It is not usually of ill-intention to teach our young kids how to apologize over situations that hurt others or ourselves. But it is usually very challenging to teach them how to apologize and just say "sorry," wholeheartedly isn't it?
Here's a very interesting story I'd love to share to you between my three year old daughter and her daddy. After finally reuniting for over three years,the two naturally have bouts of moments together. From fist plays to extreme emotional reactions against each other, observing them finally together is quite amusing for me.
Her daddy had to process how things work between the two of them. The process is not like rainbows and unicorns at all. It's difficult and it's not always a happy ending at the end of the day.
One of those difficult times is my husband's well-intentioned attempt to teach our child how to apologize sincerely. I believe this "issue" is not only true for my husband but to all other parents as well.
Time and again, our toddler would show expressions that sometimes is blown out of proportion (which is very normal and should not threaten any parent) that results to hurting someone out of impulse, even me. I don't take it against her, and I don't require her to apologize for doing so. But, I get easy on her and let her know that she has hurt me.
Whatever it is, as much as I would want her to say "sorry" I try not to go there. I do rather ask her what is she supposed to say or do when she hurts me or somebody. Of course she doesn't get it at first, so I model it. Then the process goes on and on until she learns how to do it without me reprimanding superficial acts of saying sorry just for the sake of saying it and satisfying the adult.
If I keep telling her "SAY SORRY TO ME BECAUSE YOU HAVE HURT ME.." That's not teaching a child, that's called manipulating a child, and that's a parent trying to CONTROL a child. That's not the way it should go.
Tweak your phrase a little bit and the effect would not result to a reprimand, control or manipulation. I usually ask a question that would make her think what is the better way to address her actions than directly telling her to do this and that. "You have hurt me, what are we supposed to do now?" "You have accidentally done this, what do you think we should do?" Then when I make emotional outbursts too, I SAY SORRY TO HER. It's human to feel angry, and I need to apologize for terrifying her with my anger, and in any case, maybe have hurt her. So yes, I say it in words like "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
Sometimes her actions really annoy me or even hurt me. She sometimes jumps on me or leans on my chest with her elbow and I scream because I get hurt, so I get mad! and she gets mad too! So I demand of her to be sorry and apologetic because she did hurt me.
But what's a child gotta do when they themselves are not sure how to respond?They dont just magically come to you and own accountability for hurting you, THEY JUST DON'T BECAUSE they need to see these skills from you. So please, stop expecting way too much if you yourself is not doing it. But even if you show it, you still don't expect they would learn it overnight.
So I learned to stop expecting and I started to be more forgiving of her incapability of apologizing sincerely.
I changed my approach. When I demanded her to say sorry, she retracts and hides even more. She gets more mad, madder than me and she refuses to give in, like "sorry" is such a difficult word to say than saying a five-syllables word.
I always say sorry when she hurts me. I say sorry when she feels angry. "I'm sorry you feel that way ..," "I'm sorry you are angry at me, take your time.." Even if she has hurt me first.
Young children still don't have that sense of full awareness what to do and say when they hurt somebody. In fact they feel clueless how to respond when they hurt you, until they get to see it from their parents firsthand, they slowly and gradually understand this is how we all should do when somebody is hurt, regardless of who did it first.
So what happened between our toddler and and her daddy was a stimulus-response situation. When we accidentally touch a hot pan, we immediately withdraw our hand from that pan. Our toddler was the hot pan. She was excitedly playing and accidentally hurt her daddy from the groin. As a response, her daddy pinched her. She got mad, burrowed her face on the pillows and refused to look at her daddy.
Both got hurt. One made an accident and the other had no time to think and the reaction from the father resulted to the child's quick emotional withdrawal.
Her daddy reprimanded with authority and demanded an apology from our toddler. Our daughter continued to withdraw and showed no plans of apologizing. NOT A SINGLE chance she's gonna do that. She got hurt too, she was focused on the hurt and not on what she had done, because that's how sensitive little kids are to any forms of pain, physical or emotional. They get blinded by their own hurt, because young children are so much focused on their own world, not on other people's world, see the concept of what they see belongs to them, what they touch belongs to them, what they like, want, love belongs to them. The toys of other kids that they love belongs to them, any birthday celebration from family they blow candles they're not supposed to blow, because they are still so much focused on their own desires and impulses.
Going back to my husband's demand of apology from our daughter, it was to no avail. I was there, quiet and didn't interfere until my husband asked for my intervention. I didn't intervene too much though, in fact I didn't intervene at all. I just said to my husband, "You both got hurt, you had to apologize first.." He didn't respond to me but I can smell his huge reluctance and I can see his arching eyebrows despite the absence of lights.
My point was, our child is incapable of owning accountability yet. But showing her how to do it was the way to go.
What happened next was an instant positive outcome. Despite my husband's pride and furious emotional state, he did it anyway. He calmly told our then sulking little angel "I'm sorry... I'm sorry I've pinched you..where did you get hurt? Let me blow it.." Like a magic, our Angel sincerely responded to her daddy, with a soft fine voice, "I'm sorry..."
At this point, I don't want to tell my husband the I-told-you-so phrase, but he learned something, they both learned something
Without any word of authority or demand or reprimand from any of us her parents, she knew what she had to do and say...then she allowed her daddy to hug her.
That's all what she needed. This is journeying her days with her daddy. What me and my daughter had practiced does not automatically transform to her daddy. It is a relationship, it takes a tremendous amount of bond to understand and to know each other. My relationship between me and my daughter is already there but her daddy still has to undergo the process of establishing their connection which is happening everyday. I'm glad I have seen a great relationship happening right before my eye.
Happy parenting!
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