Sorry is the hardest word to say
Your toddler has inadvertently hit you in excitement. Or, your preschooler has hit you out of anger. Both actions require an apology: one accidental, one intentional. How do you handle this?
Forcing a child to apologize is giving a command and not the way to get a child to comply. The key is to teach your child and not command. But how do you teach your child to say sorry? Especially when empathy is not innate. Infants and children are naturally self-centered for self-preservation. For example, they cry when they are hungry etc.
One key is to use modeling to teach. The book “Parenting with Love & Logic
Ask your child the next time an incident occurs: How did hitting that other child make you feel? How did that other child feel? And then ask how they can make it better. Let them think about this a little. The first time or two you may have to help them come up with a solution. The goal is to allow your child the opportunity to “MAKE UP” for their mistakes. This helps children feel remorse while leaving their dignity intact, a key distinction between discipline and punishment.
What if they won’t apologize? Is it better to force an apology? No as this is teaching them to lie if they don’t mean it. And it is also giving a command, which only serves to invite power struggles with you and your child.
Another way to teach is to let natural consequences do the teaching for you: if your child won’t eat what is for dinner then he will be hungry or logical consequences: you broke the neighbors window, now you will have to pay for it.
Multiple studies have shown that physical punishment results in the opposite of the intended result. The last thing a parent wants is an angry or submissive child.
If our goal is to teach with consequences, it is equally important for your child to experience positive consequences such as rewards for their good behavior as it is negative consequences for bad behavior.
To Forgive…
How do you as the adult forgive your child at a time when you may feel extremely angry? Focus on the child’s behavior, which was wrong. “Your behavior was very naughty and this makes me angry. But, I still love you.” They have to know that they are loved. In fact because toddlers cannot distinguish between “their selves” and “their behavior”, they may feel shame (the belief that they are bad) instead of the far healthier remorse. Focusing on the behavior and reassuring your child that you love them will guard against them feeling shame.
Additionally, give your child an appropriate venue to safely express their emotion. So when they hit out of anger, feed them the appropriate behavior for this situation. You can say: “It is ok to tell me your angry but don’t hit. Hitting hurts.” I vividly recall the pride I felt when our son understood this concept and he verbalized “I am so angry at you mama!”
If your child repeatedly doesn’t show empathy or remorse then this may be a reason to be concerned that there is an underlying disorder such as Asperger’s Syndrome, autism or one of the autism spectrum disorders. If there is a cause for concern, talk to your doctor.
For additional information, I recommend: “Parenting with Love & Logic
Your Turn
What has been your experience with teaching forgiveness?
This article first appeared in Woman Today Magazine
What a great post! I love the idea of teaching forgiveness … it’s the hardest thing for me to do so your post is inspiring! I also found my friend and yoga teacher’s post on forgiveness as rooted in self forgiveness to be helpful:
http://beaabascal.wordpress.com/category/forgiveness/ but it’s more for adults than kids!
Teaching kids about forgiveness is such a gift!
What a great post! I love the idea of teaching forgiveness … it’s the hardest thing for me to do so your post is inspiring! I also found my friend and yoga teacher’s post on forgiveness as rooted in self forgiveness to be helpful:
http://beaabascal.wordpress.com/category/forgiveness/ but it’s more for adults than kids!
Teaching kids about forgiveness is such a gift!
Glad you liked the post and thanks for the link! Vinyasa Flow is the type of yoga I like to do as well! I am using yogaglo.com these days so I can stream it on demand and do it at home. I think the post link is also applicable to children.
I wrote another post coming soon on teaching another aspect to kids and there are some common themes in teaching forgiveness, how to deal with bullying, how to motivate, how to deal with failure etc… Will reveal in that post. But having said that, our job to teach our kids is endless! But worth it!
Best in the New Year!
Rajka
This is a great post! I may not have a child yet but I have lots of nieces and nephews. Sometimes I get pissed with what they do but I don’t show this to them. They will just cry in front of me for a while and then everything will be back to normal. What I do is talk to them and say the same way that you do. They learn easily and I adore them for the attitude.
Thanks for stopping by to comment. You are right, you can be a good model even to children who are not your own. Modeling is a greart way to teach. Enjoy those nieces and nephews!
There are 3 things I always inform our baby sitters to teach our daughter: please, thank you, and sorry. These are the 3 most powerful words in the world.
The most important 3 words!