Breaking Free from Guilt & Shame Parenting Tactics

What if the key to a happier, more fulfilling relationship with your children lies in breaking free from the cycle of guilt and shame?

This episode of Unveiled promises to illuminate the path toward conscious parenting, particularly during the holiday season, when pressures and expectations run high. Drawing from personal stories, I share my own journey of choosing connection over obligation with my 19-year-old daughter, resisting old habits of using guilt to influence her choices. Through these experiences, we explore how transforming our approach can lead to healthier, more joyful relationships with our kids.

Beyond personal anecdotes, I tackle the larger issue of emotional mastery for parents and its crucial role in nurturing self-esteem and independence in children. The discussion covers practical strategies, such as open emotional dialogues and reflective practices, to help break generational parenting patterns that rely on guilt and shame.

Also highlighted is my program, "Rewiring Motherhood," which provides parents with tools to shift from reactive to regulated behaviors. By equipping ourselves with these skills, we can raise emotionally resilient children and forge stronger family bonds, leaving a legacy of conscious parenting for generations to come.

NEW PROGRAM ($44 Presale): Rewiring Motherhood - From Reactive to Regulated

Chapters

• 0:05 Parenting Guilt and Shame Cycle
• 8:08 Teaching Emotional Mastery to Parents
• 21:14 Breaking Generational Parenting Patterns

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to Unveiled the podcast. I'm your host, angela Christian, and I help you with unveiling your true self by peeling away the layers that society placed on you. I do this with a combination of neuroscience, energetics and ancient spiritual wisdom. I went from underpaid and overworked in corporate America to launching a six-figure company that continues to grow. I went from toxic relationships to being happy and single for over a year as I worked and continue to work on becoming the best version of myself, and so much more. My greatest passion is to help women and mothers heal, transform and become the highest versions of themselves. Heal, transform and become the highest versions of themselves. As I continue to grow and expand my intuitive knowledge and unique wisdom, I'll be including you on my journey to millions, so let's get into it.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Okay, welcome back to Unveiled. Today we're going to talk about parenting without guilt and shame. Today we're going to talk about parenting without guilt and shame, breaking the cycle. So I decided to do this episode for several reasons. One, because the holidays are upon us, yay. But that also means other people might be parenting your children with their tactics, right. So even if you don't parent with guilt and shame which I would say, like 95% of parents do, then you're going to be dealing with other people doing that. So I'm going to give two personal examples and then we'll get into why this topic is really critical.

Speaker 2: 1:35

So the first story I'll share is my oldest daughter. She's 19. She's been living in Southern California, going to college, and so she's flying home, or she actually flew, flew home yesterday and I was so excited to see her. We have called ourselves the Gilmore Girls forever and you know we basically grew up together because I was pretty young when I had her and so, good or bad, we were a like sisters, similar to the Gilmore Girls. And just you know, I wasn't a conscious parent with her in her formative years. I very much followed the guilt and shame tactics that my mom. Love her. Nothing against my mom. I'm, you know my mom's open to hearing a different way, which I love, right. So I'll get to that in a second. But whenever I hear my mom doing the guilt and shame circus, I remind her nicely why we don't do that. So, anyway, I was parenting my oldest very much in the way that I was parented, and we'll talk about what that does to children and why it's like there's so much undoing right once they're an adult. So you can stop this now.

Speaker 2: 2:49

So my daughter flew in yesterday and I had asked her you know, I'll come pick you up, like I'll get a hotel, blah, blah, blah. She's like, no, mom, I want my friends to pick me up and she originally was going to come see me on Tuesday. So then she gets in yesterday and she's like actually I'm going to come see you on Wednesday and Thursday and then. So basically she's here from she flew in yesterday and then she leaves Saturday, monday to Saturday. So out of those days I'm going to get to see her Wednesday, thursday, and then she's going back to her friend's house because her best friend lives in this area for the rest of the weekend.

