Reading · The Resonant Parenting Project

If you liked reading this, feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏

Shame is something so many of us as parents carry quietly and hardly ever talk about.

As Louis shared in our Substack Live conversation, shame isn’t just a passing feeling, it’s deeply wired into us. It’s the part of us that wants to belong, that worries we might be judged, exposed, or even excluded. And when you’re a parent, especially if you’re raising a sensitive or neurodivergent child, those feelings can feel even bigger.

For parents I work with, we often talk about the shame that can come up when family imply they’re not taking a firm enough line, even though the parent can see their child is dysregulated, tired, hungry, or overstimulated. They know their child needs space, but it’s a lot to manage in front of family.

Or the comment from a teacher that makes you doubt yourself as a parent — “she’s fine at school, we’re having no problems here,” even though at home everything gets released, your child is very resistant and often needing to discharge and recover at home. In those moments, it’s so easy for shame to creep in, that sense you’re somehow getting it wrong as a parent, especially when what you’re experiencing at home doesn’t match what others are seeing on the outside.

Or when your child comes home so sad and tells you they were walking around by themselves with no one to play with at break time. That fear that your child is being excluded or left out.

I can look back on those moments when my daughter and I have been out and she’s been so dysregulated, and things have felt really overwhelming — just trying to manage her while also managing my own shame in front of passers-by.

It’s a lot, and we don’t talk about it nearly enough. And the truth is that parenting is confronting, exposing, and full of unknowns.

Louis shared a really relatable example from his own life, with his new puppy. He said when she misbehaves in the park, biting the lead, biting him, not quite doing what he hopes she’ll do, he feels shame. He becomes aware of the possible judgments of other dog-walkers, whose dogs seem so much better behaved than his little rascal. But when the same thing happens in his garden? He barely notices.

And I think we underestimate the impact of shame on our parenting, especially in this age of social media, constantly comparing ourselves to the performed version of others.

It also raises something really important, how much of what we feel as “personal failure” is actually shaped by who might be watching us.

We would love for there to be more spaces and more opportunities for us as parents to share the reality of what’s going on without fear of being judged. To drop the masks, drop the performance, and just be honest about the reality and how things are.

This is exactly why Louis and I have created Beyond Labels: A Lab for Parents of Neurodivergent & Sensitive Children.

This will be a live, 90-minute guided reflective space, a calm, structured space to pause and think, and a chance to connect with other parents who get it, with no pressure to speak. These are sanctuaries — places to breathe, reflect, be experimental and creative, and be with the dilemmas and questions so many of us carry as parents raising this next generation of sensitive kids.

They’re non-judgement spaces because we know just how hard, intense and relentless, and also joyful, it can be to parent these children.

🗓 Monday 11th May, 8–9:30pm BST

If this resonates, you’d be warmly welcomed to join us.
Link to book: https://lnkd.in/eQ5ECnpK

Join The Parenting Labs on EventBrite

Louis and I recently hosted a live conversation on Substack, exploring many of the themes we’ll be bringing into the session on Monday 11th May.

If you’d like to get a sense of how we think, speak, and hold these spaces, you’re welcome to listen here:

Join The Parenting Labs on EventBrite

I write the Resonant Parenting Project in between my work as a conscious parenting coach and looking after my eight-year-old daughter Matilda. Any support from readers through liking, sharing or subscribing helps make this work sustainable. Thank you!

Why Are We So Hard on Ourselves as Parents?

Comments