How to Get Shame Out of Parenting with Mercedes Samudio
— EPISODE 74 —
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Mercedes Samudio [00:00:00] That's what worth is. I'm worthy enough to keep trying. I'm worthy enough to put my bike back, right? Get back on and try to get back down this block. If you can remember that, that becomes the intersection of shame-proof parenting. As I practice these, as I go do these, I'm worthy enough to be confident in myself. I'm worthy enough to be resilient.
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Dr. Adia Gooden [00:00:20] Welcome to the Unconditionally Worthy Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Adia Gooden, a licensed clinical psychologist who believes deeply that you are worthy unconditionally.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Unconditionally Worthy Podcast, season five. Excited that you all are still listening, still rolling with me, and checking out these episodes. And my hope, as always, is that they continue to be helpful and supportive to you. If you are finding the podcast helpful, I would love for you to leave a rating or review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It really helps other people to find the podcast and helps me to understand what you're finding helpful about it. So you can do that on the apps. And just let us know what you think. Let the world know what you think about this podcast. I know that you're going to find this episode helpful today, especially if you are a parent. And I think there are things that are in this episode that will be helpful to everyone. Because we're talking about shame-proof parenting with Mercedes Samudio, and she's created a framework around shame-proof parenting.
And she provides us with some practices and recommendations about how to get shame out of parenting, how to stop shaming ourselves, how to stop shaming our children. And we sort of talk about the intersections with shame-proof parenting and embracing our unconditional self-worth. And how knowing that you're worthy helps you as a parent and helps you as a person. And so, I think if you are a parent, you're definitely going to want to tune in. And if you're somebody who's been struggling with shame, I also think that this episode is going to be useful for you even if you're not a parent.
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Because you can apply some of the aspects of the framework that Mercedes shares to your own life. So let's get into the show.
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I am welcoming Mercedes Samudio to the podcast today, and she is an EMDR-trained licensed psychotherapist, speaker and bestselling author who supports parents and children to communicate with each other, manage emotional trauma, navigate social media and technology together, and develop healthy parent-child relationships. As a licensed clinical social worker with a private practice, Mercedes has worked with adoptive families, foster families, teen parents and parents navigating the child protective services system, and children living with mental illness. Mercedes seeks to empower parents to believe that they are already great guides for raising healthy and happy children. Mercedes, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad to have you here.
Mercedes Samudio [00:03:08] Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:03:11] Awesome. Well, I'd love for you to start where we start all of the conversations with guests on the podcast, which is by sharing a bit about your own self-worth journey.
Mercedes Samudio [00:03:24] Wow. So we only have this podcast, right? To talk about that. But it has been an interesting journey because I think many of us who get into this field do it for that sense of trying to find who are we and what's the meaning of what we've gone through. I specifically began working with parents because of that. I was raised by my step-grandmother because my parents cannot care for me. My siblings were raised by other family members. And so that level of family kind of disconnection led me into the field to understand how does this happen? What is this about? Is there repair? Is there healing? And so, myself, kind of worth and healing journey has been through my profession, through seeing other families heal, through allowing myself to heal, through allowing myself to heal through different phases of my life, which I don't think we talk about a lot when we heal.
It's not a one-time, once-done kind of space. You kind of have to heal through different phases. And so my kind of self-worthy journey has been that realizing that when I was younger, starting out, I did not like that idea of it's the journey, not the destination. And now that I've been in this field for so long, watching so many journeys and going on my own, I realize, yes, this journey is really a part of it. And wherever you end is where you end, but it is really about the journey. And so I think that's been myself kind of worth journey. It's just being able to embrace that.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:04:49] Yeah. I think it's so important. I'm definitely a journey, not just the destination person. And I think part of the reason people struggle with that is because they think that where they are now will be where they're going to be until they make the destination. And you know and I know after doing therapy with many, many, many clients, that there's so much progress along the way. Just because there's a journey doesn't mean that you're not making progress and things aren't changing as you evolve and go along. And I also appreciated that you highlighted the fact that healing can look differently and be different at different stages of our lives. And I think, especially since you work with families, I'm sure that you think about the fact that we evolve in developmental stages and at one developmental stage, right?
We may experience something and feel like we've healed and processed through something that's different at another developmental stage, right? You might process something in your early 20s or as a teenager, and then when you become a parent, right? So a whole another layer of things can come up for you as you get into that new role. And so I think that's really helpful because sometimes I think people also think, oh, this is coming up again, that means that I didn't do it right the first time, or I'm backsliding, or whatever. Versus no, there's just like more layers that are being uncovered with this new aspect of your life.
Mercedes Samudio [00:06:19] Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what EMDR really helped me to really understand, even for my own healing. Because definitely you understand that as a therapist, but EMDR really actually takes you through the layers of healing. And so I really appreciated that addition to not just my clinical tool belt, but also to my own healing kind of journey where it really showed what you were just talking about. There are so many different layers that once you maybe, like you said, uncover one thing, you think, okay, good, I'm over that. But now it's uncovered something else that now you're oh, that was covering up this other thing, or that was stopping me from seeing another aspect of myself. And so I agree with you wholeheartedly that healing is so layered. I love the way you kind of articulated that. It's like peeling back those layers as you learn one thing about yourself, you learn, okay, there's more here. I agree with me working with parents, I see that a lot. Parents think, yeah, I'm good. I got everything together. I'm ready to have a kid. And you are right. You were good. Everything was together, but then you had a kid. You know what I mean? And so I think you forget that as you move through phases, that these phases were challenging in different ways, and that's where the healing comes.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:07:30] Mm-mm. Yeah. And I also think that's where life is, right? I think we sort of have this imagination that if we just did everything perfectly, life kind of wouldn't touch us, right? We wouldn't have ups and downs, we wouldn't have disappointments, we wouldn't have challenges. So we could just be off over there because we're doing everything perfectly and everything's in control and everything. And it's like that's not life, right? The richness of life is the ups and the downs and hopefully, you're not on a roller coaster constantly. Hopefully, we have some evenness, but life would be boring if there was never anything new to uncover or to explore. And in so many ways, children bring us into the messiness of life, right? Like literally, metaphorically, right? Like the emotions, the mess physically, right?
