64. Trauma, Shame, and the Power of Modeling Reconnection

Today’s episode is all about trauma – ‘Big T Trauma’, and ‘little t trauma’. As you may have noticed, the word ‘traumatized’ is greatly overused in parenting these days, and I have more than a few thoughts that I want and need to share with you all about it.

First off, I define what both ‘Big T Trauma’ and ‘little t trauma’ are, explain why we need to stop using the word ‘traumatizing’, and explore the notion of ‘childhood wounds’ and their basis in shame. I then share some of Brene Brown’s ideas surrounding the toxic nature of shame along with some of my own, and offer some strategies to help you avoid adding to it and to help your kids become more resilient with it. You’re going to want to be sure to stick around until the very end for my own moment of epiphany regarding the power that modeling holds in increasing or reducing shame. This is an intensely personal episode for me concerning a topic with which we all have experience, and about which we can and must make a positive impact in our own lives and the lives of our children.

The Finer Details of This Episode:

· ‘Big T Trauma’ includes all the things that affect your physical and mental wellbeing, such as physical and mental abuse and severe neglect

· ‘Big T Trauma’ affects brain development, and is often generational

· Things like timeouts, potty training, and sleep training are not traumatizing

· Shame goes hand in hand with humiliation

· We can’t really control these wounds from happening, but we can avoid adding to them, and we can help our kids be a little more resilient to them

· Brene Brown is an excellent resource who defines shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and, therefore, unworthy of love and belonging

· People become involved in drugs and alcoholism because of shame

· Stop trying to be perfect – it will result in you losing ‘your shit’ and that is where the damage comes in

· You have to deal with your own wounds and emotions

· When we rage at our kids, or, conversely, react with silence, we create fear in them and fear translates into shame later on in their lives

· Be cautious to state that it’s the behavior that is undesirable, not the child

· Be willing to listen to your child when they have a legitimate complaint about you – don’t get defensive – and be willing to change

· If your child does something wrong, say it once and then let it go – don’t keep repeating it

· Model the behavior you’re looking for

· There’s no reason to feel shame, to feel disconnected – reconnect after the dust settles to avoid the wounds

· Model to your kids that fuck-ups happen and that you can reconnect – if, instead, you rage and get defensive, you model that they should be ashamed of fuck-ups

Quotes:

“Your child is going to grow up and have some childhood wounds…it is going to happen no matter how wonderful a parent you are.”

“I think this is so awful a feeling that we, as humans, will do anything to run from it.” 

“The pain of shame is so huge.”

“We all have these moments of dysregulation…you have to be willing to confront your flaws.”

“No one is ever ‘always’ something or ‘never’ something…once those words are out of our mouths you can’t take them back…the damage is done.”

“He felt scared when I was so quiet, because I was not just being quiet…I was just sucking the oxygen out of the room.”

“You just want to avoid that culture of fear.”

“We’re showing them that fucking up gets you a huge reaction.”

“We want to model how to handle criticism.”

“This is blowing my mind!”

Links:

Jamie’s homepage - http://www.jamieglowacki.com/ 

Oh Crap! Potty Training – https://www.amazon.com/Crap-Potty-Training-Everything-Parenting-ebook/dp/B00V3L8YSU

Oh Crap! I Have A Toddler - 

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Oh-Crap!-I-Have-a-Toddler/Jamie-Glowacki/Oh-Crap-Parenting/9781982109738

Jamie’s Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/join/jamieglowacki?

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