can't make movement. I hope this sounds similar to a lot of you who are more familiar with kind of the gore good inside principles that drive the good inside parenting, the sturdy leadership parenting approach. The idea that we have to separate identity from behavior. This doesn't excuse behavior. It actually is necessary to set the stage to improve behavior. Right? So in guilt, we can recognize we are not our latest bad behavior. In shame, we merge with our latest bad behavior. So what does this mean for our kids? I want to share a few ways that you can increase your shame detection abilities. Because I like shortcuts. It's like, okay, I get it. Shame is, you know, bad behavior is kind of collapsed into bad identity guilt. It's separate. But if I'm a parent listing, I'm like, okay, that's theoretically helpful. But what do I actually look for? What are the concrete signs? So I want to give you that one global negative self talk. I'm stupid. I'm a bad kid. I hate myself. I always mess up. Do you hear how there's like a global aspect, very different from, I'm having a hard time with this or I need your help to figure this out. This problem is particularly challenging. Let's say that would be in a math program. That's a sign that I'm struggling, but I can maintain my good identity with shame. You hear something very different. I'm not good at math. I'm so stupid. I can never do my assignments. I always mess up. There's really this global negativity. 2 Avoidance. Refusing to try tasks that kids find challenging or where they don't see a guarantee of their success is a shame signal. It's the time when your shame siren can start to go off. Why would my kid not want to do a puzzle when it's hard? Why would they not want to go to soccer practice with other kids who are really good at soccer? To some degree, they have to link their behavior to identity. Because if you're able to say, I'm not that good at soccer, I'm still an awesome person, you'd go to soccer. If you're able to say, I'm going to struggle with this puzzle, I may or may not figure it out. That's okay. You're going to do the puzzle. If completing the puzzle is what you need to feel like a good person and struggling with the puzzle kind of quote means I'm stupid. If being the worst on your soccer team means I'm just a bad athlete or maybe an unworthy person in my grade, well, you better bet I'd avoid those moments to avoid that kind of deep criticism of who I am. Okay, three explosive reactions. When there are explosive, huge outbursts over what seems like a kind of minor incident, shame is present. Shame is present. Now, this doesn't mean you did shame to your kid. It certainly doesn't mean you shame them at all. But if a kid has a tendency towards shame, which I'm gonna put it out there deeply feeling kids do that. First, explosive reaction. I feel vulnerable. I, by accident, got juice on my stuffy spirals into I'm a bad person. I feel so awful. I can't manage this. Explosive reactions to seemingly minor events should definitely create a shame signal. A shame siren for you so you can see what's actually happening. Another sign of shame. Blaming you for something you never did. Why? Well, if tripping and falling in front of my friends makes me feel like a bad, awful, unworthy make funable human being, well, you better bet I'm going to claim someone else did that to me. There's no way I could even tolerate that I put myself in that situation. Shame is present when your kids blame you for something you never did. And last, although certainly this list is not, you know, comprehensive. Perfectionism. Perfectionism is another sign that there's a degree of shame. If the idea of making a mistake or showing vulnerability makes me question my good, worthy identity, you better bet I'm going to be obsessive and perfectionist, because that feels like the way I have to prove my worthiness. It's not that I'm a good person who made a mistake. My mistake means I'm a bad, unworthy person. And so perfectionism, again, can be a sign that shame is present. When it's our year to travel and visit family over the holidays, Airbnb is a go to. I love feeling a bit more at home when I travel, and Airbnb nails it for us every time. We can celebrate the holidays just like we would in our own home. If you're traveling over the holidays and have an empty home, consider making a little extra income by becoming a host on Airbnb. I mean, every little bit helps, especially during the holiday season. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host I have to imagine that one of your kids at least has behaviors that fit into at least one category. I know for me, I can see this in myself. I think I can fall into the trap of my outside performance is a sign of my worth, right? So I want to cover up vulnerability and I want people to see me in a certain way, right? And that's an area where I have to start to notice my own shame so I can kind of self correct reduce shame. I always call that de shame. Maybe lean on the people I'm closest with and, you know, feel safest with to de shame so I can move forward in a productive way. Starting to see your kid's behavior in the slight will totally change the game for you because instead of thinking of them as difficult or stubborn or dramatic, you start to say, oh my goodness, shame is