Speaker 2: 3:28

So I was crying a little inside but I don't want her to spend time with me out of guilt and shame. Right, I want her to want to spend time with me and it's like, when you think of it from that perspective, it makes so much sense. But when you're in the moment and you've been parented in that way, with guilt and shame, it's really hard, or it can be really hard, to see through that, right? So, instead of saying which, this is what my mom would have done. I pay for your college because I do. I fully support her. She doesn't have to work. I fully pay for her life in Southern California. I support you. I fully pay for her life in Southern California. I support you. I do this. And you can't even come home and see me for more than two nights.

Speaker 2: 4:09

Like I totally could have said that, right, but what is that going to do to our relationship? Like she's 19, right, I don't want to drive a wedge between us. So I just said okay, and it's okay to say okay and cry inside, but I have to walk myself through this, even though you know it brings up my own emotions. I'm like I again, I want her to spend time with me because she wants to and, who knows, she might end up spending more time with me because I didn't guilt and shame her, right. She might think, oh well, I do want to spend more time with my mom. That's one story.

Speaker 2: 4:41

Another story is this week my kids are home from school. My little ones and my mom again love her, but this is what she did to us too, as kids. She'll try to use a tactic like. I hadn't actually seen her use this tactic before, but it really bothered me. She said she was telling one of my children if you don't do this, then I'm not going to like you telling my one of my children if you don't do this, then I'm not gonna like you. Or she said something like along those lines and I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, we do not use our love to get them to do something. And I was. I tried and I sat and I explained to her why, and then she like understood.

Speaker 2: 5:21

But you guys, I don't know how I'm conscious after the way I was parented and it's like a lot of us, right. I mean, obviously, that all happened for a reason. My higher self chose my parents, chose for me to go through all of this, to break out of it, to break the cycle, right, and I'm not going to lie, sometimes I will almost say something along the guilt and shame parenting lines, and I'm sure I probably do and then sometimes I do say it and then I'll backtrack. It's never too late to fix something, right? Like you can say I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that it's better to do that than to just like go along with it, right? So some other examples might be like how could you do this after everything I've done for you? I used to say that to my kids. My mom still says that to me, right? If you're listening to my podcast, then you're definitely someone who wants to break free from this cycle. And I should say, even if you're not a parent, this applies to you because you possibly were parented in this way, and so in my membership I have at least two clearings on childhood programming that gets this guilt and shame collateral damage cleared. So if this is something you're dealing with, you can pop into the membership, listen to those audios and shift that within you, right?

Speaker 2: 6:47

Because guilt and shame tactics create emotional wounds that children carry into adulthood, and we'll talk about what that looks like. So let's talk about what are guilt and shame tactics, and they are different, right, guilt and shame are not the same thing. So a guilt tactic might look like making your child feel like they owe you for your sacrifices or for just parenting, right, like my mom still does this, as I mentioned. It doesn't feel good, even as an adult. So a shame tactic would be like attacking their sense of self-worth, like why can't you be like your sister? Or you're so lazy. Those would be like shame tactics. So why and you might already guess why why do parents default to these tactics? Because it's the way that their parents parented them. Right, and it just reflects unconscious childhood programming which I had to undo so much of. And you know, I'm sure there's still more to undo, right, the more that you undo, there's deeper and deeper layers. So this is why I love helping people shift out of these old childhood programs and you just feel like oh my gosh, this is me, this is my authentic self, after you're able to release those layers of guilt and shame.

Speaker 2: 8:08

Right, sometimes parents do this because they're just really overwhelmed or their emotions are out of control. Right, like lack of emotional mastery skills will definitely put the parent into fight or flight where they're just like just do it, you little lazy slob or whatever they say, right? That's why emotional mastery is key. That's why I'm always talking about emotional mastery. You can get into my membership. There are three audios in there right now. I'm about to release the fourth and I think there'll be a fifth too. Yes, there will be. I'm also going to pull out the emotional mastery audios and sell that as a separate little mini program on its own, because that's how important it is, right? So you can use the emotional mastery skills that I teach to stop in your tracks before you lose control, before you're so overwhelmed that you say something that could have a long-term effect on your child right?

Speaker 2: 9:05

So let's talk about the impact of guilt and shame on kids. So, some short-term effects yes, it might make them comply, but it's fear-based, right. It's either fear-based or avoidance-based. So they're either doing it because they're scared or because they're trying to, like, avoid a fight right. But long term effects this is what happened to me. This is what I had to undo, and I actually am still working through some of these. I'll talk about it in a second.

