The Shame We Don't Talk About

An honest reflection on parenting, emotional regulation, and giving ourselves grace

I had a difficult experience this week. One that left me questioning myself, my abilities, and even some of the things I've spent much of my career teaching others. And I want to share it because I suspect there are parents and caregivers out there who have felt exactly what I was feeling. Shame. Frustration. Hurt. And that nagging thought:

"I should know how to handle this better."

I've spent more than 30 years in education, working with children, teachers, and families. I've studied child development, emotional regulation, executive functioning, and mindfulness. I've built a business around helping children develop the skills they need to become calmer, more focused, and better able to manage themselves. And yet, this week, I found myself in the middle of a child's emotional meltdown, wondering why everything I knew didn't seem to be working.

When the strategies don't seem to work

I was working with a young child I love very much. We had established what I thought was a reasonable plan: a short period of schoolwork, followed by a break, and then a return to work.

The first part went well. But when the break ended, everything changed. He didn't want to return to work. He told me he didn't like our agreement. I calmly reminded him of the plan and tried to hold the boundary. And then things escalated. There was screaming, anger, hitting, kicking, and throwing things. I was physically hurt, and emotionally, I was struggling more than I wanted to admit. I tried to remain calm. I stayed nearby. I gave him time. I tried to help him recognize what was happening in his body. I reminded him that fighting and hurting don't make us feel better.

Eventually, he settled. We reconnected and were even able to complete a little more work.

But afterward, I didn't feel successful. I felt defeated. I kept replaying the experience, wondering what I should have done differently. Why couldn't I help him calm down more quickly? Why did he become so angry with me? Why couldn't I reach him when I understood so much about what was happening in his brain? And perhaps the hardest question of all:

How can I teach other people to help children regulate their emotions when I can't always do it successfully myself?

The shame we don't talk about

I think there's a particular kind of shame that comes with caring for children. It's the shame we feel when we lose our patience. When we raise our voice after promising ourselves we wouldn't. When we try every strategy we've read about and nothing seems to work. When another adult steps in and somehow manages to calm the situation in minutes, leaving us wondering why we couldn't do the same. When we love a child so deeply, yet find ourselves feeling hurt, frustrated, or even resentful of their behavior. We don't like admitting those feelings. Especially when we're supposed to be the adults who know better. I certainly didn't. Part of me wanted to keep this experience to myself. I felt embarrassed that, with all my knowledge and experience, I was still struggling. But the more I reflected, the more I began to recognize something important.

Knowing what to do and being able to do it in the middle of an emotionally charged moment are two very different things.

And isn't that exactly what I've been trying to teach parents about their children?

Knowing isn't the same as doing — for adults, either

We tell children to use their words, take a breath, think before acting, and make good choices.

And then we're surprised when they can't access those skills in the middle of a meltdown.

But think about what happens to us as adults. When our emotions run high, our nervous systems respond, too. The prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain that helps us plan, think flexibly, manage impulses, and make thoughtful decisions—can become less effective when we're under significant stress. We don't literally lose access to our frontal lobes, but our ability to use those higher-level thinking skills can become compromised. Suddenly, all those wonderful parenting strategies we know can be much harder to remember and apply. We become reactive instead of responsive.

We get stuck in our own thinking. We feel an urgent need to fix the situation, enforce the boundary, or make the behavior stop. And sometimes, even when we appear calm on the outside, we're struggling on the inside. That realization gave me a different perspective on what happened.

I had experienced, in my own way, the very thing I was trying to help this child understand.

I knew what I wanted to do. But the emotional intensity of the moment made it harder to access all the tools I had.

If that can happen to me, an adult with decades of experience and training, imagine how difficult it must be for a young child whose brain is still developing. That doesn't make hurting someone acceptable. Safety and boundaries still matter. But it helps me understand why simply knowing the right behavior isn't always enough to produce it.

Consistency matters. But so does flexibility

As I reflected on the experience, I realized that one of the things I was trying very hard to provide was consistency. I wanted this child to know that when I made an agreement, I would follow through. I believed that holding the boundary would provide predictability and security.

And I still believe those things are important. But I began to wonder whether my determination to follow through with the original plan had unintentionally added to his frustration. Could I have offered another two minutes of play? Could I have paused the work and returned to it later?