There's so much that children just sort of bring out and bring up. And I imagine that gets into sort of the shame-proof parenting that you work on, right? Because often there can be a lot of shame around like, it's not perfect, it's not neat, it's not clean. Whether that's your house, whether that's how you're parenting, whether that's how you cope with a tantrum, whether that's how your child is behaving, right? There can be so much discomfort with the mess that can emerge in our lives with kids. So I wonder, does that relate to the work you do and kind of how do you think about this whole concept of shame-proof parenting?
Mercedes Samudio [00:09:11] Yes, yes, yes. And yes and yes, right to all of that. And I think that's where our shame stories form, right? In that perfection. As a recovering perfectionist who thought all of those things, who thought if I do everything right, I'll be able to be perfect and no one will be able to talk bad to me and one be able to critique me. I literally lived like that for years, right? And the healing journey taught me a lot about how those shame stories get created for us, how we hold onto them. And so shame-proof parenting in a sense isn't about never dealing with shame. It's about really helping you and your family realize that as these things come up, as the embarrassments come up, as hardships come up, that we use the shame-proof parenting framework to reconnect to each other, right?
To not hate each other. To not start pointing the finger, oh, it's you, it's you, you did that and if it wasn't for you, right? We don't do that. We just come in and say, wow, this was hard for us as a family, right? And so that framework is different than what I've seen. I think a lot of times in the parenting world, we talk a lot about skill-building and developmental milestones. We forget that a lot of people, all of us come into parenting with shame narratives. Either I'm not going to be like my parent, or I hope I'm just like them. Or I have the best childhood. Or I had the worst. We come in with that wanting to recreate something that was beautiful for us and having a hard time when we can't because our kids are different or wanting to make sure we're nothing like our parents. And then having a hard time when, unfortunately, yeah, we do yell or we do punish or we do take away things.
And so it's all these shame stories that I think goes beautifully with what you said. We think if we're the perfect parent, whatever that looks like, our kids won't aggravate us or make us upset or get hurt or get in trouble, right? And so shame-proof parenting is that is going to happen. And so when it does, let's use these tools to support each other. When so and so gets in trouble at school, let's connect with each other. When dad has a really bad day and yells at everybody, let's connect with each other. It's hard. And I often tell parents it's a journey, but that's what you're working through. You're working to when things happen, how do we get back together to connect to each other? Not saying we hope things don't happen because then you don't prepare.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:11:32] Right. Or if it does happen, it means I'm bad, I'm wrong. I shame myself or my child is bad and wrong. Like I know one of the things that's is like, I think I talked about this on another podcast, but I really dislike people saying, oh that baby's so good or that baby's so bad. I'm like, no. The baby is worthy. The baby is innately good, but that's not based on their behavior. Conforming to what you want their behavior to be and making your life easier and comfortable. Because that's what it really is. It's like this baby makes my life easy, so they're good. This baby makes my life harder. So they're bad. And it's like woo. Like we start very early with the labeling of babies and children based on their behavior as they learn the world and their bodies and all of those things.
Mercedes Samudio [00:12:29] Yeah. And I think that can be really tied to so many cultural things. It's one of the reasons why a lot of the work that I'm doing, my doctoral program focuses on a specific culture. Because every culture has ideas about child raising, ideas about how a child should be raised, ideas about even how to stop a baby from crying, right? And you know this because we live in families where someone say, pick that baby up, or don't hold that baby too long. It's going to do this. Don't breastfeed him tomorrow. Don't give him a bottle too soon. I have even heard, put a little brandy in it, he'll go to bed, right? These are all child-rearing practices that we grow up with, right? And if you don't know it didn't work, or if you're not cognizant of how it influenced you, you might take some of that into it, including the labeling of behaviors.
I definitely lived in a family where I was the good kid. Because I went to school, I did what I was supposed to do. I didn't cause any trouble. Whereas some of my cousins were the bad kids. You don't want to be like cousin so and so, because he don't listen to his mom. And so I grew up with that. Now in my 30s, right? I wonder, do I label myself and other people that way? And that's a lot. And so when I think about my parents on this, I teach them about that. I teach them these are shame stories and narratives you learn, right? Good versus bad. Right versus wrong. They're not inherently bad concepts, it's just how are you applying them and how are you using them to navigate, right? And that's really what shame-proof parenting is. It's exactly what you've been saying.
We're not saying you're right or wrong for this. It's just can you take a step back and say, is this how I want to talk to my child right now? Do I want to start these labels? Do I want to do this? If yes, then that becomes your decision and the things that have to go with that later. But if no, that also becomes your decision. It just is hard. And I'll share that. It's a lot harder to go against what your culture says a child should be doing or what your family says you should be doing. So those families also come up against that. Even if I decide to do a different type of parenting, I'm also coming up against my parents or my community, right? Or my culture who I need them to help, but I don't want them to recreate things that happened.