Speaker 2: 9:36

Low self-esteem, perfectionism, people pleasing and difficulty setting boundaries and again, I have audios on all of these inside my membership. And then this creates shame-based identities like I'm not good enough, right. And so when you have a parent who's using these guilt and shame tactics, what do you think that will look like when you go out to have a romantic relationship? I know for me in relationships in the past I would bend over backwards trying to please my partner. I would like go out of my way. I would sacrifice my own intuition, my own well-being to do things for them, because I thought approval meant love, because that's how I was raised and that's how the majority of people are raised, where approval equals love. And that's just not true. So then you know these tactics that might work in the moment.

Speaker 2: 10:40

I also talk about a funny story in one of my childhood programming audios where, you know, I was taught that God is always watching. Because my mom is very religious, god is always watching. Okay, also, santa's always watching and the tooth fairy is always watching and the Easter Bunny is always watching. So we have all these weird creatures watching us and God all the time, right, like kids don't have enough pressure that they feel like they're being watched and judged all the time. So no wonder I suffered in business school from not being able to give presentations because I was worried about judgment and I thought if I mess up, that means I'm a failure. Right, and there's so many examples I could share here. But this is what happens when we use these guilt and shame tactics on our kids and when they were used on us. So what to do instead? One parents, I mean.

Speaker 2: 11:43

I encourage everybody, whether you're a parent or not, emotional mastery. Emotional mastery regulates your nervous system and I give very specific tools in my membership, like do this, do this, do this. It's very like. You can write them down, you can follow these steps, and I do this as soon as I feel, and I explain this. But, like, as soon as you feel your body reacting, I can tell the second I'm starting to get triggered and I implement these techniques before I react right, and then use the moments of frustration as an opportunity to change your tactic, because what that will do is it will suffocate those old neural networks and it will create new neural networks and new programs where your go-to parenting style won't be guilt and shame right. So the more we do it, the more it becomes natural. Second, use connection, not control, building a relationship of trust where the child feels safe to grow to fail and I put that in quotation marks because nothing's really failure, it's just learning right. Use their obstacles as opportunities.

Speaker 2: 13:02

So, for me, when my son who I'm teaching emotional mastery if he has like an angry day, I sit down and I talk with him and sometimes, when kids are acting out like that, they really just want love and a hug. So I'll ask him when he's having that issue hey, do you want a hug? Sometimes he'll say yes, sometimes no, sometimes he needs space. And I'll tell him okay, go, take space and I'm happy to come talk to you when you're ready to talk. And then we talk about all of his emotions. I tell him let's name all the emotions you're feeling, because we're never just feeling one. You see, this is what I'm really passionate about is teaching kids this at a very young age. It's never too late. But, like, if we teach this to kids at a very young age, they're not going to have the issues that the majority of the world has not being able to control their emotions.

Speaker 2: 13:52

I mean, all you have to do is look on social media people reacting left and right. Right, I had someone. I posted something on someone else's posts about how I would love to see the school lunches in public schools be healthier foods, because this affects a lot of kids. And someone like attacked me basically for saying that and I actually laughed because I was just like, oh my gosh Not that it's funny, but it's like any other people might have like reacted back and got into this back and forth. I don't waste my time on that because they're clearly in fight or flight. I feel bad for them, like I just block them. I have no problem just blocking people. Feel bad for them, like I just block them. I have no problem just blocking people. I have no interest in engaging with people in arguments, especially online, where they can hide behind their phone or computer and just make little rude remarks, right?

Speaker 2: 14:45

So getting back to connection, not control, when your child feels seen, heard and loved, that's going to build connection. That's going to help them express how they're feeling to you without you even asking, right? So sometimes my five-year-old he just turned five he'll say, mom, I'm feeling really angry and I'm like great, let's talk about it. Or sometimes I'll just give him like a kid rake and he'll go outside and he'll just like hit the ground, whatever he needs to do, right to process it. And so instead of trying to control and that's another thing my mom did was she still wants to control us, even though we're adult children, because that makes her feel safe. Right, like trying to control the situation. That's a whole different topic. But a lot of parents use control tactics or like saying because I said so, a lot of parents say that and I get it, I used to say that too, but that doesn't teach our kids anything.

