“You should know how to cut much better by now. You’re in fifth grade.”

That’s what a substitute teacher said to me after noticing I was struggling with scissors one day in elementary school.

I don’t remember exactly what I did to get her attention—maybe I asked for left-handed scissors, maybe I asked a friend for help, maybe I showed her my uneven project. What I do remember is how I felt:

❌ Humiliated
❌ Ashamed
❌ Embarrassed

Even now, when I think about that moment, all these years later, I can still hear the stories I absorbed: inadequacy, incompetence, and invisibility.

I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I was doing my best with a tool that wasn’t made for me. But shame has a way of making us feel like the problem is us—not the environment, not the support, not the tools.

And here’s what I know now, as a parent, a coach, a human:

✅ No one grows from a place of shame.
✅ Shame doesn’t lead to mastery.
✅ It doesn’t create motivation.
✅ It creates disconnection, doubt, and fear.

Growth happens in safety.
🌈 In curiosity.
🌈 In compassion.
🌈 In connection.

This is why I talk so much about connection and co-regulation in my work. Because shame doesn’t grow skills, relationships do.

What’s a moment from your childhood that still lingers, not because of what happened, but because of how you felt?

What might be possible if we lead with curiosity instead of correction this week with our own children?

🌈Want to GROW with me? Click here and I’ll send you my one-page cheat sheet with simple, powerful words that replace shame with support, because what we say matters.