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Mark Brandenburg has a Masters degree
in counseling psychology and has been a counselor, business
consultant, sports counselor, and a certified life and business
coach. He has worked with individuals, teams, and businesses to
improve their performance for over 20 years.
Prior to life and business coaching
Mark was a world-ranked professional tennis player and has coached
other world-ranked athletes. He has helped thousands of individuals
to implement his coaching techniques.
Mark
specializes in coaching men to balance their lives and to improve
the important relationships in their lives. He is the author of “25
Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers,” and “Fix Your Wife in
30 Days or Less” (And Improve Yourself at the Same Time).
BOOKS BY MARK BRANDENBURG
Click here to buy
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Monthly Column... |
Shame on You
by
Mark Brandenburg, M.A., C.P.P.C., C.S.C.
© 2008
“What are you thinking? Haven’t we talked about this before?” My
seven-year-old son looked down at the food that had just spilled on
the kitchen floor.
He stood statue-still, as children often do after an accident.
The words and tone I’d used were having their impact. He braced
himself to fight the tears, and prepared to clean things up.
When I thought about it later, I realized the worst moment wasn’t
the food hitting the floor. The worst moment was seeing his face
hiding the shame and anguish he was feeling. It was realizing I’d
been responsible for helping him “shove down” big feelings too
painful to deal with.
The truth was difficult. I was teaching my son to feel shame.
So how is it that we can do something like this to our children?
The dynamics of shame are fairly simple. They are often at the heart
of toxic relations between parents and children. When you’re unable
to change the behavior of your children, you may have a rush of
feelings that include frustration, humiliation, and anger. These
feelings have been with you since you were a child, and they are
associated with feeling defective in your own childhood.
Most children go through periods in their life feeling
misunderstood and mistreated. The feelings of shame that were
generated from those times produced defense mechanisms that
protected them from having to experience those painful moments
again. They are “stored” in your body, but not in conscious
awareness.
When you become a parent, you are constantly reminded of past
shame-filled experiences in your interactions with your children.
The shame comes rushing back in an avalanche of feelings and
defenses. When you’re “in” your own shame, everything is distorted.
When your children make mistakes, they’re your mistakes. When they
appear defective, you feel defective. You can easily become overly
concerned about other people’s opinions, and about what’s right and
wrong.
And in this avalanche of shame, you can lose sight of the most
important thing of all—the needs of your children.
Here are some steps to limit or avoid the impact of shame on your
family:
 | Look at your own history of shame, and how it’s triggered by
your children. Try to find the irrational thoughts and messages
that are getting you into trouble. Get to know these triggers
well, and be prepared for them.
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| Get to know your child’s reaction to shame, and how quickly
they can reconnect with you after a shaming episode. Never
forget that your child wants to be in a positive, loving
relationship with you. The sooner you can reconnect after a
shaming episode, the better.
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| Tell your children that shaming messages happen, and that
most parents (and most kids) say irrational things and act in
irrational ways at times. This will help them to process what’s
happened to them.
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| Be the first one to initiate better feelings between you and
your child after a shaming episode. If it takes awhile for your
child to recover, be patient with the process, but don’t stop
trying to reconnect.
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| Don’t beat yourself up after you shame your child. This only
gets you caught up in the same cycle of shame that you unleashed
on your child. Practice the art of being kind and gentle with
yourself. |
My son finished cleaning up the food, and sat back down at the
table with a long look on his face. He didn’t look ready to
reconnect with his Dad anytime soon.
“Thanks for cleaning up, buddy. If you’re done eating, you can
wrestle this big, mean daddy to the ground in the family room.”
After shaking his head, a corner of his mouth curled up. Seconds
later, we were doing battle on the family room floor. This shaming
episode was over, and the recovery was rapid. But the expression of
shame does a great deal of damage to your kids, and it’s ready to
rush forward in a heartbeat.
Learning more about your own legacy of shame can be the first
step towards lessening the frequency of these unconscious reactions.
All it takes is a willingness to visit a difficult part of your
past, and a determination to leave a better legacy for your own
family.
You didn’t deserve shame when you were a kid.
Your kids don’t, either.
Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC,
coaches busy fathers by phone to balance their life and
improve their family relationships. Mark is an Instructor
for the Academy for Coaching Parents (www.acpi.biz), and the
author of “25 Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers.”
http://www.markbrandenburg.com/father.htm
Visit him and the free
resources at his site at http://www.markbrandenburg.com
BOOKS BY MARK BRANDENBURG -
Click here to buy
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25 Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers
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60
Tips for Fathers to Create Happy, Connected, and Responsible
Kids |
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"Fix Your Wife in 30 Days or Less" (And Improve Yourself
at the Same Time)
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