SHAME, SHAME, SHAME

Part 1 (0f 3)

Understanding Shame in Children and the Role of Parenting

Throughout my career as a psychologist, I have seen firsthand how deeply shame can affect both individuals and their relationships. This painful emotion often distorts self-perception and disrupts meaningful connection, making it difficult for people to fully engage with life. My exploration of shame began more than two decades ago, through my early research on children with learning disabilities, long before I became a parent. That work illuminated shame as a common thread running through many mental health struggles. Since then, it has profoundly influenced my clinical approach, guiding me in helping clients navigate the weight of shame and its far-reaching effects. It has also influenced the professional environment I have worked to cultivate in our group psychotherapy practice—one that fosters both growth and healing for clients and provides meaningful support for therapists.

One of the things I have loved most about clinical practice, research, and even the therapists drawn to our team is how these experiences resonate with common themes—a kind of call and response that echoes through both my professional and personal life. This year, our group practice, 1A Wellness, has come full circle, with a key focus on inclusivity and serving neurodivergent clients. Considering vulnerability to shame in our approach feels like a natural evolution of the principles that have guided me from the beginning, reinforcing our commitment to fostering an environment where all clients feel seen, understood, and supported.

What is Shame?

Shame is a “self-conscious emotion” that emerges as children develop an awareness of how others perceive them. Unlike basic emotions such as anger, fear, or joy, which appear early in life, self-conscious emotions like shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride begin to surface during the second year of life. These emotions are often described as “self-evaluative” because they are intricately linked to cognitive developments such as self-awareness and the internalization of societal rules and standards. A key aspect of these emotions is the ability to recognize oneself as distinct from others and to assess oneself against internalized expectations of behavior.

This self-evaluation can occur either consciously or subconsciously, and while shame doesn’t necessarily require an actual audience, individuals often imagine how their perceived flaws would be judged by others. Because the self is evaluated based on standards and ideals learned from significant others, these emotions are deeply interpersonal. H.B. Lewis, for instance, describes shame as “the vicarious experience of others’ negative evaluation,” highlighting its nature as a social emotion deeply rooted in our connections with those around us.

Parenting Practices and Children’s Shame

One of the key insights from my early research was the pivotal role of parent-child conversations in shaping how children experience and process shame. Children often learn emotional responses through observing and modeling their parents’ behaviors. When parents respond to their children’s challenges with distress, criticism, punishment, or excessive control, they may inadvertently reinforce the child’s sense of failure and shame. This is especially true for children with learning disabilities (LD), who can be at a heightened risk for shame due to their academic and social difficulties and the invisible nature of their learning differences.

The transmission of shame from parent to child can be subtle but powerful. For instance, parents who feel bad or embarrassed about their child’s learning disability may unconsciously communicate these feelings to their child. Studies have shown that parents of children with disabilities often experience significant guilt or shame, which can disrupt parenting and contribute to a child’s internalization of these negative emotions. This internalization can manifest in poor self-concept, learned helplessness, and even psychopathology (mental illness)—outcomes that are closely linked to the experience of shame.

The Roots of Shame in Children with Learning Disabilities/Differences

To better understand how parenting influences children’s shame-proneness, my study focused on children with learning disabilities (LD). Decades ago, these children often faced chronic academic failures, especially when their learning challenges went unrecognized. At that time, many parents of children diagnosed with LD were not afforded the same understanding and insight into their learning differences during their own childhoods. This lack of identification led to repeated experiences of failure, diminishing motivation and fostering a growing sense of incompetence. As a result, this cycle not only hindered academic progress but also eroded self-esteem and contributed to social difficulties.

This research specifically focused on how parenting behaviors impact shame and the study involved 50 children aged 8 to 12 and their mothers, using both self-report and observational methods to assess these dynamics. The children and their mothers were videotaped during discussions about a social failure the child experienced, such as being left out or facing conflict.

The analysis revealed that non-supportive behaviors like intrusive over-involvement and emotional detachment were linked to higher levels of shame in children. In contrast, supportive behaviors, such as being child-centered and offering problem-focused support, were associated with lower levels of shame. Notably, parents’ distress reactions had the strongest connection to their child’s self-directed shame, highlighting the influence of a parent’s emotional state on the child’s experience.

The goal of supportive parenting is to help parents create environments where children can face challenges with some resilience, understanding that their inherent self-worth is not dependent on a momentary success or perceived failure. While it’s natural for parents to want to shield their children from disappointment or failure, doing so is not always within their control—or ultimately beneficial. In therapy, I often emphasize the importance of distinguishing between what we can control and what we cannot. Too often, parents exhaust themselves trying to manage what is outside of their influence, losing sight of the meaningful impact they truly have. By focusing on what is within their control—especially their own self-regulation and reactions—parents not only maintain their own sense of agency but also become powerful allies in safeguarding their children against shame. This approach helps children develop an inner sense of authority that is not swayed by external circumstances or the larger environment’s failure to celebrate and accommodate differences.

In the next two posts in this three part series on shame, we are going to delve deeper into how a cycle of shame can begin to manifest later in life, how to recognize patterns of shame (versus moments of guilt, which 1A therapist Adeline Dettor thoughtfully differentiated in an earlier blog (https://www.1awellness.com/valley-of-shame/) and we will shine a light on what we as adults can do about these shame cycles both for children and for ourselves.

Kristina Harter, Ph.D., founded 1A Wellness in 2019. She has been a clinical psychologist for over 20 years.

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