Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes. This is a conversation that takes place at least weekly in my office, sometimes daily, and recently, multiple times in a day. As I sit thinking about the idea of apologizing when a mistake, poor judgement, or hurtful action has taken place, when and to whom to apologize is very nuanced. Some people don’t feel like they are in the wrong, some people just don’t care that they were in the wrong, and some people don’t have the words to express remorse at being wrong. And sometimes right and wrong are not black and white. The bottom line is that one must be self aware enough to know when their actions towards another have been hurtful, capable of empathy and feeling remorse for the hurt they have caused another person, humble enough to want to correct the situation, and ultimately have the mindset to make changes in their own behavior to prevent future hurt.
Children’s lessons on apologies often start with an adult mediating a situation in which the adult establishes ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and the child deemed to be ‘wrong’ says “I’m sorry” to the child who was ‘right’, and the child who was ‘right’ says, “It’s ok”. This is such a flawed lesson, although maybe better than no lesson at all, but the idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ is NOT black and white. Often when I am the mediator in such events, I find that the situation is far more complex and helping children to understand motivations, impacts on others and better strategies for future interactions while accepting ownership is tough. I also find that one child isn’t purely ‘right’ while the other purely ‘wrong’. On a side note, when coaching children through apologetic conversations, we teach children to say “I accept your apology” (or not as it is up to the child) but that “it’s ok” is gives the impression that ‘it is ok to hurt me’, and it isn’t OK or we wouldn’t be having the conversation.
Case in point: I mediated a situation between two little girls recently. It was reported that child A was engaging in mean girl behavior with child B. Child B reported it to a teacher who began the initial mediation and child A tearfully and adamantly denied that she had made hurtful comments to Child B. In this case lying was easier than apologizing. When I came on the scene, Child A was again adamant she had done nothing wrong. I asked her to spend a few minutes reflecting on what she wanted to say to me while I looked into the situation and before we had a conversation. I talked to a few other students about their perceptions of the situation, had a good idea of what actually was said and by whom to whom. When Child A and I talked again, she acknowledged some name calling and went on to explain that she didn’t want to play with Child B so she called her names after she told her to go away. Child A has the right to decide she doesn’t want to play with someone. She does not have the right to exclude someone from playing, or to be hurtful and unkind in communicating her preference to not play together. After discussing it, Child A and I practiced language for saying she didn’t want to play with someone, and agreed that she needed to ‘make it right’ with Child B because she wouldn’t want someone to say hurtful things to her. (Some back ground on child A, she often engages in mean girl behaviors, and never admits to her actions. This is the first time she was willing to own her words after multiple conversations on the topic. WIN). What I discovered when the girls were brought together to discuss the situation was that Child A had NO IDEA how to authentically apologize. We had several practice conversations between her and I where I modeled an apology, and she had the opportunity to practice what she wanted to say before saying it to Child B. Child A also had the opportunity to respectfully tell child B that she didn’t have an interest in playing together, and Child B gracefully accepted that.
The thing is, I know many adults who are not yet to this point in their emotional development. I know adults who can’t see how hurtful their actions and attitudes towards other people are, are unable to put themselves in the position of someone on the receiving end, whose egos prevent them from taking the steps necessary to heal, and who continue to behave in a way that is hurtful to others. What I have come to is that the ability to apologize is a developmental social skill that some people may never authentically get to, and unfortunately, if they don’t get there they may not be able to pass those skills to their children in meaningful and authentic ways. Which is how I end up having multiple conversations a week with my kiddos on the topic. Coaching Child A and B through this conversation after engaging in reflecting conversations with each of them is one step, and likely the skill will need to be reinforced numerous times before they are solid at navigating conflicts and resolutions.
I recently had a conversation with my sister in law about apologies. This particular sister in law and I have very open discussions, often have differences of opinion, see eye to eye on a lot of things, but also know each other deeply. She is one of the few people who can look at me and know exactly where my head is at. So the it comes to this type of conversation, there is no unchartered territory. When discussing family conflict, parenting, and generational trauma the topic of being right vs. hurting someone you love came up: the relationship is more valuable than the righteousness.
Talk about an advanced skill to be able to put your own feelings and attitudes on a subject to the side and value your future interactions with another person more. No wonder children have difficulty with apologies!
My take away this week, is that as part of teaching conflict resolution with kids, we also need to teach them how to apologize when it is appropriate to do so. If they don’t learn this now, they may become the adults that miss out on meaningful relationships because their ego and being right is more important.