And so I say all that to say there's so many layers that shame-proof parenting is that it's not about, I cannot predict how my mom is going to talk to me. I cannot predict how the person at the grocery store is going to look at me. But I can come back home and say, that was hard. We had a tantrum at Target and I wanted to behave myself and I wanted to be mad at my kid, but what else? But I want to do something different. And so that's what I really try to teach with shame-proof parenting. That is not, you won't have a tantrum in Target and you won't yell and you won't do it wrong. It's when we get home and we're safe. And that's, I'll leave that as all other things being equal. If you're at home, and that means you're safe. You have that moment to read, to reflect and say, I didn't like how that Target store went and I didn't like how I yelled, and I didn't like how we did this. I'd like to try different, that’s shame-proof parenting.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:15:28] Yeah. Well, it sounds really powerful and I'm also thinking because I know you do a lot of work with African-American families about the context and the legacy of some of the parenting practices. And it's like if you are enslaved and your children are enslaved, then their behavior is life or death. If you are living in a community where police are doing whatever they want basically. And one wrong move means you might be thrown in jail, you might be killed, is life or death, right? And so, how does that then create a situation where it's like, you better stay in line and I'm going to have a very harsh reaction if you don't stay in line because I'm terrified that if you don't stay in line with me, next time it might be a police officer and that might be the last time I see you, right?
And it's just like, can we have compassion for ourselves, for our parents, our caregivers around like where it came from? Because it didn't just come from a crazy place where it's like you just want to be on people's butts and whatever. It came from a place of survival and protection and safety. And I'm terrified that if you're your full child, joyful, rambunctious self in public, that will cause you harm. It will keep us from accessing certain things. And so that then comes through as, I'm going to be very hard on you. And I think the power of, it sounds like shame-proof parenting and doing this work with families is okay, can we acknowledge that? And then can we intentionally choose how we work with some of these challenges? Okay. So it is really important for your Black son to know that he can't engage in certain behaviors safely outside of the home. And that's the reality. Can we communicate that in a way that doesn't induce shame and that isn't hypercritical, is there a way to work with that versus you just need to be kind or you just like, there's something wrong with the way you're parenting. So it seems like this is a really powerful tool to be intentional, culturally sensitive, kind of all of those things.
Mercedes Samudio [00:18:09] Yes. I was about to get on the organ because you were taking us home on the preaching of it because I was like, yes, yes. And it's that, it's that idea that a lot of the world can be really overwhelming for different types of people. African-American families, LGBTQIA families. We could spend the rest of the podcast talking about all the identities that get marginalized, but still have to parent and still have to raise children. I focus a lot of my work on this, it's because of the work that I saw in community mental health, where in community mental health, it is usually marginalized communities who are accessing these services, predominantly African-American and Latin-led families. And it's really interesting watching people, service providers, say things like, oh, well they have a nice car why can't they buy a formula?
Or, oh, this mom thinks this, but that. And Oh, I saw this mom do that and I don't know why parents do that. And just hearing all those stories and then going into the homes and knowing that these parents are living with not just the shame of the world, but now they're social workers and workers coming in, also watching their home. That is why I created shame-proof parenting and a lot of the work I did. Because what you just said, is there a way for us to be service providers in these homes where there's a lot of cultural and systemic things going on that sometimes we can address and sometimes it's just let's give them a resource and let's support them as we move forward in progression, right? That can we do that with compassion?
Can we do that without creating more shame narratives? I remember one time, this is really early on in my work, getting hours, learning how to do therapy, learning how to be here. I was in a home doing home visits and as I was sitting there doing the home visit, talking, discussing getting paperwork, a roach fell off the ceiling into my lap. And I watched the mom just, she felt so embarrassed, she just kind of stopped and she went like that. And I dusted it off and I said, all right, I've seen the roach before. Let's keep going. And we kept going and finished. Over the next couple sessions, she said, “Thank you for not making me feel bad. It's not my fault, it's the neighbors. I try my best to keep things clean.” And I knew that I had been working with her, right?
Her home is clean. I know that, and it's not about cleanliness or not, but just thinking about how service providers sometimes have a hard time being in spaces where no matter how hard your client works, they have to deal with the environment that they’re living in. And so I say that story and I share that because a lot of the work we do can sometimes and unintentionally create more shame stories for families, which means then they don't access services, which means that they get into further disrepair because they're not getting the services they need. And so the work that I'm doing, the workaround shame-proof parenting, even though it's totally accessible to anyone who wants it, a lot of the work that I train clinicians on is how to do this without creating more shame stories for families. How to be in a home, do a therapy session and see all of the stuff going on there and know how to navigate some of that.
That does take skill. And that's something that I think will come over time. But I just remember being a new social worker, thinking we need more skills around this and how do we manage this and how do we manage people who maybe haven't seen these types of environments who do want to help? I don't think most come into this field are thinking, I can't wait to judge people. But if you've never seen it. You don't understand the cultural significance of some of it, you don't even understand the systemic ways that certain towns or certain parts of town got that way, you can definitely start judging without knowing even though you are there to help. And so I think that's something that as I think about shame-proof parenting, it's not just for the families. It also becomes about how do we as a community not recreate shame stories for families who have to live in environments and systems that they have to live in and adapt.
They can't change always. And so yeah, I think there is a lot to be done with this, but the idea initially of shame-proof parenting was because of all that I saw in my work, noticing that it's really hard to parent when there's a lot of shame. And then you do, you tell your kids sit still because you think it's their behavior that will help or you grab too rough. Because if they mess up, someone will shame you. You know what I mean? So it becomes this very interesting push-pull that I think a lot of families are in to not hurt their child, but then people judge them so harshly that you end up doing it to make your kid do well. So no one says anything bad about you. And so again, it's a self-fulfilling cycle. I think that you've probably seen it for sure. And I think a lot of us see when we do this work.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:22:43] Yeah.
