Palejowe ABC - Shame.

By shaming your child, we want to achieve positive results - to change his undesirable behavior. But do we actually achieve our goal this way? Rarely. In addition, we unknowingly sow fear in the child and inflame his self-esteem. This does not mean that shame is always and in every situation something harmful. Thanks to it, we learn, among other things, what norms prevail in society, what is acceptable and what is not.

However, it is necessary to distinguish between shame understood as a feeling and shaming, which is a deliberate action to cause this shame.

"At this age you should already be drawing better", "Can't you act like your sister?", "So big and crying?", "Do you really want to go to school dressed like that? You'll be a laughing stock", "I'm disappointed in you, I thought you were smarter", "Oh what a shyster, what are you so embarrassed about?", "Oh please, you finally spoke up".

These are just examples of comments that many of you, and your children, have probably heard during your lives. Such embarrassing messages are sometimes remembered for a very long time. And they do not at all evoke fond memories and gratitude for the fact that someone causing us shame helped us change for the better. Instead, they leave painful marks and cracks in the perception of oneself as a valuable person.

Shaming leads children to become convinced that they cannot change. Instead of motivating them to take action, it can make them feel bad about themselves. When the person they love most in the world and whose opinion matters most to them says bad things about them, it can significantly affect their self-esteem and self-worth.

Shame should not be taken lightly, as it has a strong impact on our lives and functioning. It can negatively affect mental health and lead to social withdrawal, depression, anxiety disorders, self-harm and even addiction. Without other helpful strategies and without social support, some people will turn to consciousness-altering drugs to alleviate the mental pain caused by shame. However, this is not a solution but a trap. So it's worth looking at shame, while responding to attempts to shame children (or ourselves!).

Shame in itself is a rather insidious emotion, as it keeps us from seeking help and benefiting from support. Admitting to ourselves and to other people that we can't make it on our own and need outside help - whether material, psychological or whatever - can be embarrassing and cause embarrassment.

Quite often shame, coupled with guilt, appears in healthy siblings of sick children, but also in the parents themselves. What further feeds and intensifies it is a sense of alienation and fear of sharing their doubts and difficulties with other people.

According to Brené Brown, a researcher who deals with the subject of shame on a daily basis - shame grows in silence, and the cure for overcoming it is to talk about it and share it with other people. This is because when we talk about our shame, it ceases to be a taboo subject and... stops embarrassing us. Shame has a way of propelling itself, and at some point we reach a point where we are ashamed of the fact that we feel this emotion. We are ashamed of our actions, thoughts and emotions, and as a result, we are ashamed of who we are.

We can't completely protect our children from the experience of being shamed by other people, but we can help them understand that such behavior is not okay and they can defend themselves against it. When a child is aware of what is happening, they are more likely to be able to defend themselves and make it clear that their boundaries have been crossed.

By providing the child with a sense of security and letting him or her know that they can count on us, we increase the chance that in the event of difficulties, the child will come to us and seek help from us without fear. However, in order to effectively protect children from the negative effects of excessive shame, we must first disarm our own shame that we carry within ourselves. This is not the easiest work, but it bears fruit, and its effects help stop the cycle of shame, which is very often transmitted from generation to generation.