How do you view your child’s misbehavior?  Why do you think your children lie, cheat, or get sneaky and steal?

What messages do you hear in your head as a parent of a child doing something you don’t want them to?

Do you see it as a character flaw?  A lack of good conscience?  A deliberate attempt to upset you?  An attempt to manipulate those around them?

Or, do you see it as part of a developmental phase, a time of growth in abilities to test boundaries and exercise new mental muscles.  Trying to meet a need, but maybe in an inappropriate or self-defeating way?

How you view your child’s misbehavior will determine how you respond.  The first set of parental reactions can more easily lead to harsh, angry reactions and feeling a need to control your child’s behavior.  It can also be easier to place blame on your child for acting “bad” and create a sense of shame in your child.

Some parents do not see this as a problem.  They sincerely believe that it is ths way to instill a better consciouence, a stronger sense of right and wrong.  They believe that the harsher the punishment, the more their child will remember the lesson and the more they will be detered from repeating the misbehavior.

We all want to raise kids with a good conscience to guide their ability to make good choices.  And, we hope that feelings of guilt will be their indicator that something needs to be corrected. But lets take a close look at shame and how it can play out in the life of a child.

Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D., Author of The Highly Sensitive Child describes the difference between guilt and shame:

Shame – and guilt, its gentler cousin – are powerful built-in “self-conscious” emotions (like pride).  Psychologists distinguish them in this way:  While guilt focuses on particular misdeeds and, often, on what can be done to amend them, shame is a feeling that the entire self is bad.  Thus, when one feels guilty, one assumes an active self that can do something wrong and make it right; being ashamed, one assumes one is passive or helpless.  When feeling guilty, people tend to engage rather than withdraw, trying to make amends or at least defend themselves.  When ashamed, people hang their head or avert their eyes, withdrawing, slumping, and looking small, indicating submission or just wishing they coudl disappear.  It feels terrible.

She also states,

No one feels shame or guilt all the time.  But they can become almost like a personality trait, in that some people become shame or guilt prone, much as people become anxious or shy by nature.  Shame, guilt, shyness, or anxiety ar things anyone can feel sometimes, but some people feel them almost all the time.

In terms of special needs of sensitive children,  she states,

Shaming as a method of correcting an HSC is the sledgehammer method of putting in a thumbtack.  

When the HSC  internalizes the shame, it can be debilitating.