What To Do With Guilt

We are often on the lookout to provide a protective buffer between our children and the more insidious emotions that we want to prevent from creeping in and taking root. Feelings of shame and anxiety, if they occur too much and too often, can be overwhelming and make life unnecessarily hard. We must also acknowledge that experiencing and learning to work through difficult emotions are important components of leading a socially integrated life.

It's easy to confuse guilt and shame, but there is a difference between the two. Guilt can arise when we feel remorseful about our behavior or actions, perhaps if we’ve done something hurtful in a moment of anger. The actions that result in guilt are often repairable and occur during a moment in time. Shame can arise if we begin to feel as though we are unworthy or undeserving, and this emotion is usually perceived as a deeper reflection of flawed character.

Guilt can actually be a useful emotion for developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships; a temporary feeling of guilt, or perhaps the memory of one, can act as an important social regulator by encouraging a balance between our urges in the moment and the rights and needs of others. In other words, there can be inherent value in experiencing some feelings of guilt. When a wrong has been done, feelings of guilt can be the first step towards repairing the damage and making things right.

We can use wobbly moments with our children, when they make mistakes and when feelings of guilt naturally arise, as teaching opportunities to bring awareness to the impact that their behavior has on others. In order to find the right balance between learning through mistakes and the associated guilt, but avoiding a potential slide into shame, keep these points in mind:

• Bring your child’s awareness to their mistake

• Talk about the consequences of their actions

• These can include thoughts, feelings, and impacts on others

• Ask for their ideas on how to make things right

• Emphasize that mistakes are how we learn, that we can repair, and that there are always more opportunities to try again

• Affirm that mistakes and wobbly moments do not make them any less loveable

Guilt will occur naturally within the spectrum of human emotions, and we can intentionally acknowledge it and work with it to shift future behavior in a more positive direction.

And as parents, when we find ourselves getting tangled in guilt over missteps that we’ve made with our children, we can follow the same recipe: awareness of where we’ve gone off track, a discussion about the ripple effects of our behavior, repair, a commitment to do better in the future, and modeling self-compassion by allowing the space and grace for our own mistakes.