Part Two of Teaching Your

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Child to Apologize

If a rule is broken,

lay out the terms of the consequence before the rule is broken.  Make it age appropriate.  I have a lot of my own pottery in our home.  As grandparents, the grandchildren were raised to respect the pottery and not throw things around in the house.  The hallway was the designated throwing area.  (Respect for property) Their parents watched them and also reinforced our rules. 

If breakage was totally accidental, we showed we were sad about the breakage (I put away the really good pottery from baby to 4) and if it was intentional with throwing items (like for the dog) I would talk with them, have them see how it hurt me, apologize and they cleaned it up.  Then they would not get to play inside with the dog for the rest of the visit, but outdoors.  Part of the consequence was next visit the dog not available for them to play with.  For age awareness, they were old enough to know not to throw in the house and knew what the consequences would be.  If they were very young, all the pottery was put away from ‘grab heighth’. 

Be consistent in enforcing your rules 

I know it’s been a long day and you’d rather sit on the couch relaxing with your spouse, but you are the enforcer of your rules.  You can’t let the rules slide one day and be enforced loudly the next.  That’s known as inconsistent discipline…typically yelling from the sofa at the offender and not re-enforcing your rules with consequences that you have already told them about.  I know, I lived it. 

It’s a process: 

• Give your rules, 
• give your consequences for broken rules,
• enforce firm and fair consequences for broken rules. 

Your child begins to understand this process and sees that, when they do right, they reap good.  When they do wrong, they reap negative results.  “It is this sense of morality that helps the child understand the need for an apology.”  taken from The 5 Languages of Apology

Apologies can bring friends back 

If they are siblings in your family and are establishing a history of not apologizing, it will creep in to their relationships with everyone.  Eventually they will lose friendships and even closeness within the family.  Their siblings will begin to block them out in different ways.  Apologies strengthen relationships. 

Learn and teach all 5 apology languages 

So why not learn all of the five languages of apology?  If you can teach your child all five, they’ll be able to apologize and have their apology received by anyone. 

A simple level of apology for a 2 year old would be, “I’m sorry”(for whatever they did). 

Or if an older child knocks over their cup on purpose, “I pushed over my cup.  I’m wrong”.   The apology expresses regret and takes responsibility for his actions. 

An older sister tosses her little sister’s doll clothes all over the room making little sister cry.  “I’m sorry, I should not have done that.  I’ll pick it all up now and won’t do it again. Will you forgive me?” 

You see how from early (2 years old) a child can express regret.  As they grow older (six years old), they learn to string words together in an apology covering,

• expressing regret,
• accepting responsibility,
• making restitution,
• genuinely repenting and
• requesting forgiveness. 

This is learning to speak the language of apology starting as a little child up to an older child.  You teach them, ‘thank you’, ‘you’re welcome’ and ‘please’ and see they are capable of using those words.  As they grow they comprehend why they use those words and when to use the words appropriately.  It’s the same for the language of apology. 

Modeling the languages of apology for your child

Another way is to model the languages of apology.  Remember Fonzie (played by Henry Winkler) on Happy Days?  He could never say he was ‘Wr-wro-wrrrr.”  WRONG!  He believed his manhood would be diluted or squashed if  he apologized, thereby acknowledging that he was wrong.  Adults really can have a problem in this area with their children.  Some believe if they apologize for something they did wrong to their child that they would show weakness.  Children have a way of accepting and moving on with sincere apologies from their parents.  Letting your child understand it was hard for you to apologize but you were able to do it anyway is excellent modeling! 

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Leave your comments on how you have been working on teaching your children apologizing.  How successful have you been so far?