Understanding This One Emotion Will Transform Your Parenting

Emily Edlynn, PhD | Parent Smarter, Not Harder

The most powerful question I ask in parent coaching sessions is: “Do you think your child could have been feeling shame in that moment?” The response has been universal. Recognition lights up the parents’ eyes, heads nod in unison, and they confirm, “Yes, definitely.”

I then explain how shame often comes in the disguise of defiance, so it’s easy to miss. The problem is if parents and other adults do not notice the spark of shame lighting their child’s current emotional fire, everyone gets sucked into a spiral of conflict. Alternately, if parents can spot the kindling of shame sparking under the guise of difficult behavior, a tough moment can transform from conflict to connection.

After years of working with families and parenting my own kids, I not only better understand the mysteries of how shame shows up in kids, but what to do and not to do to minimize damage and nurture growth – for our children, us, and our relationships.

If you take one idea from reading this post, let it be this: when behavior escalates, ask yourself — not “how do I stop this?” but “could this be shame?”

Shame Defined

An important feature of shame is that it involves feeling badly about oneself as a person. A common companion, guilt, is different in that guilt means feeling badly about a behavior or action. Guilt is arguably imperative to humans living in community because guilt helps us correct behaviors in order to maintain relationships. Shame, on the other hand, can be quite destructive for self-esteem and self-worth and does not change behaviors like guilt does.1

Because shame is so painful to endure, many people – including children with less developed coping skills – try not to endure it. They subvert it into other forms such as arguing, blaming, withdrawing, and refusing to cooperate. Anger is often the perfect mask to deflect the inner agony that shame brings.

Shame and Neurodivergence

Although everyone can feel shame, some people are more prone to the emotion. As I have previously written about,2 neurodivergent children can be especially sensitive. Whether neurodivergent ingredients include ADHD, autism and/or anxiety, my untested theory is that the greater sensitivity often experienced by neurodivergent people includes more shame.

I hypothesize that a combination of internal wiring and environmental feedback creates this shame sensitivity. Neurodivergence can include greater sensitivity to physical stimuli such as touch, taste, and sound, but also to social and emotional stimuli.

For example, a common feature of ADHD is what’s known as “rejection sensitivity.” This refers to interpreting social cues in more negative ways, easily reading “rejection” in social interactions that others would not. Anxious brains do this too – focusing on the negative input and ignoring the positive to confirm anxious thoughts.

Neurodivergent children can also receive regular feedback from their environments that they are problems to be fixed, that how they show up in their worlds needs correction. Whether it’s the ADHDer who needs movement to focus being told to “sit still,” the anxious child dismissively encouraged to “relax” and “don’t worry,” or the autistic child admonished to “look at me,” neurodivergent children can feel misunderstood, unseen, and not accepted as their truest selves.

This is why a simple and understandable behavior correction can lead to a shame spiral that manifests in a child out of control.

What does this look like in real life? Let’s take an example from one of my recent parent coaching sessions (modified to protect privacy).

The Playground Push

An 8-year-old boy is being teased by a classmate at recess, so the boy pushes him to the ground, which is what the playground supervisor sees. The adult scolds the boy for pushing and gives him a consequence to sit on a bench for the rest of recess. Instead, the boy starts running around the playground refusing to listen or come back to class. This creates a whole production of adults insisting the boy “be safe” and come inside, as well as a call to the parents.

When I hear about this incident, I picture this child’s nervous system hijacked by shame. He did not have control over his angry response to being teased — and now he doesn’t have control over what happens next. Instead of the adults using curiosity and compassion to figure out what preceded the pushing, the boy feels punished and misunderstood. The shame sinks in and his young brain doesn’t know how to regulate that powerful emotion, so his nervous system goes haywire.

He’s processing the message that he’s a “bad kid” and he has the urge to flee from it. So he literally runs.

