Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive

by Daniel J. Siegel

Repeated, prolonged, and unrepaired experiences of toxic ruptures are damaging to the child’s developing mind. If we have had repeated experiences of toxic rupture without repair in our own childhoods, shame may play a significant role in our mental lives, even outside our awareness. Sudden shifts in our feelings and in our communication with others may indicate that the shame defenses are becoming activated. Experiences in which we feel vulnerable or powerless can trigger the defenses that our minds have constructed to protect us from awareness of such a painful state of shame when we were children. These defenses may persist into our adulthoods and influence our parenting. Reflection is an important process in beginning to unravel the complex and rapid mechanisms of a shame dynamic that may be impairing our ability to parent effectively.