Mercedes Samudio [00:22:45] Now jump on myself as a social worker.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:22:47] No, this is this great and I'd love for you to share a little bit more about why shame doesn't work, right? Like we are sort of in a space societally where we think that shaming people is going to change their behavior, right? Like we see this sort of politically right? There's this sort of like shame, right? Shouting shame at somebody, shame, shame, shame. And it's like there's a sense that I think there's a sort of collective belief that you can shame people into changing their behavior. I think you see it with parents, right? Like how could she, how would she, how, you know what I mean? My mother-in-law sent in a story about a mom whose child passed away when she left the child in a hot car.
And she was so caught up in planning for a party and all this stuff. And she accidentally left the child in a car and the child passed away, right? Just awful, heartbreaking. And somebody on the thread responded and said, “That mother should be in jail.” And I'm like, oh my gosh, that mother has suffered. We know that that mom is beating herself up. Will probably never forgive herself, right? But the sense is you should be shamed. You should be thrown away. You should be thrown in jail. You should. And I don't think that's unique to the person who said that, right? I think it's a common thing, right? Like how can they, they're awful. So share a little bit about why shaming people, shaming children, shaming parents, shaming people, in general, isn't an effective strategy to bring about change.
Mercedes Samudio [00:24:39] Yes. And that's a great way to say it. It is not an effective strategy to bring about change at all. And so, I'll say it this way. I think one thing that we often get kind of convoluted or conflated is shame and judgment, right? I think we judge automatically. It's part of how we live, right? I have to know what's a threat, what's not, what's safe. What's not at this good is that we're judging constantly. Shame comes from us deciding that that judgment is the right judgment. I've decided that wearing red shirts makes people look a certain way. So every time I see somebody wearing a red shirt, I decide they need to be told that red jacket doesn't look good on you. Because I think this, that's where shame starts. Not that I don't like red or red jackets, it comes from when now I've decided that that's how it's going to be and that's how it should be.
When we decide that about something as universal as parenting, it becomes really convoluted. Because everyone does it. That's how you and I are sitting here. Someone had to parent us, right? And so everyone does it, but no one really knows what they're doing. And I think the shame around parenting is people trying to make sense of how difficult this is, right? If you think first, you'll never leave a kid in the car, if you raise them right, you'll never see a kid who does anything wrong. If you pop them when they're young, they definitely will grow up to be good. So these are all things that people just think are true, right? And they say it to us. See, if you had pop them, he would've listened. See if you hadn't done what I said. When you hear those things, that means this person thinks it's true.
Whether it is or not becomes part of your work and your narrative. The reason why that doesn't create change is because when I tell you what I know to be true about me, that means that you have had to live my life, done by life experiences, done everything that I've done to be able to see the truth, the way I see it. And since that can't happen, it becomes really about how do I sit with someone else's truth that rubs up against mine. If we can't, we create shame. Your truth is wrong. It can't be that way. Let me prove to you. Then we start creating shame stories. This happens to us when we're kids. You tell your parent this doesn't feel good. They say, well you don't know what this is. You better sit here and do it. Now I've started to distrust that things that don't feel good to me can't be trusted.
I can't trust that. No one does this on purpose. It just happens over time. And so it doesn't change people because you no longer trust what your truth is. You only trust what someone else says. And so I share this with us for this foundational understanding of shame is because shame ends up happening. It's why I created shame-proof parenting. Not because you can stop it. You cannot stop people from judging you. You can't even stop yourself from judging how you are doing it because you're measuring up to how other people are doing it. What you can do though, is come back to yourself and your family and say, how has this started to affect us? How has it affected us that the teacher keeps calling us? Or that my mom keeps telling me I'm wrong? Or that every time we go to Target, I can't get through Target run without someone having a tantrum.
How is this affecting us? That's how shame stories get created. Brene Brown is really good with shame to understand what that is, but she has a really good way of explaining it that I love and I talk about it in this way, the most vulnerable parts of us that people don't know, that people don't understand, they really do need to be held and validated in safe spaces. They really do. If they're not, they will create shame stories. So if I share some of my most vulnerable things right now in this podcast, I have no idea how you're going to edit it. I have no idea how people are going to do it. It's going to create some type of story for myself, right? When I see that, it's why it's important for us to shame-proof our families. Everyone needs a safe space to come back and say, is that experience true?
Is that right about me? I will end this, by giving a really good example of what this looks like. I was working with the family doing that, right? Working with the shame-proof framework, helping the parent who had just gotten the diagnosis of ADHD with her child. And they were both trying to figure out how to navigate that and what that was. Some shame stories have been created around kids who couldn't do their homework and kids who couldn't sit still and things like that. Only to find out that this kid has ADHD. And that's been most his struggle. So as we began to work through the shame proof of it, the mom told me in one session that for the first time, the son actually came and said, “I can't do my homework. I don't want to do it. And I like some support around that.”
It's something that we had created where when he couldn't do it, instead of fighting or tearing it up or just not doing it to ask and say, right? When the mom told me that, I said, how did you feel? And she said, “I was so mad at him because he didn't take his medication” and this and that and that and that. And I said, what did you say? “What I said was, okay, let's talk about it later.” He put his homework down. We talked about it later. The reason why I share that is because I'm not trying to get parents to the point where they love that their kids don't do what they're supposed to do. I'm getting you to the point where you understand it's okay for you to be disappointed that he didn't take his medication. And that's probably what happened and that's why he can't do it now. But you also saw that because of that trajectory of things. He doesn't want to do his homework now forcing him to do it probably isn't going to work. So she just said, we'll talk about it later. That's a shame-proof moment. It's not, I'm happy that you didn't do homework. It's okay. Everything's fine. We'll love each other. It's not that it's, there's a lot going on here. I'm angry with you for not doing what you were supposed to do. You're overwhelmed because you didn't do that. Let's talk about it later, right?
