Although
everyone experiences shame in their lives, people with learning disabilities
have to battle shame more often than their non-learning disabled peers. When children with learning disabilities
begins school they learn very quickly that adults (and peers) in their lives think
less than ideal about them either via implied or direct messages. These messages hurt and make the children
feel less-than, worthless, stupid, unlovable… Eventually these messages become shame-ridden
scripts replayed over and over damaging their self-esteem and leaving deep
scars. Here's a previous post regarding Brene Brown and her research on Shame.
Shame is
different than guilt. Guilt is when you
feel bad because of something you did while shame is when you feel bad because
you believe you ARE bad. For example,
when a student fails a test one student may feel bad that they just didn’t
study hard enough (guilt) while another student feels that HE/SHE is a failure
(shame). Research has provided evidence that shame is
highly correlated with addiction, depression, eating disorders, bullying,
aggression, and violence. These are also
highly comorbid (common) in students with learning disabilities - this is
connected to SHAME! Here's a previous post about Depression in children what you need to know.
Imagine if
you will, a first grade student with undiagnosed dyslexia, I’ll call him
Charlie. The students in the classroom are
learning to read and although the teacher is teaching the students all the same
way and Charlie is putting forth great effort, he just can’t seem to grasp
reading skills. His teacher feeling her
own guilt (and/or shame) because no matter what she does he just can’t seem to
learn to read or his reading is inconsistent.
Charlie’s parents are experiencing anxiety thinking something is wrong
and Charlie overhears his parents discussing their concerns and begins to think
something is wrong with HIM.
Charlie’s
parents meet with his teacher to discuss their concerns and are either
validated and made to feel they are on the right path or dismissed as over-concerned
parents and minimized. A variety of scenarios
will occur here – the school may be receptive right away and assure Charlie is
educated appropriately with an Orton-Gillingham method and parent anxiety is
reduced so Charlie is less likely to perceive that HE is stupid or something
wrong with HIM – or the other extreme and the school denies Charlie has a disability,
blames parents and/or Charlie for his lack of learning, refuses to evaluate,
attacks parents for wanting to “label” their child, and therefore Charlie’s parents become more
scared for Charlie, his teacher becomes more defensive (due to her own shame or
guilt or because her hands are tied by the school) and Charlie now KNOWS that
there is something wrong with him that he is stupid. Most
scenarios are fall somewhere in between but the point here is how easy it is
for Charlie to feel shame because he is struggling with reading all because he
is dyslexic and therefore needs to be taught to read via an Orton-Gillingham
approach and that many teachers and parents don’t know about dyslexia so they
are not able to tell Charlie that there is nothing wrong with HIM.
Charlie may
share his feelings of shame by saying things like “I’m stupid” or “I’m a
failure” but he also may be displaying his shame behaviorally through depression,
anger, acting silly, or even avoiding activities that make him feel bad about
himself. When Charlie shares his
feelings of shame either verbally or behaviorally, he is validated, minimized,
or gets into trouble- then the cycle of shame continues. Charlie’s peers become part of this cycle as
well. Sometimes it is as obvious as name
calling (block-head) but sometimes (and most often) it is relational aggression
where he becomes the student that no one picks to partner with or excluded
socially. These only reinforce Charlie’s
negative scripts of shame.
Sometimes
Charlie finds a strength and will focus on that strength to counter some of the
feelings of shame. Maybe Charlie is
great at tennis so he excels on the tennis court – for some kids this is enough
protection from shame invading their whole life. Charlie, however, is good at some things and
could possibly be great if an adult would just step in and nurture his
strengths to reduce the pain of the shame.
Unfortunately, adults only view Charlie as lazy, unmotivated, not living
up to his potential, annoying, stupid, or a trouble-maker so they don’t want to
bother with him. Again, more validation
that Charlie is right, something is wrong with HIM-- he is not good enough!
I could go
on and on about Charlie’s life, explain how shame permeates everything he does,
how hard it is for him to be successful because he doesn’t experience much
success and when he does experience success he has such a negative self-script
that it is difficult for him to accept the success, how teachers and the system
consistently add to his bucket of shame (either intentionally or unintentionally)
or how the way he deals with shame are often not productive but I won’t because
I think you get the picture.
