TLP 262: Children and Shame, Part 3 | use good shame in your parenting

God wants us to use Good Shame? What is Good Shame and how can shame possibly be good? Join AMBrewster as he discusses with Christian parents the real beauty of Good Shame.

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Listen to the following episodes on Apple Podcasts by clicking the titles.
"Have Forgettable Conversations with Your Kids” (episode 255)
“A Parent’s 5 Jobs” series (starts in episode 184)
“Teach Your Children to Apologize” series (starts in episode 238)
“Hosea Parenting | what to do when your kids break your heart” (episode 135)

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Click "Read More" for today’s Episode Notes and Transcript.

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Episode Notes

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Transcript

Introduction

Okay, so it’s going to be imperative that you listen to episodes 260 and 261 before listening to this episode. If you choose to listen to this episode without listening to the previous two, then you’re asking for misunderstanding and probably aren’t interested in learning anything so much as you are judging something you’ve already deemed to be wrong.

And that’s not helpful for anyone — especially since the Lord wants for us to align our thoughts to His.

But before I continue, I want to thank Cara and Taylor for making today’s episode possible. Their faithful gifts allow us to continue producing these parenting resources, and I pray they are a benefit and blessing to you and your family.

You can learn more about how to sponsor an episode by clicking on the “5 Ways to Support TLP" link in the description of this episode. And I hope you will do that.

Okay, so there’s Bad Shame and Good Shame, how does God want us using Good Shame in our families?

Topic

Well, first, let’s be reminded about what Good Shame is.

Shame is a feeling of guilt or inadequacy or regret or failure, and it can be inappropriately applied or it can be appropriately applied.

Good Shame is when I feel bad for having done something bad. That makes sense. If something is objectively bad, then I should feel bad for having done it, and I shouldn’t feel bad for having done what was right.

Of course, the world is constantly trying to get us to feel bad for doing right. In fact, when it comes to using shame in our parenting, the world would try to shame us into not using Good Shame with our kids. But we don’t have to be ashamed of using Good Shame with our children.

So, let’s talk about what that looks like.

Before we do that, though, please know that if you haven’t learned about “A Parent’s 5 Jobs” then you’re going to be at a deficit in today’s discussion. “The Parent’s 5 Jobs” a great series that’s so important to us understanding how to parent the way God calls and created us to parent.

Okay, here we go:

1. Good Shame can’t be used if the Teaching Stage hasn’t been done.

It’s never appropriate to shame someone for not knowing something they don’t know. It’s not appropriate for someone to be ashamed for something they literally couldn’t have helped.

That’s like me making you feel like an ignoramus because you don’t know how to do a French Drop, start a fire with just a spark, or throw a Reverse Hook Kick. That would be completely inappropriate of me and would be an example of Bad Shame.

However, Teaching is the stage that gives your children the information they need to know what is right and wrong. It’s during this stage that you lay the foundation for God’s expectations in their lives. 

Of course, I’m not insinuating that you only have to teach something once. We’re hypocritical parents if we think that our kids should never forget what we only said once because we don’t even do that.

In episode 255, "Have Forgettable Conversations with Your Kids,” we acknowledge the certain reality that your kids will forget most of what you say, and we deal with how to parent in those circumstances.

Teaching is a continual process that’s involved in every other stage of parenting. It’s absolutely necessary, but for our discussion today, it’s a vital point for a correct understanding of shame.

You should never use shame if appropriate teaching has not occurred. 

We can say it this way — teaching is a prerequisite to Good Shame. A lack of teaching is not the only problem with Bad Shame, but it definitely is a part. When we shame our children for not knowing something they weren’t taught, we’re using Bad Shame, and that will always be destructive.

This was the situation in the Ezra passage we read last time. Ezra was able to say, “Our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens” because he knew God’s expectations. They had been clearly communicated in His Word and spoken frequently by His prophets and judges.

Of course, for us, it’s wise to be careful and gracious on this point.

God has perfectly communicated, but have I taught my kids perfectly? Have I taught my kids that they need to feed the ducks in the morning? Yes. Have I taught them and reminded them enough that it’s appropriate to utilize shame if they didn’t do the job? Well, that’s subjective.

This is one reason that good parenting takes time. I need to correctly interpret the situation, ask the right questions, and draw out the heart before I can make a definitive decision that my children sinned and need to be reproved.

Anyway — I got off track a little — the point is that the teaching stage is a required prerequisite for Good Shame. Good Shame will never occur in situations where teaching hasn’t been done or done well.

Okay, so 1. Good Shame can’t be used if the Teaching Stage hasn’t been done.

2. Good Shame is rooted in God’s expectations.

All throughout the Bible we read that those who reject God’s Truth will be put to shame. Psalm 129:5 reads, “May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward!”

But this point can easily be misunderstood and misapplied.

For example, I tell my child they need to keep their shirt tucked in at the wedding, but he deliberately untucks his shirt because “It’s uncomfortable.” It wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate.

Now, does the Bible say anything about tucking in your shirt? No. So, does that mean Good Shame can’t be applied to this situation and all I have is Bad Shame to use? No.

