Shame Spirals, Parenting & Learning To Cope: A Therapist's 6-Step Protocol

In mindbodygreen's parenting column, Parenthetical, mbg parenting contributor, psychotherapist, and writer Lia Avellino explores the dynamic, enriching, yet often complicated journey into parenthood. In today's installment, Avellino explores shame.

As a psychotherapist, I witness parents grapple with the feeling of shame that arises when they parent in a way that doesn’t align with their values—screaming, punishing, and saying the “wrong” thing.

While shame certainly has negative side effects, it is something we evolved to experience.

Because our ancestors lived in intimate and interconnected communities, determining the social costs of negative behavior (for example, stealing a neighbor’s food) was essential to maintaining the close knit fabric of a community. Caring about what others think of us can be an impactful way to behave in a community oriented manner when we have different individual urges that may tarnish our reputation.

Shame is a complex feeling we all experience from time to time.

Brene Brown defines shame as: “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.” 

What I remind myself, as a mother of three, and the patients I work with is: While we may act in ways that don’t honor ourselves and our children, we can experience remorse, regret, and guilt. Yes, guilt.

Guilt is more helpful in this context because it is the belief that we did something wrong, not that there is something wrong within us.

This distinction—the difference between saying “I lied” versus “I am a lier”—can create powerful shifts in our relationships with ourselves and help us be a model for our children. It shoes them that we can make mistakes, own them, and then not beat ourselves up over them.

Get to know what shame actually feels like. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin, some report a “pit” in their stomachs, or “tightness” in their chests. It might make you want to hide or retreat. It might make you want to keep your behavior a secret.

Yes, acknowledge all of these somatic experiences and address them as real. But getting curious —rather than judgmental about them—can shift our relationship to the feeling.

Sometimes wounds that we haven’t addressed pre-kids or wounds that simply need more healing get reactivated in parenthood.

Think critically about these: In what ways have you internalized others' oppressive narratives about you that have nothing to do with you? How did their beliefs about you make you question your worth and your value?

Before you repair with your child, it can be helpful to first repair with yourself.

This can be in the form of a self-hug. I can look like repeating a mantra that you may have done something harmful but you, yourself, are not bad. It may mean calling a friend to talk it through and examining how you got to the point where you behaved in a way that you regret.

While we can have empathy for ourselves, it doesn’t justify repeated behaviors that don’t align with our values.

For example, I notice my tone gets more tense and serious toward the end of the week, so I’ve brainstormed with my community how they can support me more. That way I show up for my kids more resourced and less depleted.

Getting to know our shame, also means getting to know our humanness. It can be helpful to predict that we will make mistakes, we will raise our voices, we will not do it perfectly. And that's simply because we aren’t made to, not because we have some personal shortcoming.