Guilt is a feeling that children and young people might have after saying or doing something they regret, or when they feel responsible for a negative outcome or experience. All children will feel guilt at some point in their lives as it's a natural response to some of the choices they make as they grow up.
If they start to feel guilty often, or for prolonged periods of time, it can begin to impact their daily life and is a sign that they may need some extra support to get through these uncomfortable emotions.
Things You Can Do
While feeling guilty is a natural reaction to some of the choices or behaviours your child will make growing up, it can become a problem when they begin to feel it often, or for long periods. Guilt can be helpful sometimes, by making children think about their behaviour and keeping them safe, however, excessive guilt can lead children and young people to have low mood, anxiety and lower their self-confidence.
If your child is feeling guilty, there are some things you can try to make them feel a little lighter.
Help children to express their feelings
Speaking to your child about the subject of their guilt or encouraging them to contact a helpline or counselling service like Childline or Kooth, can help them to get a balanced view of what's happened. In many cases, especially with younger children, guilt can be an emotion they feel when they've done nothing wrong.
Encourage children to think about the part they play
Feelings of guilt can often be linked to overly self-critical thinking. A child may have interpreted a situation in a way that means they feel guilt for no good reason, so it's good to support your child to think about the situation to establish whether they are accurately interpreting that they had some responsibility, or whether they may be being overly critical of themselves.
Support them to apologise
Encouraging your child to apologise if they have done something wrong can help them feel relief and help them move on. A sincere apology, giving the other party time to say how they feel, can help your young person learn good habits about personal responsibility and owning their actions.
Encourage young people to think about the future
Feeling guilt often focuses on past actions, but redirecting your child's focus to what they would do next time can help them move forward rather than dwelling on it.
Support them to forgive themselves
Supporting your child in letting go of guilty feelings and starting to be kind to themselves is an important part of learning self-care. It doesn't mean they will forget what happened, but accepting that they can't change anything now can help them to look forward.
Read NHS advice on talking to your child about their feelings
Guilt develops later in childhood than initial feelings of happiness and sadness. It provides a base on which a child's conscience develops. By feeling guilt a child shows they can feel empathy and have the ability to regret making someone else feel sad or unhappy.
Feelings of guilt can also be linked to a child or young person being overly self-critical, often when there is no good reason to feel guilty and they have actually interpreted a situation in an unhelpful way.
Shame
Shame is a more intense feeling of humiliation or distress aimed at themselves due to their thoughts that they've done something 'bad' and may feel that they are a 'bad person'. Feelings of shame can be very uncomfortable for children and lead to feelings of inadequacy, isolation and lead to spiralling feelings leading to low mood & anxiety.
Guilt Tripping
On occasion, your child might have a conversation with someone that leaves them feeling guilty. The other person may not be aware that their actions have caused this response. However, when someone has purposefully used guilt as a tool to make your child feel like they owe them something, this is called 'guilt tripping' and is a form of emotional blackmail.
Guilt-tripping is not okay, and your young person might need some emotional support to understand why this is a problem. Here are three ways you can help your child understand:
Encourage your child to reach out - Talking about what happened can help them to make sense of the event and their feelings. Reassure them and ask them whether they could have controlled what happened.Grooming is when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit or abuse them.
Groomers often try to isolate children from their family and friends, making them feel dependent on them, which gives the groomer power and control. They might use emotional blackmail to make a child feel guilt or shame or introduce the idea of secrets to control, frighten and intimidate them.
Emotional blackmail, or guilt-tripping can look like:
Parental Guilt
It's easy to feel guilt from time to time, you might feel like you should be doing things differently or believe that you aren't coping. It's a common feeling and it's natural to want the best for your children.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when parental guilt creeps in.
It's very common
Many parents feel the same way, even if they don't talk about it.
Be kind to yourself
Self-care is important for your wellbeing as a parent. Self-care can look different for everyone, whether it be sitting watching a TV show or taking a relaxing bath.
Think of the positives
Think of things that have gone well at the end of the day and pop them into a notebook, when you reflect on a week's worth of positives it can help you to appreciate the good things.
Switch off
Don't let the ideals of social media make you feel guilty. People post their show reels of accomplishments and positives, and if you are comparing yourself against an unrealistic profile it can make you feel low. Consider a clear out, deleting or muting profiles which make you feel less.
Young Carers
Young carers are children and young people under the age of 18 who play a caring role for someone else. This could be a parent or a relative. It can be a huge responsibility to care for someone else at a young age, and balancing this with school, work and maintaining friendships can be difficult.
It is normal and ok for young carers to feel angry, sad, guilty or resentful about their caring role. If you are supporting a young carer, we would suggest encouraging them to seek support and to have a trusted person to talk to, whether it be a parent, an adult at school or through a counselling service like Kooth or Childline.
Carers Matter Norfolk provides a free, independent and confidential advice line on 0800 083 1148 which offers support and advice on extra help that your family and your young carer are eligible for locally.
Bereavement
Guilt is a common reaction when someone is going through grief. Sometimes when a young person is grieving, they can feel guilty about their loved one's death or go over the interactions they had before they died. The death of a loved one is a huge life event, and feelings of loss, grief and sadness can be overwhelming.
Nelson’s Journey operate a Support Line service enabling families and professionals to speak directly with a Child Bereavement Support Worker. You can call them on 01603 431788.
Take Our Hand offer bereavement care packages and referrals for 16-25 year olds. You can email info@takeourhand.org.uk or call 07707 126650 to discuss further.
Carers Matter Norfolk provides the countywide service supporting unpaid carers. They have lots of useful information on their dedicated website and an app for young people. Young carers and their families can receive 1:1 or group support from Carers Matter to help them make choices about their caring and get the support they need. If you want to talk to one of the team about your child as a young carer, you can call them on 0800 083 1148.
The Wellbeing Service provides support for young people aged 16+. Find information, advice and self referral for those who live in Norfolk & Waveney.
You can contact the Healthy Child Service team by calling Just One Number on 0300 300 0123 or texting Parentline on 07520 631590. Our opening hours are 8am-6pm Monday-Friday (excluding bank holidays) and 9am-1pm on Saturdays.
If you are 11-19 you can text ChatHealth on 07480 635060 for confidential advice from one of our team.
For 10 to 18-year-olds, Kooth is a free, confidential and safe way to receive online counselling, advice and emotional well-being support.
To speak to other Norfolk parents and carers, you can join our online community forum below.