The Bible has a lot to say about obeying. If my son were to disobey by deliberately untucking his shirt after being told to keep it tucked in, He is rejecting God’s Truth.

So, A. In cases of disobedience, the Bible doesn’t have to speak directly to the act or the word because it has a ton to say about obedience.

But there’s a B. too. We shouldn’t call Bad Shame Good because we’re dealing with a Bible issue. I’ll talk about this more later, but for now we need to understand this point.

A Good Shame Opportunity can be highjacked and replaced by Bad Shame when I make it more about me than I do God. This causes me to blow things out of proportion, this causes me to make it a me-versus-the-kid confrontation, this causes me to focus on all the wrong shame-inducing elements.

The point is, if I’m going to use Good Shame correctly, it has to be all about God and His Word and communicated in a way that would please the Lord. 

If not, then it quickly becomes Bad Shame.

3. Good Shame occurs during the Interpretation Stage of parenting.

Listen to Jesus do the Interpretation Stage in Luke 13:13-17, “[Jesus] laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” 15 Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” 

Okay, so Jesus is reproving the ruler of the synagogue; He’s helping the ruler reinterpret his thinking and come to the conclusion that he had been wrong. And then verse seventeen tells us . . .

“17 As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.”

The shame occurred as a result of Christ’s Interpretation of the event. Interpretation is the hardest stage of parenting, and this is one of the reasons why parents avoid it and substitute Bad Shame.

It’s so much easier for me to manipulate you into doing what I want by making you feel bad for doing something I don’t want you to do.

However, the Interpretation — or reproof — stage involves helping your kids understand that what they did was wrong.

Now, we don’t have time to revisit this entire discussion, so it would be good for all of us to revisit “The Parent’s 5 Jobs” series, but for now, keep these in mind: To do the Interpretation Stage correctly we must have taught our kids God’s expectations, and when they choose to go against God’s expectations, we confront them and help them see how they made the wrong choice because they believed a lie.

This is where Good Shame comes in. The child, upon realizing they have transgressed the law of God should experience appropriate guilt.

And that leads to the fourth point.

4. Good Shame should produce appropriate levels of guilt.

The shame the Corinthians should have experienced in I Corinthians 15:33-34 is very different from the level of shame felt by the wicked in Psalm 31.

The I Corinthians passage reads, “Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” 34 Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.”

And Psalm 31:17 says, "O Lord, let me not be put to shame, for I call upon you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go silently to Sheol.”

Remember that “Sheol” is an equivalent of “the grave” or — in some cases — “hell.”

That’s a whole different level of shame.

Now, can a circumstance that should provoke Good Shame also produce Bad Shame? Yes, it can.

This can happen in a number of ways:

1. Incorrect Quantity of Shame: Instead of understanding the appropriate level of shame, the child personally over-exaggerates the issue and experiences feelings of guilt or remorse that are greater than they should. For example, a child may have been told not to unnecessarily kill frogs. However, the child disobeys and kills a frog for fun. However, when confronted about his sin — both the disobedience and the unkind treatment of the frog — the child experiences the same guilt as if he had killed a human.
2. Incorrect Source of Shame: Instead of allowing God’s expectations to inform their shame, the child compares the sinful behavior to their own expectations. Your daughter goes to camp and vows to stop disrespecting you, but then comes home, and — after a week or so — an unkind statement escapes her lips. Did she sin? Yes. But what if she experiences guilt and remorse, not really because she sinned against God and hurt you, but because she promised herself she’d be better and she failed herself?
3. Combination of Bad and Good Shame: This is part of what we discussed earlier and happens when the parent over-exaggerates the offense or ladles on their own Bad Shame. This occurs so easily when the child actually sins, but the parent sinfully responds by being annoyed, personally offended, or sinfully angered by the child’s sin. In situations like this, the Good and Bad Shame get very confused, and often the Bad Shame is over-emphasized over the Good Shame.

However, Good Shame is focused on God and should only be as strong as required by God. The guilt that comes from murdering a human should be stronger than the feelings we experience when we disobey our parents. The heaviness that comes from rejecting God’s gift of salvation should be much weightier than the shame that comes from thinking lustful thoughts.

Of course, there are other considerations in this too. The amount of shame may speak to the person’s individual sensitivities, but it also reflects the strength of the relationships involved. Someone who doesn’t care about me or God will experience very little Good Shame when they hurt me. But an individual who deeply cares for me and/or God will experience greater degrees of shame due to the relationship.

Either way, as loving, Christ-honoring parents, we need to carefully gauge our children’s experience of Good Shame in order to help them bear the appropriate weight. We’ll talk more about how to help your kids address their Bad Shame next time.

Paul saying, “I say this to your shame,” is different than Luke 13 when Jesus confronted the Pharisees. The Scriptures say that after He “said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.”

Okay . . . 

1. Good Shame can’t be used if the Teaching Stage hasn’t been done.
2. Good Shame is rooted in God’s expectations. 
3. Good Shame occurs during the Interpretation Stage of parenting.
4. Good Shame should produce appropriate levels of guilt.

