Teaching Children to Apologize

Teaching Children to Apologize

By Lisa Belkin

The teaching moments have abounded this week, haven’t they?

First, there was that rude man who yelled at the President. Message to children: there is a time and a place for argument. You are entitled to your feelings, but you are not always entitled to express them. Also, don’t yell at the President when he is speaking before Congress.

Then a tennis champion cursed out a line judge. Message to children: bad language has consequences, in this case $10,000 and the loss of the match (though that’s hardly the only reason she lost). Nobody likes a bad sportsman. New tennis racquets cost money, so you shouldn’t smash them onto the court.

Finally, an MTV star grabbed the microphone and the spotlight from Taylor Swift, also on live TV. Message to children: Wait your turn. Play by the rules. It’s not all about you (or Beyonce, for that matter.)

In all these cases, there have been apologies. None of the transgressors sounded particularly apologetic (well, Kanye West did, mixed in with a bit of defiance) and therein lies the most important lesson to children — how to right wrongs and say you are sorry. This week begins the Jewish season of atonement, stretching from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and it is a time of apology. God can forgive sins by Man against God, the Rabbis teach, but only Man can forgive sins against Man. That means you have to apologize to those you have wronged during the year — and you have to really mean it.

But in this rude and raucous age, apologies have become pro forma. People apologize not for being offensive (“I did something to hurt you, and I am sorry”) but rather because someone might have taken offense (“If your feelings were hurt, I am sorry.”) Or, they are exacted as a sort of punishment, a victory by those who were wronged, rather than a first step toward forgiveness and repair.

Children learn the false apology early. “Accident Mommy,” my son used to say whenever he did something — often deliberately — wrong. “I sorry.” Then he would proceed to do it again. The challenge for a parent is in turning those words into regret (though not cripplingly so) and a commitment to change (which we often expect too much of from younger children and too little of from older ones).

Recently my colleague John Tierney explored the importance of guilt to a child’s development, and how parents can teach children how to channel that guilt into something positive rather than false or dismissive.

He quotes Dr. June Tangney, a psychologist at George Mason University, who explains that the key is going beyond mere words to actually making amends. He wrote:

“Both children and adults can be surprisingly clueless about whether and how to make things right,” Dr. Tangney said. “Little kids are overwhelmed by the spilled mess of milk on the floor. Parents can teach and support them to say ‘I’m sorry’ and to clean it up, maybe leaving the kitchen a little cleaner than it was before.”

In other words, you can clean up spilled milk — not by crying over it, but by sincerely wanting to do something about it. The lessons of apology are really lessons about empathy — truly understanding that your words and actions have the power to insult and wound. It is a vital lesson, and I suppose we should be grateful to all the boorish politicians, potty-mouthed tennis players and inappropriate musicians for providing an opportunity to teach.

In the spirit of the season, I forgive them. I wish I believed that they were actually sorry.