The vast majority of parents strive to raise children that are respectful, responsible, self-reliant, cooperative and assertive. However, in families where parents take the “I’m the boss” route, children often find themselves and their feelings being steamrolled or disregarded. Nowhere is this truer than when a parent makes a mistake. And trust me, we all make them. All. The. Time.
Parents are often scared to apologize to their children, mistakenly believing that acknowledging a mistake and owning up to it can undermine their child’s respect for them. Whether they made a small mistake by getting something wrong, or a bigger blunder by losing their cool, parents worry that stepping up and taking responsibility for the mistake can make things worse down the line.
What happens when children find themselves steamrolled? Firstly, we need to consider that children frequently forget what we tell them, but they never forget how we make them feel. In that moment, where it is clear to you and your child that a mistake has been made, and the parent chooses not to acknowledge it, or apologize, that little one feels diminished. The message they receive, although we may not intend it in this way, is that they are insignificant, that their feelings don’t matter as much as ours do. Think of a time when an adult in your life was clearly in the wrong – and didn’t admit it? What did you think when this happened? How did you feel? What decisions did you make about them – and yourself?
Why we need to normalize apologizing to children
Most children are able to tell quite accurately when they have been wronged, or treated unfairly, and can fight back to maintain their sense of dignity in the situation. Other children may decide that the message is right, and that they don’t matter and likely never will. This decision can invite people pleasing, or giving up. Neither of these decisions help our children to develop the skills listed above.
Further to this, we force children to apologize for their mistakes, adding blame, shame or pain to an uncomfortable situation, without having given them a template for understanding why apologizing is important. They then internalize certain messages about what it means to apologize, which can have a lasting impact on their ability to take responsibility for their mistakes later on, such as:
- Apologizing means I am bad
Children of young ages are not capable of separating the deed from the doer. When parents don’t model apologizing, but expect their children to apologize for their mistakes, they internalize that apologizing means I am bad, rather than I did something bad. Children then feel shame, rather than remorse and attempt to avoid apologizing in order to protect themselves from feeling this way. When parents apologize to their children, they normalize making mistakes, and model a separation between the deed and the doer for the child. This gives them a blueprint for how to handle mistakes with grace and accept responsibility without feeling a sense of shame.
- It is okay to damage a relationship without taking responsibility for trying to repair it
As I mentioned above, children are able to tell when they have been treated unfairly, and when parents avoid taking the steps to own their part of the problem and correct the mistake, it inevitably damages the relationship. Children learn that such behaviours are acceptable, and may not realise the importance of investing in their relationships – whether with teachers, friends, or important others in their lives. They may suffer the consequences of this through broken friendships, poor relationships and damaged self-esteem.
- Only apologize when you are forced to
While this seems quite innocuous at face-value, when we model that we only apologize when we have to, children learn that apologies are a way of manipulating others into doing what you want, whether it is forgiving you, making the problem go away or getting what you wanted in the first place. What they don’t learn is that they need to take responsibility for their actions, and that it is not necessary to respect others’ feelings.
All these outcomes are incongruous with the skills and characteristics we would like our children to have as adults.
How to apologize to a child
So how do we bridge this gap? It is important to firstly acknowledge our own discomfort with apologizing and examine why we may feel this way. We can only truly change a behaviour when we are aware that it exists, and that we want to change it. Remember that any feelings you have around making this change are okay, and that they are not a reflection of you as a person. Secondly, we need to take committed action to changing this pattern of behaviour. Awareness of the problem is not enough to bring about the change that we want – we must decide to take the necessary steps to move towards the direction we want. Lastly, here are some simple steps you can take to begin modelling how to apologize:
- Recognise that a mistake was made – this is important since it shows our children how to own up to their mistakes. A simple phrase you can use is “I made a mistake”
- Reconcile with your child – reconnect and repair by sincerely apologizing. Be careful not to add any qualifiers such as an “if” or “but” as this can cheapen your words. This can sound like “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, you must have felt very sad when I did that.”
- Resolve the situation – ask your child “how can I make it up to you?” or “how can we solve this problem?” By asking for their involvement, we extend the connection and form a collaborative partnership for resolving the issue. Children are exceptionally forgiving and are almost willing to let the whole thing go after step two, however, it us up to us to teach them that a sincere apology always includes a restitution component – a commitment to make it better, or to do better.
Notice here, that nowhere in these steps do we blame or shame ourselves, or blame our children The focus is purely on how to fix the situation. A good apology is thus not:
“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I just get so mad when you leave your shoes lying around.”
See how the responsibility shifts from your behaviour to your child’s? This is what we want to avoid. We are the adults in this situation and it is up to us to take responsibility for our own behaviour.
Putting it all together, a good apology sounds similar to this:
“I’m sorry I got mad and yelled at you. I shouldn’t have done that, no one deserves to be yelled at. What do you think I can do next time, instead of yelling?”
OR
“I’m sorry I got mad and yelled at you. I shouldn’t have done that, no one deserves to be yelled at. Tell you what, how about next time I’m feeling mad, I take a deep breath?”
What are your thoughts? Let me know how it goes for you in the comments!
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