present. Okay, whoa. I. I actually see my kid is kind of vulnerable and struggling, and seeing your kid that way versus as difficult really leads to a very, very different set of ideas and interventions. So let's go back to that explosive reaction about the spilled juice. Now, of course, I wasn't there, but my guess is my friend's daughter, who I know in love, and I think she is such a typical deeply feeling kid where their vulnerability really sits next to their shame. So when they're vulnerable, they have shame layered on that reacts in explosivity and things that seem kind of quote over the top to other people. I Think at the core she wished she didn't spill her juice. This seems simple. Like, of course we all would wish we didn't spill something. And I think then, in this moment, she just couldn't hold onto the idea that good people have things they wish didn't happen. Good people make mistakes. And so shame came in and it exploded that vulnerability into threat and anger. And yes, what looks like an animalistic reaction because a kid feels under animalistic threat when they feel shame. What about the homework situation? Well, in this situation, and based on what I learned about this kid, it actually seemed less of a math ability issue and more of a shame issue. Now, could both be present, of course. Do kids actually struggle in terms of the inner workings of certain subjects? Without a doubt. Do I think sometimes we're quick to assume that's the cause as opposed to shame. I also think that's true. And so I really want you to have this as just another tool in your toolbox to try to decipher and better understand what's going on for your kid. I also would layer on that we have to first detect shame and reduce shame to even assess if the math struggle is a math ability issue or not, because shame can really cover that up. What I know about this kid, based on what I learned in this session, is this child was in an extremely high performing, extremely high, high success family. And I had a feeling that even though this was never articulated or intended, to some degree, math struggles mean I'm stupid, or maybe I'm too different from the other people in my family to be worthy and loved. Now, I actually really enjoyed these parents in this session. Do I think they ever said that to their kid? Absolutely not. Do I think kids pick up on kind of the vibes of the family and what the family is known for or stands for and make assumptions around that? And can that lead to shame? You better bet if this becomes a fear, I'm not like everyone, if I struggle in math, I'm kind of not a worthy, lovable person in my unique family. Would that fear grip us and start to feel true? And would we then avoid any type of math homework that could confirm that fear? I mean, I could tell you, for one, I would. I would, every single second, because that would be too painful and too awful. And so for both of these parents, in terms of what to do in the explosive reaction, we can't logic. We can't logic through shame. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. Right? When shame is present to some degree, Less is more more than any other intervention. What ends up showing your kid that they're a good person who's having a hard time, that they're lovable even in a struggle, is your calm presence. I try to tell myself, becky, presence is an action. Say less, do less, stay here, look at my kid lovingly and pause. In terms of the math homework situation, what I worked on with the parent was a lot less on math ability, much more based on building growth mindset building. What I think is the most important skill for childhood frustration tolerance. Can I learn the skill to tolerate the frustration inherent in struggling? Because if I build the skill to tolerate frustration, I actually start to feel good about the moments I struggle. I actually start to feel proud of my ability to make it through something hard instead of tying my identity to perfect performance. This has been a lot Shame is heavy. Shame is confusing. Shame is one of the things we don't talk about. Actually, that's one of the reasons we feel shame. Because it's hidden, because we keep it to ourself, because we don't connect to others about it. If there's an antidote to shame, it's connection. And so what I think would be really powerful is if you try to consider some of your kids most difficult, most confusing behaviors, the ones that get under your skin. And I wonder if you can start to develop a shame siren. Ooh, there it is. Wait, I can't just power through this. I have to deal with the shame before we make progress on the problem. Because the shame kind of is the biggest problem. Thank you for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com podcast or you could write me@podcastgoodinside.com parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world and you deserve resources and support so you feel empowered and confident for this very important job you hold. I'm so excited to share Good Inside membership. It's the first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like valued parents. It's game changing and built for a busy parent who wants to make the most out of the few minutes they have. One last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain Good Inside. Today's episode is in partnership with Airbnb.