Why Kids Blame Themselves

Why Kids Blame Themselves

“Catastrophic thinking” is a common symptom in adult anxiety. However, it is a common occurrence in even the healthiest of young children. Luckily, many kids are able to discuss their catastrophic thoughts with validating adults so they don’t persist and become symptoms of later anxiety.

One of the most common kinds of catastrophic thinking involves evaluations of the self, or attributing bad outcomes to the self:

“It’s all my fault!”

“I’m a bad person.”

“I can’t do anything right, I’m a screw-up.”

“I’m not smart.”

“Nobody likes me.”

Babies are not born with these thoughts. They must get instilled through experience. They exist for a reason.

Children are sent these messages either directly, or they get interpreted indirectly from the environment around them. Messages coming from family members are especially sticky ). Children are impressionable and tend to accept messages from those close to them as truth. If Dad tells me I’m a screw-up, it must be true.

Unless these messages are identified and effective repairs are made, they may persist and cause problems down the line. It’s easy to spot direct messages (yelling, hitting, criticizing), but the indirect messages may be harder to spot and treat. (See “Praising and Comparing Children” and “What Does it Mean to 'Judge Not'”)

But, the knowledge that kids tend to attribute external stress to their badness or their fault can help us identify things to treat. This tendency is actually a defense mechanism people develop to reduce pain in the short term. For example:

Imagine a child who comes home to a depressed mother. She tries to get Mom’s attention to tell her about what happened at school, but Mom is disinterested. Feeling lonely and growing desperate, the child acts out, turning on the TV and blasting the volume. Mom snaps out of her apathy and scolds her. The child feels shame at being scolded, but also knows her actions led to Mom’s anger. It is the child’s fault. Because the child knows her actions can snap Mom out of depressive states, she comes to feel she is responsible for Mom’s depression as well.

She needs to think this way because the alternative is even more painful. What if the child believed there was nothing she could do to get Mom’s attention, and nothing she could do to change Mom’s depressed mood? What if traumatic things happened to her, and she was neglected, and there was NOTHING she could do about it? Then, she is not only bad and worthless, but she lives in a world where she gets hurt and there is nothing she can do about it; a literal living hell.

It is much better for her to believe she is bad and is the cause of her mother’s problems. If so, this opens the possibility that, if she gets it right someday, her mother will feel better. She gains an artificial sense of control from this belief that gives her hope to survive.

This is a fairly common example of how children “take it personally” as a survival mechanism. Children blame themselves because it gives them a sense of control over when something is hurting them. Some other examples of how these beliefs look:

“Daddy is yelling at me. It must be because I am bad. Maybe if I do the right thing, he won’t yell at me.”  The alternative is, “Daddy is yelling at me because he has a problem. I can’t do anything about it. I live in an scary world where I can be hurt randomly by Daddy’s uncontrolled feelings.”

“Mom and Dad got divorced because I wasn’t good enough and made them stressed. If I work really hard, maybe they’ll get back together.” The alternative: “They got divorced for reasons outside my control. Relationships are chaotic and hurtful. I should avoid them.”

“Mommy is spending more time with Baby than with me. She doesn’t love me as much as Baby. Maybe if I act like Baby, she will love me again.” The alternative: “Mommy’s love comes and goes randomly. I can feel loved or rejected at times beyond my control.”

Can you see how the first statements are less painful than the alternatives? They create a counterfeit hope that may stave off the hopelessness of the alternatives, at least for a short while. The downside to this thinking is that it is unsustainable long-term. The child will come to learn that there is little she can do that can keep Dad from yelling when his anger is triggered, nothing that will make Mom and Dad get back together, and that acting like Baby will only annoy Mom and lead to feeling less loved. The fear the child has been avoiding with the first belief has been realized, hopelessness sets in, and the child must either succumb to depression, or rebel against the no-win scenario.

If Dad learns to control his anger and makes repairs, divorcing parents maintain a consistent healthy dialogue about the child’s feelings, and Mom identifies the child’s fear of being unloved and makes adjustments, these self-attributing feelings no longer become necessary and the child feels safe. If not, mental illness will likely creep in.

Why is this important to know? 

First, if your child starts openly expressing self-defeating thoughts, don’t ARGUE with them! Validate the feelings and find out where they come from if you can! Arguing with a shameful thought keeps the feeling from flowing out, and makes a child feel shame for feeling shame.

    Second, self-defeating thoughts persist because they are hard to talk about; they are illogical and often get invalidated. Checking in regularly with kids and letting them know that ALL feelings are valid will help you nip shame in the bud.

    Third, many adult anxiety symptoms stem from suppressed feelings of shame that arose from experiences where they “took it personally” as children. Identifying these kinds of thoughts in yourself and exploring them may lead you to the experiences where they got instilled, and aid in your own recovery.

    Fourth, if you know somebody that “takes it personally” a lot, you can bet it’s because of their own shame, which arises from REAL experiences they have had! Maybe knowing this will help you be more compassionate. Self-attributing thoughts are a defense mechanism that wards off hopelessness, and are NOT a sign of weakness.