Like, let's talk about it. Obviously, no one want to talk about the homework right now. That is what I work to get parents to. Not that space of it's okay that when my kid is doing things, I love it being embarrassed at Target. No, you don't have to love it. You can be overwhelmed but realize that when we're in those moments, we create shame stories for ourself and our child about how bad we are or how bad they are and we're overwhelmed. If we can do that when with that overwhelmed, whatever that looks like, then we can go back to, huh? That I did try to go to Target the day before Thanksgiving and that's probably what happened. Yeah. It probably what happened, right? If you think about it that way, it allows your family to get shame-proof. Not that nothing happens, not that you don't get annoyed and frustrated that someone didn't do right.
You just get a chance to say, let's try to figure out what all the circumstances were so we can do better next time. Or we can be more graceful. Maybe there's no way to do better next time. Maybe it's just, let's have grace. There's no way to deal with Grandma coming over. It's going to be chaotic. Let's just be nice to each other. Let's just decide we're going to be nice when Grandma comes over. And I use all these examples because I think what we see in the parenting world sometimes is just be a good parent. Just be nice to your kid. Don't yell. Yes. That's if you, all other things being equal. If those things can happen, good. If you can get to a place where you don't yell and you can manage that, that's beautiful. Just most of us, especially if you look at the last couple years of COVID, that's hard.
Even under the best circumstances, COVID kicked a lot of people on their butt. Even under the best circumstances. So shame-proofing becomes even when things knock us down that we can't predict, how do we get back together even when things knock us down that we should have prepared for. How can we get back together? Even if things knock us down that someone said, it's going to knock you down if you don't look at it. How do we come back together, right? How do we still love each other? Even through the things that are hard and do kind of kick us a little bit.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:32:18] Well it sounds like a big piece is sort of helping people to separate the experience or the behaviors from who they are as people. And I think that's a big aspect of shame instead of, and I think Brene Brown talks about this distinction too. Like guilt is like I don't feel good about my behavior, and shame is I feel I'm a bad person because of this, right? And when we feel like we're just a bad person, that's a conclusion and often feels like we can't grow or change. When it's like okay, I made this decision under these circumstances and that didn't work out, then there's more agency and more choice and it feels easier to think about, well what do I want to do differently next time? Versus, I'm just a bad parent or how can I help my son the next time instead of he's just a bad kid. There's sort of movement there and you're mentioning your shame-proof framework and I'd love for you to just kind of break it down for us, right? So what are the specific elements or aspects of this framework that you've created?
Mercedes Samudio [00:33:23] Yeah. I realize that too. I keep talking about it as if everyone has the framework and we all got it, but it's six tenets that allow us to just get back to that connection. And so what I teach parents is you start to embody these too. Not just I'm externally wanting my family to. And so the first one is empathy, right? When we have empathy for ourselves, it opens up the space to see that maybe all of us are doing the best we can in this moment with these tools, right? Including yourself as the parent like what you just said, maybe the decisions and the tools I have for that decision were different. So if I have empathy for myself, I can acknowledge that, huh, I did not like that, but I'm still a good person. I can make a different decision.
The next is awareness. Being aware, what's going on? What was happening, right? Like what I said with that one example, the parent knew that he hadn't taken his medication. So there was that awareness. But then also having empathy for the fact that that's probably why you're at this place where you don't want to do your work right now and you're overwhelmed by it, right? That's empathy, right? That's empathy for your son, and then for yourself that, hey, I'm also overwhelmed. Let's not, right? Knowing needs is the third one. Sometimes a lot of our conflict, and if I can be honest, I would say probably all of our conflict comes from everyone trying to get their needs met and just not knowing how to, right? And sometimes we don't even know what that need is. I might need to sleep, which is why I'm being so irritable.
I might need to feel connected. I definitely had parents tell me at the end of the day, my kids are more irritable with me because I haven't spent any time with them. It’s not hard to learn, that’s their need is I don't want to go to bed because you've been gone all day. I want to have some time. That's knowing people's needs, right? It's not like kid wants a story, they just want time, right? What about yourself, right? What are your needs? I have a need to belong. I definitely work with parents who'll say I just have a need to be around other adults. Yes. That's a need, that's a real need to be met, right? And so when we know our needs, even if we can't get them met immediately it allows us to say, wow, I do need some adult time so maybe over the next week I need to see if I can get some. So maybe it is not today, but I do know that over the next couple of weeks, I need to probably see if I can get some adult time. That need helps you to kind of have more empathy. It helps you to bring more awareness to yourself.
The next one is one of my favorites. It's confidence. Having confidence in what you do well allows you the space to know, okay, then I need help with these other things, right? So I said it once in a session with parents, a group session. One parent said, “That's true. I'm not a tech person. Anytime I have a tech issue, I ask my husband and they come in and fix the computer and it's over.” And I'm like, that's confidence. You know what you're good at? If your husband can just come in and get it fixed, you can do the rest of yours, whatever you're doing. That's confidence, right? I know what I do well, I just need help with this or I know what I'm not good at. Someone else needs to completely take the reins on that. Oftentimes I find that parents feel they have to do everything in order to be a good parent.
Instead of realizing things you do well focus on that. These gaps, let your partner or your support team, or someone else fill in those gaps for yourself. So you can stay present doing the things you do well. If you're like good at bedtime, do bedtimes, but maybe you're not good at mornings. Figure out how to do better mornings for yourself especially if you don't have help, pay attention to those things. But that's the confidence piece, right? If I know what I do well in and I feel good about that, I don't mind lessening the hold on certain things to let other people do it. And I actually spend a lot of time on confidence because that actually becomes some of the crux of the rest of it.