Speaker 2: 15:47

What I do, and this just happened this morning. My son I was showing him yesterday how to cut snowflakes out of construction paper, like I used to do as a kid. I couldn't find the kid scissors, so there were only the very sharp, like adult scissors. So this morning I was like you can use these while I stand here with you. So he did, and then he wanted to take them over to the table because we have family here and show his cousins how to do it, and I said no, I'm about to leave, so you can't just take the sharp scissors. My mom tried to interject and say like you can't do it, you know, and I said, no, we just need to explain to him why, like if you use these sharp scissors, you could get hurt. One of your cousins could get hurt. Then we might have to go to the hospital and that would like ruin the plans for today. Like, really put it in perspective. It just, you know, it might take a couple extra seconds to do that, but it builds connection.

Speaker 2: 16:44

Third, I already talked about this a little bit, but teach emotional skills. Naming their emotions is huge because the second that they name the emotions, it actually releases a lot of that energy for them and this allows them to process their feelings without judgment. Because when I was a child I was told to suppress my emotions. Basically it's not what they said to me, but like stop crying, get over it, you're fine, you have so much to be grateful for. Get over it, you're fine, you have so much to be grateful for.

Speaker 2: 17:17

All of those phrases teach us our feelings don't matter, right? So no wonder in romantic relationships and even actually friendships, work relationships, I never felt comfortable expressing my feelings or my needs. Right Now I do. I wouldn't say I'm 100% there, but I would say I'm like 75% there. I'm working on it all the time. So I will lean in. If something feels uncomfortable, like I really want to express myself right here, I will lean into the discomfort, my habits to follow right and then finally repairing after guilt and shame moments because, look, nobody's perfect. So if you catch yourself feeling super overwhelmed, like maybe you're someone with a lot of kids, and like one's spilling something, one's screaming, you haven't had your coffee yet and you're like, oh my god, just leave me alone. You know, can't you go do this? Like, can't you be like your brother, whatever, if you do that, it's okay. Just take a moment.

Speaker 2: 18:26

You could follow the emotional techniques I share in my emotional mastery audios or just simply say like you know, know what, I was wrong to react that way. I'm sorry. That's huge. I apologize to my kids if I feel like I overreacted. Like my nine-year-old, you know she's very sensitive and if I say something in a tone that makes her feel a little sad, like sometimes, I'll just take a moment and say you know what, I'm sorry. I can see how that came off as insensitive, like blah, blah, blah, and we'll talk about it. Okay.

Speaker 2: 19:01

So here are some like common scenarios. If one of your children forget something, like, let's say, they forget to turn in their homework, instead of saying something like, oh my god, how can you be so careless? Try. What can we do differently next time to help you remember, right? Do you see how that goes from shaming them to connection? Or if a child isn't listening to you, instead of saying, god, you never listened to me, believe me, with my five-year-old I want to say that a lot, but I find other ways to say that so you could say like I don't really feel like I'm being heard right now. Can we talk about this? I mean, maybe you would change it a little bit for a five-year-old. My five-year-old's used to me talking in this way, so he gets it. But not all kids will be used to a parent who does this right, but hopefully it will become the norm.

Speaker 2: 20:01

So tips for you this week, especially during the holidays really practice mindfulness and I know mindfulness is such a generic term these days, but just like, bring yourself to the present moment for a second. The first thing I always teach my students is the second you feel triggered or overwhelmed. Engage your five senses. What do you see, what do you smell, what do you hear? Because when we get triggered, our focus becomes very narrow. Our focus becomes very narrow. So as soon as you engage your five senses, that creates more of a zoomed out focus. When we're narrow focused, that is fight or flight, just like the bunny who is running away from the fox. The bunny is not looking to the left for carrots or to the right to rest, it is just looking straight ahead. It has a very narrow focus of survival, right? So the second you get into a narrow focus, you are triggering your fight or flight and blood, energy, intelligence is literally draining from your brain and it's not going to be helpful for anybody, right?

