Helping Children with Shame

Shame is the experience of feeling unacceptable, less than others, or different. Children often experience the sting of this particular sense of failing to measure up. Whether this heavy feeling comes from internal or external pressures, children need help to understand what to do with their feelings of inadequacy and rejection. Counselor and author Edward T. Welch helps counselors and parents see how shame is addressed in Scripture and how the Lord looks on struggling children with compassion and acceptance. He demonstrates how to connect a child’s story of shame to the themes of Scripture so that a child can put words to his or her experience and see that Jesus knows our name, clothes us with dignity, and gives us his reputation.