The next is resilience, right? Resilience isn't simply bouncing back. It's about doing it together, helping each other build that resiliency together, right? So it's not just, I'm good at bouncing back. Well, if everyone in your family's having a hard time, then they're not going to be there with you. And so what haven’t you learned? What are your resilience tools? And don't be scared to listen to other people's, right? I had one kid say once,” I just zone out sometimes and play video games.” That's actually a pretty good thing to do sometimes, right? It's okay to go do something mindless, right? So for that family, that mindlessness is a good resilience tool for them. Everyone just has an hour to do nothing. They can come back. For this family. It worked, right? And so resilience becomes what helps us get back. What helps us know, I'm at my limit and I need to replenish. What helps me know, okay, I need to come back. What does that resilience look like for us?
And then the last tenet is support, right? Support not just on what we know to be true, right? Obviously, I need people to take care of the kids and do these things for me, but what type of support do you need elsewhere? Do you need marital support? How is your partnership going? Do you need career support? I've definitely seen a lot of families where they become parents, their career kind of goes to the wayside, right? And it's like I have a different focus. But you'll find this need. I need to be back in my career. I need to know what's moving, right? That's a need, that's something that's part of your support. How do you do that? How do you keep up with your career while still managing this? How do you even build new support? Maybe your old friends don't understand now because you're a parent.
How do you build new support, right? All of that matters as you're building your support because some people do well for you, right? Sometimes I do need my single girlfriends because they don't care and it's nice just to hang out with them. But sometimes I need my parents of toddlers because they really understand how this is.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:38:57] Mm-hmm.
Mercedes Samudio [00:38:57] That's okay to have both sets of support, right? Sometimes you do need your mother-in-law, but be honest about what she does well so that way you can tell her, you do great when you do this. If you could just do groceries for us, that would be really helpful, right? Okay. Right? And so I say all that to say, as you know what's best of support for you, you actually get your real needs met. You're not just having people come to the house and take up space.
You're actually getting your needs met, right? Because you know I do best with this or my family does best with this type of support. I'll end this by saying all of these six tenets are things that are constantly being worked on. That's why it's a framework. So it's not like I mastered empathy. You probably will not, but if you remember, giving yourself empathy helps that brings you back. If you remember what was going on when we had that fight? Yeah, his mother was coming into town, yes, okay, right? That awareness brings you back like I am actually really good at putting the kids to bed, but I'm not good at craft time. That actually helps you to realize, all right, I'm a good bed person. I need someone who does craft time. I hate crafts, right? And I use these facetious examples to help people realize that the tenets aren't steps. They are really things to remind yourself how to get back. How not to create a shame story at that moment for yourself of how bad a parent you are, how horrible you've done. But to remind yourself, right, we're learning or right, this is going on. This isn’t my fault. I've literally told every parent during the past two years, whatever you remind yourself of, remember it's COVID and we've been pretty much an apocalypse for two years. So that goes over every other thing that you're about to tell yourself of how bad you are.
Like at first line blame COVID. Then go with whatever comes next, because obviously everybody's under a different level of stress with this thing going on above us, right? And so it was a really good time to talk about shame-proof parenting during this time because it's easy to create shame stories when everybody is sitting in the house together trying to navigate work from home, school from home. And we still have to live here.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:41:01] Right.
Mercedes Samudio [00:41:02 ] I think that was a really good time to really pay attention to how we create those shame stories under a circumstance none of us had any control over.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:41:10] Mm-hmm. Right. Thank you for sharing those. It sort of reminds me of kind of how I think about the self-worth journey, which is using practices, right? So those, the things that you're sharing, the empathy, the support, the confidence, right? All of those things feel like prac, like they're things that you sort of return to again and again, they're things that guide behavior. They could be practices or values or things that sort of people come back to again and again so that they're not thinking, okay, yeah, right. I've mastered this and I'm done with that. Or I gave my child or myself empathy once and now that's it. I've done enough empathy. It's like, what? Nope, we know that that's needs to be an ongoing thing. So thank you for breaking that down. I'd love to also talk a little bit as we sort of close out here about how you think self-worth can sort of intersect with parenting and how you think sort of if parents sort of know that they're worthy unconditionally, how that might support them in sort of being effective parents and being the parents they want to be in engaging in this shame-proof parenting process. What do you think the sort of interactions are there?
Mercedes Samudio [00:42:30] Yeah, I think that actually draws really well with the shame-proof parenting space of it being this practice, this journey that you take yourself on to build up some of that worth. I often tell parents, and as I develop kind of that parental identity development model kind of space, you are diving into another piece of your identity that you actually have to cultivate, right? And so worth is something that as we move into different identities, as we move into different roles, we have to cultivate it in that space. And so in the intersection there, shame-proof parenting allows you a really nice foundation of tenets to begin to cultivate that, that idea of worthiness as a parent, as you have more empathy for yourself, you realize, right, I'm learning, right? I do this with new parents quite a bit. You have to realize you just became a parent two days ago, two weeks ago, three months ago, right?
And so you're learning a lot about how to exist with another person's needs, right? And so that allows cultivation of birth. As you get older, one of the things that I also realize with kids is trying to teach them worthiness and their worth gives you another opportunity for yourself as well. right? So you watch your child struggle with trying to ride a bike and I'm stupid. You have to remind your kid, they're not dumb for falling off their bike the first time they try it. That's a good reminder for you. You're not dumb the first time you try something. If you fall off your bike, metaphorically get back up and remind yourself you're a good kid and you can do this, right? So it kind of becomes another opportunity for parents to remind themselves of the narrative they've had. You're not going to tell your kid what a bad kid you are, you fell off your bike.
