I would suggest having her work with special needs younger kids. It helps to put in perspective the variety of human beings and that we are all perfectly imperfect.

I would suggest having her work with special needs younger kids. It helps to put in perspective the variety of human beings and that we are all perfectly imperfect.

I would try normalizing it/educating her--being exquisitely sensitive to embarrassment is a painful, unpleasant thing that happens to people, particularly teenagers, sometimes/tell her about times you were young had heightened sense of embarrassment, that you remember it was no fun. That lets her start to see that the unpleasant sensations are not necessarily an accurate representation of how "serious" her gaffe was and also that other people have gone through this/she likely won't be in embarrassment mode forever.

How about some novels that deal with this feeling, feature a protagonist that she could relate to and who offers another way to work through the situations. I will try to think of some titles.

OP here. Thanks for all the input. Yes, we do point out our mistakes and try to model ways to deal with them. It's helpful to have some other ideas, too!

I am JUST like your daughter! Except I'm 47. It feels like the end of the world and I still cringe today about some public mistakes I've made even years ago.

And I'm trying not to pass this trait down to my son. I've taught him from early on that we all make mistakes. That we even "need" to make mistakes at times, because we can learn from them in ways we don't learn from success.

I think the CBT is a good idea. I guess I've done a self-help, home version of it myself over the years. The feelings of embarassment don't go away, but they are manageble because I know "everyone" does these things, and nobody thinks any less of them.

I have also taught my son that when we make a mistake, we immediately come clean and apologize, fix it (if possible), and work really hard not to let it happen again. In my experience, the mistakes that people "do" remember are the ones that people try to hide or deny. Those drag on forever.

And you might try modeling how you handle your own mistakes, too, OP. Show her how you work through the process.

Brene Brown talks a lot of vulnerability and shame and how to break out of what she calls a "shame spiral". She has a number of books and inspiring TED talks: https://www.ted.com/speakers/brene_brown or http://brenebrown.com/

Also, I've used something called EFT or Tapping. Where you tap on acupressure points to calm your body and release emotions. I like these websites: tappingsolution.com or https://www.youtube.com/user/eftwizard.

Here a tapping video that deals specifically with embarrassment (or shame) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W12dkzQT0VU

Best advice I ever got: your mistakes shouldn't make you feel humiliated, they should make you feel humble. Teach her how each mistake can make her a more compassionate person.

+1

I agree that CBT is a great choice. It's important for her to learn how to interrupt the negative reinforcing thoughts. It doesn't just help with the anxiety but also with depression and resiliency. We all face embarrassment and set backs. Being able to bounce back/move on from them is a life skill.

FWIW - whenever we watch sports, we talk about player mistakes. How do you think a quarterback feels when his pass is intercepted? Goalies when a ball gets past them? Baseball players, in particular, are good to talk about because striking out 70% of the time still means you're one of the best hitters out there.

cognitive behavior therapy! it's great for that stuff.

My DD (11) has some issues with anxiety, but I'm specifically curious about ways of helping her deal with feelings of embarrassment. She can get hung up on small mistakes she makes and that make her feel "so embarrassed" (even just within our nuclear family). We're not teasing her about them or criticizing her--it's all coming from her. I point out that no one else cares about minor mistakes she's making (and that we all make!) but that doesn't seem to help.

Any suggestions about how to help her overcome these feelings of embarrassment? Books? TV shows/movies that might help? Activities that we should encourage for her?