And . . .

5. Good Shame is not the sole goal, but merely a consequence of the Interpretation Stage.

I think one of the reasons people don’t like parenting systems that utilize shame is they assume that the purpose of that system is to induce shame.

I suppose any system or method whose whole purpose was to simply make you feel bad about what you did would be a failed system.

But that’s not what we’re advocating here. Shame is a tool, but it’s a tool designed to work in conjunction with other tools to accomplish a great and mighty purpose. And that purpose is so much greater than mere behavior modification.

Yes, we hope that the behavior will be changed, but the motivation and power behind that change is the main focus.

The same is true in the book of Hosea. In Hosea 4:7 we read, “The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; I will change their glory into shame.”

In Hosea 4:17-19 we see, “Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone. 18 When their drink is gone, they give themselves to whoring; their rulers dearly love shame. 19 A wind has wrapped them in its wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.”

Hosea was a man who God commanded to marry a prostitute. When she left him and returned to her sinful lifestyle, God has Hosea go and redeem her back to him. We discuss this in great detail in episode 135, “Hosea Parenting | what to do when your kids break your heart.”

That’s a great episode because we’ll all be there, and it perfectly illustrates what we’re talking about today. After given the very real-life metaphor of Hosea and his adulterous wife — showing exactly what the issue was, how God wanted to deal with the problem, and providing the Israelites an example of what they should and should not do — God takes multiple chapters in Hosea to outline exactly how His people sinned against Him. And even though God takes chapter after chapter to outline a very ugly list of sins and the dire consequences of that sins, chapter 11 is all about the Lord’s love for Israel, and the last chapter, chapter 14, is a plea to return to His love.

So, it’s the Interpretation Stage, you’re reproving your child by letting them know that what they did was wrong — it was a sin. This should produce an appropriate level of guilt and shame because they need to see that they failed to meet God’s expectations. 

This is right, and this is good. 

Because . . .

6. Good Shame points toward and is alleviated by repentance.

Just like in Hosea where God called down judgment and condemnation because His desire was to motivate His people to return to Him, consider Revelation 3:17-19: “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”

One of the biggest critiques of shame is that it doesn’t encourage relationship. That is true about Bad Shame. Bad Shame draws a line in the sand and puts the child on the other side.

But that could not be further from the Truth when it comes to Good Shame. Good Shame says, “God loves you, He knows what’s best for you, He wants a reciprocal relationship with you, He’s given you everything you need to do right, but you chose to sin against Him. But He doesn’t want to be estranged from you! So we, if we desire to show Him the love He’s shown us, we need to apologize for and repent of our sin so we can once again have the strong relationship we should.”

So, we as the parent, aren’t drawing a line in the sand to separate us, we’re coming alongside the child to show them how to reconciled to God.

And, yes, God has drawn a line in the sand, but He doesn’t do so to say, “You’re forever my enemy and there’s nothing you can do about it, so I hope you feel like garbage.” He’s not a cosmic bully Who wants nothing more than to make us feel bad about out lives. The whole purpose is to reconcile the relationship.

That’s why — in the Revelation passage before — God says, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” 

So, when our children have experienced Good Shame, we’re in the perfect place to leave the Interpretation Stage and enter the Counseling Stage.

In episode 238 we started a two-part episode called “Teach Your Children to Apologize.” That would be a fantastic follow-up to this point.

Anyway, the point is that Good Shame is wonderful because that feeling of guilt and inadequacy motivates us to fix the problem in the right way.

Shame is like the pain we feel when we touch something hot. It’s a blessing that God gave us nerve endings — otherwise we’d burn our appendages off and never know there was a problem until we smelled burning flesh. 

Yes, it’s painful, but it keeps us from further and deeper pain later. Shame is like that. It’s designed to encourage us to fix the problem and not make that shame choice again.

It’s a beautiful thing for which we should thank the Lord and something we should use in our parenting.

And, when we do apologize and repent, the shame dissipates. Christians were never meant to continually carry shame around with them.

Shame was designed to show us how we weren’t glorifying God and draw us to Him where we find the forgiveness and strength to glorify Him.

And then the shame is gone!

But what happens when the shame doesn’t dissipate? 

Well, we’re going to talk about that next time when we discuss “Giving your kids freedom from bad shame.”

Conclusion

Okay, by way of review:

1. Good Shame can’t be used if the Teaching Stage hasn’t been done.
2. Good Shame is rooted in God’s expectations. 
3. Good Shame occurs during the Interpretation Stage of parenting.
4. Good Shame should produce appropriate levels of guilt.
5. Good Shame is not the sole goal, but merely a consequence of the Interpretation Stage.
6. Good Shame points toward and is alleviated by repentance.

I hope this study is either opening your eyes to the beauty of and purpose of Good Shame or is solidifying what you already knew. 

So, if either of those have happened for you, please share this episode so that other parents may benefit.

Shame is a touchy subject and an important issue, so we have to turn to God’s Word to be able to understand it and use it to His glory.

So, to that end, I’ll see you next time.