It’s not just about that one impulsive behavior. It’s not just about the teacher or parent rightfully advising the child that “pushing is not okay.” It’s about the child hearing “I’mnot okay.” On repeat.

From the outside, the behavior looks like defiance. From the inside, it’s a child overwhelmed by shame.

I’m not suggesting to ignore problem behaviors in order to not inadvertently shame a child. Children need limits, boundaries, and feedback about their behaviors as they learn and grow. However, there are strategies to interrupt the shame spiral so it doesn’t send everyone off the rails.

The Shame Response Guide

When shame is driving behavior, your parenting instincts may betray you. Here are the most common traps:

Talking about the behavior problem. As part of being a good parent, it makes sense that parents want to discuss the problem. It falls under the job description of “parent” to talk through an incident: what happened, how the child felt, what they thought, and lessons to be learned. However, when shame is involved, this discussion can quickly escalate into a prolonged meltdown.
- Why It Backfires: First, if a child’s emotions are still running high, verbal processing is hard. It requires more energy than usual to take in all those words adults are saying. Cue more overwhelm. Second, if a child hasn’t moved on from the shame, they will continue to feel the assault on their nervous system, which leads to more fight/flight/freeze behaviors. A productive conversation is impossible.
- What To Do: It doesn’t mean you never talk about it, it just means you don’t talk about it yet. It depends on your child how much time they need to recover, but it’s okay if it’s the next day. The goal is to have the discussion once their emotion brain has quieted so their thinking brain can operate. This is often not possible at the end of a long day when energy resources are depleted.
Taking away a “privilege” that is actually a self-regulating strategy. It can be tempting when disciplining a child to feel like the responsible next step is to remove whatever gives the child joy. It feels counterintuitive to let your child play their favorite iPad games after they just pushed a kid and attempted the great playground escape.
- Why It Backfires: If playing that iPad game calms them and give them an exit ramp out of an activated nervous system, forbidding it can keep them stuck. I can’t count the number of times I hear from parents how their child “tantrummed the whole night” after a rough afternoon at school. How exhausting and awful for everyone!
- What To Do: If it feels uncomfortable to let your child enjoy their favorite screen activity after a transgression, think of a list of activities your child experiences as calming (e.g., drawing, reading, listening to music, playing music) and encourage one of those. Regardless of the specific activity, the goal is for the child to self-regulate so they can more quickly leave the shame behind, and move forward with the day. The longer they get stuck in the shame spiral, the more it compounds over time and their shame sensitivity increases.
Insisting the child apologizes to the other person in the moment. Another intuitive parenting move: make your child apologize! Unfortunately, this “great idea” can also increase shame and resistance.
- Why It Backfires: Again, the child is not in the right mindset to follow such a direction. This can also reinforce their inner shame voice that they are the “bad” one and the other person is the victim (it’s not usually this clearcut). Further, some evidence points to the ineffectiveness of coercing apologies in children; they do not seem to learn what we hope from a forced apology.
- What To Do: You can still parent in the spirit of apologizing. The purpose of saying sorry is to recognize that their action harmed someone else, which involves empathy and perspective-taking. Instead of requiring an apology, you can pose questions such as “how do you think the other kid felt when they got pushed?” Pro tip: This line of questioning results in less defensiveness if your child feels like you understand their emotional experience first. It’s fine to suggest an act of apology as an option for what to do next, but it’s more meaningful and growth-oriented if the child feels like they are choosing it rather than being forced.
Yelling and using any insulting language. Every parent I coach hates yelling — and still does it at least occasionally. I don’t vilify yelling in parenting. However, we all know it feels terrible and can make the situation worse.
- Why It Backfires: When your child feels shame after a transgression, yelling at them will most likely imprint that shame even deeper, which kicks off more defiance and — voila – you have a yelling match.
  Additionally, regardless of volume, any demeaning language will cement that shame even further into a child’s sense of self. For example: “you can never get it right,” “you’re worthless,” “you’ll never amount to anything,” or “you’re a monster.” Most parents insightful enough to subscribe to a parenting newsletter likely recoil at these extremes, but I point them out in case you have a co-parent or other caregiver who might get to this point. These sentiments leave wounds that fester with each future incident.
  