Could I have recognized that, in that particular moment, the lesson he needed most wasn't about completing his schoolwork? I don't know whether any of those choices would have prevented the meltdown. And that's an important part of this story.

Sometimes we don't know what will work until we try. And sometimes what worked yesterday won't work today.

Every child is different. Every relationship is different. And every day, the same child may bring a different level of emotional capacity to the situation. Our job isn't to find one perfect strategy and apply it to every child, every time. It's to remain curious. To notice what helps and what doesn't.

To adjust when something isn't working. And to recognize that flexibility doesn't have to mean abandoning our boundaries. We can be consistent in our values while being flexible in our approach.

What actually mattered?

For several days, I focused on everything I thought I'd done wrong. I thought about the strategies I could have tried, the things I could have said differently, and the moments when I might have changed course. But eventually, I began looking at the experience through a different lens.

I had been hurt, and I had an instinctive reaction. But I recognized it and regained my calm.

I stayed committed to helping the child feel safe while also recognizing that I needed to protect myself. I didn't get the quick resolution I had hoped for. But eventually, he calmed.

We found our way back to each other. Our connection was still there. And I began to realize that maybe I had been measuring success by the wrong standard. I had been asking myself, "Why couldn't I stop the meltdown?" Instead, perhaps I needed to ask:

"Was I able to regain my own calm?"

"Did I maintain safety and compassion?"

"Did I help create the conditions for this child to recover?"

"Did we find our way back to connection?"

"Did I learn something that might help us next time?"

Those are meaningful measures of progress. Not how quickly I could make the behavior stop.

Not whether I followed every strategy perfectly. Not whether another adult might have handled the situation differently. And certainly not whether I managed to avoid every difficult emotion myself.

To the parent who feels like they're failing

If you're raising a child who struggles with big emotions, I want you to know something.

I understand more deeply now how exhausting and heartbreaking it can be. I understand how it feels to love a child so much and still find yourself overwhelmed by their behavior. I understand the frustration of trying to do everything you've been told is right, only to watch the situation get worse. And I understand the shame that can follow. The quiet voice that says you should be more patient, more knowledgeable, more consistent, more capable. But I'm learning that the goal isn't to become a parent or caregiver who never struggles. It's to become an adult who is willing to keep learning. Someone who can recognize when a strategy isn't working and try something different. Someone who can set a firm boundary without losing compassion. Someone who can acknowledge a mistake, repair a relationship, and begin again. And someone who understands that a child's most difficult moments do not define who that child is.

A child can be loving, kind, funny, intelligent, and wonderful—and still have tremendous difficulty managing frustration.

Both things can be true. And we can be loving, thoughtful, capable adults who sometimes struggle to respond the way we wish we had. Both things can be true, too.

Maybe this is what calm really means

At Focus & Flourish, I talk a lot about the progression:

Calm → Focus → Follow Through

I believe deeply in helping children develop the skills that allow them to regulate their emotions, direct their attention, and follow through with what they need to do. But this experience reminded me that those skills aren't just for children. They're for us, too. And calm doesn't mean we never feel angry, hurt, disappointed, or overwhelmed. It means we learn to recognize those feelings and find our way back to a place where we can respond thoughtfully. Sometimes we do that quickly. Sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes we need another adult to step in and help. And sometimes the most important thing we can model for a child is what it looks like to recover after a difficult moment. I'm still learning. After more than 30 years in education, I'm still learning. And perhaps that's not something I need to feel ashamed of. Perhaps it's something I need to embrace. Because the children in our lives don't need us to be perfect. They need us to be willing to grow alongside them. They need us to keep showing up, keep learning, keep repairing, and keep loving them—even when things are hard. And they need us to remember that connection is more important than winning a power struggle. This week didn't go the way I wanted. But I calmed myself. I supported a child through a difficult moment. We found our way back to each other. And I learned something about myself in the process.

Maybe success isn't getting it right every time. Maybe success is being willing to try again, with a little more understanding and a little more compassion—for the child and for ourselves.

Because knowing isn't always doing. And learning doesn't stop when we become adults.

Focus & Flourish Kids

Calm → Focus → Follow Through

Helping children build the skills they need, while supporting the adults who love them.