I was making an attempt at humor with one of my children the other day and she got quite upset with me. I was reminding her of something she said a year or two ago that I thought was funny. She, on the other hand, was feeling embarrassed about her comments and behavior and didn’t see it as humorous at all. Even though I like to think that I am a sensitive, in tune mom—I realized that what I thought was humor, she experienced as “shaming” and that wasn’t a good thing at all…
Shaming is when we use comments, stories, etc. to try to make other people feel badly or feel ashamed. I suppose this might be considered “old school” parenting but what I have had to learn is that even when I am not intending to make someone feel ashamed, particularly one of my children, they do have triggers. We might not know what sort of triggers might make coworkers, friends, and etc. feel ashamed, but we can try to tune into our children so that we don’t contribute to making them feel ashamed. What an icky place to be! I know that there are things in my life that I am not proud of and I definitely don’t want to be reminded of them. While joking around and using humor to alleviate some of the stress and tension of family life can be a great technique—if it makes someone else feel badly, than it isn’t being used properly.
The thing that I have to remind myself with my kids as they get older is that what seems like humorous, typical “growing-up” stuff to me—can actually be traumatic and huge to them. I love and accept them regardless so I can tolerate all sorts of mishaps and misbehaviors but as they have developed a conscious and worked to “mature”—they feel embarrassed and ashamed of some of the things they have done and said in the not-so-distant past. They just aren’t ready to laugh about it yet so it is unfair for me to try to joke about it. As I discussed it with my daughter, we decided that she wants to leave things in the past and I should respect that. If it isn’t funny to anyone but me, I should be keeping that to myself. The last thing I want to do as a parent is pile on shame and embarrassment that will undercut my kids’ self-esteem.
Also: Watch out for Shame