Help your child through embarrassment? Remember how YOU felt!

Wow, those were embarrassing moments. Getting the answer wrong in front of the class. Dropping the ball in a game. Burping – or more – during a personal encounter. Missing a measure – or two – during a concert solo. Finding a tear in your clothes after you already arrived in school.

And those were the – comparatively – easy ones.

Can you remember how you felt? That you wanted to disappear…or maybe that you wanted to lash out at whatever or whomever embarrassed you.

Child Mind Institute takes on the topic with its usual common sense advice:

• Model good behavior in front of your child (if not everywhere). Don’t obsess about how you could have avoided the embarrassment; stay calm and don’t get flustered; and – if it was someone else who was embarrassed, don’t tease or make fun, in front of or behind their back.
• Take your child’s feelings seriously. The incident may seem small to you but this is a good time to remember how you felt when you were a child; it’s never small.
• But don’t overreact either. He or she doesn’t need you to get angry or promise to intervene, but to be there.
• Praise positive skills. And when your child was resilient, handled the situation calmly and sensibly, tell them so. “That was brave of you to finish your solo without wavering. I’m proud of the way you handled it.”

Read CMI’s entire article on helping your child cope with embarrassment. You’ll find a lot more worth reading on the organization’s website.