Apologising and teaching to apologise

Do we want our child to apologise for their mistakes? Do we want them to just say the right words of apology or do we want them to empathise with others and feel the need to apologise out of compassion and morality and mean the words they say?

Do we apologise as a practice in our life when we know we have made a mistake? Do we apologise to our partner when necessary (and only when necessary, not unnecessarily) Do we apologise to our children when necessary?

Do we just say the right words of apology or do we empathise with them and feel the need to apologise out of compassion and morality and mean the words we say?

We need to model what we ask of our child. If we model something else and expect something else from the child, the child is going to get confused, learn the thing we model and feel disappointed and guilty for not meeting our expectations.

Let’s make humility accessible to our child.

Activity:

• Observe what you feel when you realise your mistake.
• Notice if you apologise and if you do, how you do it. Pay attention to whether you mean it, your words, your tone, what you imply through it, whether your apologies are also riddled with accusations and so on.
• Note what you can do to respectfully apologise after making mistakes.
• Make sure you apologise to your child whenever necessary.
• Make sure you don’t ask your child to just say the words of apology when you can clearly see that the child is too emotionally charged to feel any remorse at that moment.