Instead I
want to help you see ways we can help Charlie and other kids like Charlie. I used dyslexia as my example but it can be
replaced with any type of disability (ADHD, Dysgraphia, Asperger’s…) and the
results would be the same. I’d like to
point out that the more hidden a disability the more likely that the child will
have intense shame. This is because it
is not socially acceptable to call a student lazy if she is struggling to get
her wheelchair to move instead, we provide her assistance --but it does seem to
be acceptable for teachers to call or imply a student is lazy when they are
struggling academically and/or socially.
Ways to make
change:
We must
first recognize the difference between shame and guilt. Guilt is “I feel terrible I ate too much over
the holidays, I should start working out more” and shame is “I ate too much
over the holidays, I’m so fat, I have no self-control, I hate myself…” Or from the perspective of a young child who
lost a game: guilt is “Darn I lost, I feel bad so I’ll have to practice and I’ll
eventually win” and shame is “I lost again, I’m such a loser.”
We need to
openly talk about shame and know that everyone experiences shame. When we hide shame we only allow it to grow
more deadly. We have lost too many
people to suicide, especially kids – kids are not killing themselves because of
guilt they are killing themselves because they feel shame! When we shine light on shame and call it out
into the open it can no longer hide and we can battle it head on.
We need to
stop putting a negative stigma on mental health disorders (depression, anxiety,
bi-polar…) and learning disabilities (I’ll stop calling them disabilities by the
way, when we can openly accept and embrace all of them and there is no shame in
having any of them – in the mean time I must use the word disability so that
educators understand the severity of the problem the student is struggling
with)! When we are proud to share that
we are depressed, dyslexic, or ADHD and people/teachers do not make judgments
but instead accept us as we are, then and only then will shame be reduced.
We must
label kids appropriately and as early as possible. Research provides
evidence that the earlier a child is diagnosed the less shame and negative
effects they experience later on. Sometimes parents are told “don’t label
your child” or “why do you want to label your child.” The thing is the
child is already getting miss labeled which is filling them with shame.
The correct label will reduce this shame. When adults are finally
accurately diagnosed there is a sense of relief that they are not all the
negative things they thought they were, they were just dyslexic, ADHD, or have
Asperger’s. You hear about this from the likes of Steven Spielberg, Susan
Boyles, Henry Winkler, and so forth. Wouldn't it be great if we
can stop the shame before it even begins?
We need to
teach empathy in schools and STOP teaching bullying prevention programs (Empathy is the antidote to bullying). What we focus on expands and therefore by
focusing on bullying and differences we are priming our students to look for
bullying and differences. When we teach
empathy we instill in our students the skills needed to see the world through
the eyes of others and a result is a more positive support world where people
care openly and honestly about others. A
place where there is less shame because when a student hears his peer say “I’m
stupid, I failed that test” and that student can tell his peer – “failing a
test doesn’t make you stupid in fact, you are so good at [fill in the blank]
remember we learn from our mistakes.”
We need to
celebrate all students and stop excluding those that don’t fit the ‘super-star’
mold. Have you ever been to a graduation
or award ceremony that shames those who are not in the spotlight? This is very common – I wrote about one such
event months ago Stop the Shaming but the gist is if the educators had empathy they would be
able to see things from the perspective of all the students who were not showered
with accolades and at least acknowledge their existence. When students with
learning disabilities have to sit in these award events remember they have a
negative shaming script running through their heads that tell them the reason
they are not getting an award is because they are NOT good enough, they are
stupid, or unworthy. Is that really the
message educators want to send – no, but it is still happening.
I could
continue but want you to digest what I have already written. Don’t worry my Dragonfly friends, I will
discuss this again.
I want to
leave you with this…
**By the way - did anyone think of this Charlie when I discussed the "Charlie" above? I was not referring to Charlie Brown but I hope you can see the shame that Charlie Brown experienced cause if so, you are developing or have empathy!