Speaker 2: 21:14

Maybe take some time and just notice, like, what were some things that happened in your childhood, right? What parenting techniques did your parents use that you see that you're using now and you don't want to use those? Right, and then just take, even if you need. I do this If I'm really like, okay, I'm feeling really overwhelmed in this moment, I'll just go into the bathroom and lock the door and, like, even for 30 seconds, just do some deep breathing. That's better than losing it in front of your kids, right? So again, some key takeaways.

Speaker 2: 21:53

Guilt and shame tactics might seem effective in the moment or in the short term, but they significantly harm children in the long term and harm their emotional health. Conscious, regulated parenting creates more confident and resilient kids and we need that now, like we need that so much. Right, and you can do this. It doesn't matter your age, it doesn't matter how old your kids are. So, instead of feeling overwhelmed like, oh my God, I'm, like a horrible parent, I'm doing all of this, don't do that. That won't help.

Speaker 2: 22:30

Just think about one parenting habit or one guilt or shame tactic that you want to stop using, so one that might be pretty common, which I used to do this too, to my oldest Santa's watching you, like I would do that when I felt like everything else wasn't working. But that could be one that you're like. Okay, I'm not going to do that. Instead, try to figure out why they're acting that way. You know again, if you need support, you can join my membership. It's right now. It's only $77 a month and you get a one-on-one check-in with me every month for now, until I reach a certain number, and then that will not be offered. I'm also going to be increasing the prices quite significantly, but if you get in at the $77 a month, you will be locked in for as long as you want to be in there.

Speaker 2: 23:22

So I'll just close this out by saying why does this matter, because kids internalize the messages they receive about their worth and their capabilities with the words and the actions of their parents. Right, so we have the power to break generational patterns. We have the power to stop parenting with guilt and shame tactics and then we will stop the cycles of trauma and abuse and addiction and violence and raise emotionally healthy kids and raise the consciousness of the world. This also builds stronger parent-child bonds. And here's the thing Most parents don't wake up thinking like I'm going to guilt trip my kid today. Yay Right, these behaviors came from how we were parented, and neuroscience has shown that our brain's default responses, especially when stressed or overwhelmed, are shaped in childhood. So if your parents used guilt or shame, your nervous system learned to see that as normal right. And then throw in all the modern day stress of school pickups, work, deadlines, all of this, and it's like no wonder everybody falls into these old patterns. So it's not about blaming you, it's just recognizing where these habits came from and then start to shift them.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Reach out if you have any questions about my membership. And before I forget, I am dropping a brand new program tomorrow called Rewiring Motherhood, and it's all about going from reactive to regulated. It's only going to be $44, you guys. So if you're hearing this and you're like I want that, just send me a DM on Instagram or email me. I'll make sure you're on the wait list.

Speaker 2: 25:11

I'm still working on all the sales page stuff, or else I would link it in the show notes. Maybe I'll come back and link it in the show notes, but what I did is I pulled some of the most transformational audios from my clean BBE program, clean baby daddy energy program that would help mothers go from reactive to regulated. So it's like all these things we're talking about childhood programming and then other audios that are around dealing with a co-parent, but the first three audios are about getting you out of fight or flight. So if today resonated, even if you don't have kids, honestly this program would still be super helpful. And for $44, right, like I just decided, I wanted people to be able to have a taste of my work, which you can also in my membership. But at $44, that's just like a no-brainer price, right, it's like four coffees or something with coffee prices these days, maybe five.

Speaker 2: 26:03

Anyway, I hope all of you that celebrate, all of you in the US. Obviously, I have a lot of international listeners, so this won't apply to you for Thanksgiving, but I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you celebrate that, have a beautiful week Definitely. Let me know if this resonated, with you Sending love to all of you.

Speaker 1: 26:25

Thank you for listening to Unveiled. I always love hearing your takeaways, so please connect with me on Instagram that, angela, marie, christian and feel free to tag me when you share it with your friends. Every single review matters and it helps me reach more people who want to improve this world. If you leave a review, let me know and I'll send you a little thank you gift. Any resources mentioned in the show will be linked in the show notes. Sending you all love. Bye.