Most of us aren't going to do that. We're going to be empathetic, we're going to show them support. We're going to give them a kind words they feel encouraged to keep trying. That's another moment of finding your worth. That's what worthy is, I am worthy enough to keep trying. I'm worthy enough to put my bike back, right? Get back on and try to get back down this block. If you can remember that, that becomes the intersection of shame-proof parenting. As I practice these, as I go through these, I'm worthy enough to be confident in myself. I'm worthy enough to be resilient. I'm worthy enough to remember that it's three o'clock and I haven't eaten yet, right? Like those things, all become part of the parenting journey because you do have to recreate yourself as you take care of the needs of someone else, right? As you try to help this other person live, you are recreating a new sense of your own worth and a new sense of your own identity.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:44:56] Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that's really helpful because I do get questions from parents who say, I've struggled with self-worth. How do I make sure my child does not go through that? How do I make sure that they feel worthy from the start? And I think, part of what you're saying is like how you respond to your child, how you encourage your child, helps to instill a sense of worthiness, right? You're again separating, sort of like what happens in life from their worth. And making sure they know that it's not about perfection, it's not about, you know what I mean? It's not about never failing or never making mistakes, that that's part of it. And that doesn't take away from their worthiness. But then there's this other piece which is when you can treat yourself as worthy, which is a lot of what I talk about as well, then you're, one, better equipped to show up with compassion and empathy for your children.
And two, you're modeling, right? Because we all know that if you as a parent aren't affirming your child for being worthy, even when they make mistakes or whatever, and you're reminding them of that, but then you make a mistake, right? You miss a pickup time and you're late, or you spill food on the floor or whatever it is. Like you make a mistake, you yell at your kid, right? And then you start beating yourself up. What you're modeling is, I do not think I'm worthy of love, care, and respect because I made this mistake. And our kids are going to hold onto what we do more than what we say, right? They may hear, yeah, yeah, yeah. You say, it's all good if you don't make a mistake, but I see you beating yourself up for that mistake you made. So that's what's true, right?
Mercedes Samudio [00:46:41] Yes.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:46:42] And so if we really want our kids to know they're worthy, we need to work on affirming for ourselves that we are worthy just as we affirm them as well.
Mercedes Samudio [00:46:53] Yes. And I love that piece of modeling because that's piece that part of the shame-proof parenting framework too, that obviously as you're doing this, your kids will see it. And I think that's something that we often miss with our parenting. Parents will see them do something negative and say, oh, I don't know where they learned that. But when they do something positive, you don't pay attention to that either. And so I think it's really important to pay attention to just both, right? If your kid's not doing something that you like, pay attention to that. Because that means they're learning something. It might not be from you, but they're learning. But if they can learn from watching, that means they can learn from watching, right? Show up, right? And I'll say this, even as I really appreciate what you just shared. I'll kind of share my own space of it, which is make a mistake too, right?
I often tell parents it's okay to make a mistake in front of your kid and say that, wow, I made a mistake. Oh, I didn't like the way I said that. Say that even as you give apologies, you could say, I didn't like the way I said that, but I do want you to know I want your room clean. So I'm sorry I said it that way, but I definitely, that's modeling too, right? So it's not just always getting it right, it's not just always liking yourself. Sometimes even say, today I had a really hard time, I messed up on a presentation and I didn't like the way I said that. And because then your kids get to also see that it's okay sometimes to feel like, oh, I messed up. Or, oh, I didn't like that. It's okay.
Talk about it. Because then you'd be surprised as your kids get older and they might even have something to say to you. They might even say, well, it's okay mom. My teacher taught me when you get the presentation you do this. There you go. That's a shame proof family right there. Not only am I giving myself empathy by being open, my kid now is able to give me some confidence by saying, well, my teacher taught me to do it this way. If you're given a presentation, of course, they're like six or seven, but that might work. That six or seven presentation tip might work. And I joke with that because I think oftentimes as parents you feel like I can't be human. I have to always have a lesson or I have to always model or I have to, just know that you live, they see you sleep too.
They see you eat. They see you go outside and pick the weeds out of the garden, they see you take the trash cans out. You're not always teaching and modeling and doing exactly the Saturday morning cartoon of it. Sometimes your kids are just watching you. They're watching the way you watch TV, they're watching the TV shows you pay attention to. It's okay to be human. It's okay to show up. And I think that piece of it is where you find your worth, is that all of you gets to be here. Not just the parts of you that you've worked on, not just the parts of you that you've gone to therapy to talk about. Even the parts of you that yeah, you're still discovering and you don't love so much and you're not familiar with that part of you.
I think that becomes a huge part of worth that as we raise kids, you start to see it. You see them not like themselves as a result of something and you have to really realize, oh that's the thing. That's a human thing. That's not something we can get out of ourselves. We do feel bad sometimes. We do have hard times. And so how do we show that too? So that way we can give our kids the sense of your whole self is okay.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:50:06] Right.
Mercedes Samudio [00:50:07] Even when you have a hard time. I think that's a part of being that worth too. And I only say that because I think that's something that's a recovering perfectionist. I had to learn that people do like when you do things right, but people also like you when you don't do things right, people also like you, right? And so that worth of it, I think is really important as you talk about it in that way. I think it's important for us to continue, like you said, to pay attention to how we're showing up. Because that also shows us our worth too. You're showing up. You're trying, that's a part of your worthiness too.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:50:40] Yeah. Yeah. I completely, completely agree and I think that's a great note to end our conversation on. So I'm sure people are going to be curious about your book and where they can find it. So I'd love for you to share that and if there are other places where people can connect with you.
