How Toxic Shame is First Developed in the Family System

I write in the preface of my book, Helping Teen Moms Graduate: Strategies for Family, Schools, and Community Organizations—my book came out in 2023, and it won two book awards— I write in the preface that one of the two most pronounced feelings that surface when I think of my childhood is shame. I felt that I was not good enough. No one said anything. I just felt I wasn't good enough. And the source was my birthright. I was born to an unwed teenage mother. She was shamed and I inherited her toxic shame. I didn't quite understand toxic shame until I read John Bradshaw's book, Healing the Shame That Binds Us. John Bradshaw writes that toxic shame is first developed in the family system by way of three dynamics. This is what today's Monday mentoring moment is all about-- three ways that toxic shame is first developed in the family system.