  You may cringe at the above language, but there are some softer versions that although not as damaging, can still perpetuate a child’s inner shame: “what’s wrong with you?” “how could you do that?” “what were you thinking?” In a parent’s own activated nervous system, these thoughts may get verbalized even when the parent would never say them in a calm moment.
- What To Do: As a mother in heated moments with my own shame-prone children, I have finally learned how critical it is that I take an honest temperature check of my own emotions, and DO NOT ENGAGE until I’m calm. Or at least calmer. We don’t need to resolve everything in that moment. Recognizing that my child’s shame is flaring up helps me reach for effective tools more intentionally (e.g., focusing on their regulation and offering comfort instead of following the urge to immediately address the behavior).
  It’s not because I’m so evolved that I can resist my most human reaction; it’s a survival skill to avoid the escalation that comes with a shame spike. This constraint on my part doesn’t just help my kids feel less shame, but it helps me to avoid the labor of managing the output of that shame.
Withdrawing love and comfort. Another instinctual parenting response – often due to parents’ own experiences growing up – is to separate oneself from a child who has just caused problems. Just like the enjoyable activities, a parent may feel as if they are “rewarding” their child’s misbehavior by offering connection.
- Why It Backfires: Although I understand the impulse, it is the opposite of what works for most children. When shame is in play, a child already feels a sense of rejection, so a parent’s withdrawal of attention, love, and comfort can amplify that rejection experience. Again, this reinforces the shame pattern rather than helping to heal it.
- What To Do: Respond to the emotions underlying the behavior, and address the behavior later. When a child feels ashamed of themselves and is acting out, see your job as getting them back to a calm baseline where teaching and learning can occur. Some kids do need to be alone with their favorite self-soothing activity, but others really need comfort and assurance that their parent loves them despite their mistake.
  This comfort and reassurance could take various forms, but may look like offering hugs or saying “I love you so much and I’m so sorry you had such a hard end to the school day.” You know your kid and what feels best to them. Remember: you’re not teaching a child to misbehave by showing love and comfort; you’re reinforcing they are lovable and important even when they make mistakes.

Shame Diffused

You may not be able to prevent your child from experiencing shame, but you can be a critical part of interrupting the shame spiral. Less shame means less intense meltdowns, less parenting stress, and more peace in the family.

Here’s what I have seen happen time and time again with parents I work with and in my own family: once shame is on the radar and parents feel equipped to respond to it, life changes.

I’m not exaggerating.

Kids go from escalating to recovering more quickly. The same child, same parent, but a change in the shame cycle. With this transformation of a parent’s mindset comes a meaningful shift in parent-child interactions when a child is struggling.

Try it: the next time your child shows defiance after a regrettable behavior, instead of focusing on the behavior, ask yourself if they could be feeling shame. And if yes—what would it look like to respond to the shame instead of the behavior?

What’s your experience with noticing the role of shame in your family? Please share your thoughts!

Ten Thousand

Friends, I reached a major Substack milestone this week: I passed 10,000 subscribers!! This inexplicable flood of new readers in 2026 reinforces my mission to bring you all practical, grounded, science-based parenting support. With the privilege of working with so many families IRL comes insights into patterns and common experiences (like understanding shame) that is impossible to see from the vantage point of your singular parenting experience. Thank you for subscribing and for trusting in me!

In parenting solidarity,

Guest Author: Emily Edlynn, PhD.

Emily Edlynn, PhD, is a clinical psychologist based in Oak Park, IL. Her writing is for general educational purposes only. It does not constitute and should not substitute for individual professional advice, psychotherapy, or the provision of psychological services.

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