Mercedes Samudio [00:50:57] Yes. So the best way to connect with me is to start on shameproofparenting.com. That's the name of the book, that's the name of the website. If you start there, you'll get links to my YouTube, all my socials and you can get link to get the book as well if you're looking forward to that.
Dr. Adia Gooden [00:51:12] Thank you so much, Mercedes. It's been really wonderful to have you and I know that the wisdom you share is going to be so helpful to all of our listeners.
Mercedes Samudio [00:51:20] Thank you so much for having me.
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This episode was produced by Crys & Tiana and the music is by Wataboi.
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Have you dealt with shame in your life? Whether you’re a parent or not, I think we all have in some capacity. That’s why it’s so important to see how shame is created and how we can prevent it from controlling our lives and our children’s lives.
In this episode, I welcome Mercedes Samudio, a Licensed Psychotherapist, Bestselling Author, and International Speaker. Mercedes works with parents all over the world to develop healthy parental identities and reduce the shame they experience as they raise healthy children. She has developed an incredible Shame-Proof Parenting philosophy, which she breaks down for you in this episode.
Listen in as Mercedes and I talk about how to take the shame out of parenting so you can feel lighter, more confident, and more resilient throughout parenthood. Mercedes shares six practices that will help you stop shaming yourself and your children, then she talks about how shame-proof parenting goes hand in hand with unconditional self-worth.
Although this episode is geared towards parents, I think everyone will find it helpful in some way, especially if you’ve dealt with shame in your life.
“You forget that as you move through phases that these phases will challenge you in different ways and that’s where the healing comes.” - Mercedes Samudio
In so many ways, children bring us into the messiness of life. From the messy emotions to the physical messes that pop up all over your house, there is a lot that kids bring up. Too often, parents feel shame when life gets a little too messy. Some of us are perfectionists, some of us just aren’t comfortable embracing the mess. That’s where our shame stories develop, in the perfection and the discomfort.
And let’s be honest, it’s really difficult to parent when we’re filled with shame or fear of shame. It can become a self-fulfilling cycle that needs to be disrupted in order to stop.
What is Shame-Proof Parenting?
Mercedes thinks of shame-proof parenting as a way to help you support and reconnect with your family when life gets messy; when situations come up that may cause someone to be shamed or feel shame. “When so-and-so gets in trouble at school, let’s connect with each other. When dad has a really bad day and yells at everybody, let’s connect with each other,” Mercedes says. “It’s hard… it’s a journey, but that’s what you’re working through.”
The framework of shame-proof parenting helps you to believe that you are worthy enough to feel confident as a parent, to feel resilient, and to make empowered decisions for and with your family. It helps you take a step back and think before you react or speak to your kids.
Why Shame Doesn’t Work
We live in a society that seems to believe that you can shame people into changing their behavior or changing their mind… but that’s not true. Shame isn’t an effective strategy to bring about change. Shame is rooted in judgment. We feel shame when we decide that our judgments (of ourselves or others) are correct. When we try to make sense of how difficult parenting is (because we all start parenthood as beginners), we start to create our own judgments or “truths” about what parenting should be. When these “truths” collide with other parents’ “truths”, shame is born.
You can’t stop people from judging you, but you can come back to yourself and your family and notice how this judgment and shame affects all of you. Let’s now explore a few ways to do that.
6 Ways to Practice Shame-Proof Parenting:
Practice empathy for yourself and your family.
Practice awareness of what’s happening and how you feel when shame or judgment arises.
Do your best to know everyone’s needs. All conflict comes from everyone trying to get their needs met and not knowing how to. Knowing each other’s needs, as well as your own, helps you to prevent situations that can cause conflict and shame, or at least understand why those situations arose in the first place.
Have confidence in what you do well. This will give you the space to know when you need help or support with other things.
Building resilience is about bouncing back together as a family and replenishing yourselves so you can move forward together. What are your family’s resilience tools? Tip: Don’t be afraid to share resilience tools with other families!
What type(s) of support do you need right now? Marriage support? Childcare support? Career support? Once you know what support you need, you can get your needs met, which prevents conflict, shame, etc.
A key aspect of shame-proof parenting is the idea that the most vulnerable parts of ourselves, the parts of us that people don’t know or understand, need to be held and validated in safe spaces. If they’re not, they will create shame stories. Everyone, including our children, needs a safe space to return to to reflect on the judgments and conflicts they experience. Whether that be your home or your therapist’s office, keep that in mind as a priority.
Mercedes emphasizes that these six tenets are not concrete steps, they’re ways to remind yourself how to get back to a healthy, shame-free mindset. These practices will remind you how shame stories are created and will empower you to choose a different path. This is very similar to our self-worth practices, which remind us how to give ourselves the space and grace to reconnect to our unconditional worthiness when it’s challenged.
Remember, life is messy… and that’s okay. You’re still worthy. ❤️
About Mercedes Samudio (she/her):
Mercedes Samudio is an EMDR-trained licensed psychotherapist, speaker, and bestselling author who supports parents and children to communicate with each other, manage emotional trauma, navigate social media and technology together, and develop healthy parent-child relationships. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a private practice, Mercedes has worked with adoptive families, foster families, teen parents, parents navigating the child protective services system, and children living with mental illness. Mercedes seeks to empower parents to believe that they are already great guides for raising healthy and happy children.
To connect further with Mercedes Samudio:
Visit her website: http://shameproofparenting.com
Follow her on Instagram: http://instagram.com/mrs.samudio
Buy Mercedes’ book, Shame-Proof Parenting: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071D4YXMT
This episode was produced by Crys & Tiana.
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