Shame
Shame is a little talked about/explored topic. Makes sense, doesn’t it? The very fact that we feel shame about something makes it feel shameful to talk about. Therein lies the paradox. Did you know that neuroscience has enlightened us to the fact that when we are in shame, our frontal lobes shut down. Our frontal lobes are where our executive thinking takes place. When that is shut down, we literally cannot think straight, let alone think rationally. Shame cuts off connection. We suffer alone when we are in shame.
What is shame and what causes shame? I’ll summarize the wikipedia definition. The word shame is thought to come from an older word meaning “to cover”; such as covering oneself literally or figuratively. Darwin described shame as blushing, confusion of mind, downward cast eyes, slack posture, and lowered head. Shame can occur in any situation of embarrassment, dishonor, disgrace, inadequacy, humiliation or chagrin. It can also be used as a verb, to shame someone; which is to assign or communicate a state of shame to another.
My first conscious memory of shame was my mother standing over my 2 or 3 year old sister on the floor in the kitchen. My sister had just wet her pants and was cowering on the floor covering her head. And my mother was using the universal sign for shame pointing her forefinger and using the other forefinger to brush it downwards while saying to her, “Shame on you. Shame, shame on you!” I was frozen in fear and abject helplessness. Even though I was only 5 or 6, I knew this was wrong. My poor sister.
I bring up this topic of shame because so many of us with Special Needs children feel shame, as well as shamed in our naive, uninformed, hurtful culture. And our children feel shame almost daily from their peers, and even uninformed teachers. In addition, in an effort to try to “teach” our children something, we sometimes shame them. It never helps. Let me repeat that: it NEVER helps. Shaming cuts off connection, damages relationships, and eclipses learning. When the thinking function is shut down, nothing can be learned.
Another complication of shame with our children is that they don’t want to tell us about it. A client told his Mom that he didn’t like PE class. And then said that the children tease and mock him and the teacher never sees it and so does nothing. It was so hard for this child to tell his Mom and it only came out when the child was refusing to go to PE anymore. We probably don’t know the half of what shaming happens to our children. And some of it is so insidious like filling a child’s hat with sand and putting it on his head; and then claiming it was a joke. Or a best friend pushing her friend’s face into her birthday cake at school and everyone laughs so the teacher sees nothing wrong with that. The teachers are so ill trained to spot bullying and deal with it. They unwittingly allow that behavior to go on everyday at recess and lunch.
In our Mom’s group we gave examples of when we have felt shame or when we have shamed our children. The most common that we experienced were about body image and criticism of our parenting. My father, a physician, had the uncanny ability to guess anyone’s weight and be within a pound or two. If I gained a bit of weight he would point it out to me in the morning before school.... “Gaining a bit, Judy?” And my mother thought I was too thin as an adult. The last time I saw her alive, I walked in to her hospital room and the first thing she said to me derisively was, “what’s that? a size 2?”
Couldn’t win in my family. No wonder I became a therapist. There had to be a better way!
Some also realized that their method of teaching their children about body hygiene, proper dietary intake and/or being more physically active was actually shaming. And we all realized it changed nothing.
What is the antidote to shaming? Connection; reaching out to someone you trust; telling your shameful story exposing it to the light of day; and empathy. At the end of this post I will give you two links teaching about empathy and Brene Brown talking to Oprah about Shame.
Some of us realized that our shaming of our children was about unresolved issues for us. For example, cleanliness and neatness can often be an issue for parents of children on the Spectrum. One parent realized that she was shamed for not having a clean room and in her home cleanliness was next to godliness. It was viewed as respectful and necessary to be successful. That may not be true for our creative children who think outside the box and like their things just where they are....not put away.
We shame our children for playing too many video games, for eating only pasta, for living in a fantasy world, for not having any friends, to mention a few. Not that we mean to do this. But we have to be careful of our language and respect their limitations. For with those limitations, also come real gifts that they will not treasure if they receive too much criticism. John Gottman says it takes 7 compliments to compensate for 1 criticism. Shaming and criticism are deafening and defeating to a child, especially when it comes from us.
Now about our own shame. We need to learn to talk to ourselves as we would a best friend. We need to love ourselves and heal the places in us that have been damaged by shame. Our group helps with that because of our understanding and trust with each other as we speak about unspeakable things. I hope you will learn the language of self compassion and empathy. And realize the awesome person that you are. Here are the links......
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