For many adults the idea of apologizing to children is a foreign concept. Some would rather do mental gymnastics to make the child wrong (gaslighting) than say “I’m sorry.” I remember the first time my mom apologized to me. It was monumental, I was in 6th grade. I was a latchkey kid, and that meant that after school I was home by myself until my mom got off work. The rules were to walk directly home from school, call my mom to check in, and of course, not to leave the house until she got there. My mom also had a habit of getting off early and just popping up in places, keeping me on my toes. This day I had stayed after school to get help with some work, and on my way home I saw one of my friends and paused to speak to her. I look up and there’s my mom storming towards me, I glance at my watch and see that I had missed the window to call home and I just drop my head. She gets to me and begins the fussin’. I explained that I had stayed after school to get help, she did not believe me, and decided to call my bluff. We march back into the school together so she can speak with the teacher, and Ms. Batts (bless her) tells my mom exactly what I had already explained. They went on to have conversation about what an amazing, wonderful child I was, as stood aside, humbly. We walked back home, I got a “better be lucky” comment or two, but that didn’t matter to me, I was just glad to not be “in trouble”. When we got home, my mom called me into her room and held her arms out for a hug, “I was wrong, and I’m sorry, give me a hug.” The shock! The relief, the VALIDATION! Here I was hearing my mom acknowledge that she had wronged me, and validating my feelings. I stepped up, and accepted my hug and apology.
This moment was beautiful, and impactful, but honestly it should not have been a big deal. Every child has probably had a time, or many times, where they knew their parents were wrong, but there was nothing they could say to change their minds. Parents are people, and people are not perfect. Imperfect people do things that they have to apologize for, even when it relates to
children. However, in a society that views adult feelings (pride) as more important than validating children this is a rare occurrence. A lot of people view this as somehow giving away power to a child or admitting defeat. An apology is not any of those things. You don’t lose power by respecting your child’s feelings, you lose power when you lose integrity.
The skills we learn to interact with people in the world, including our thoughts about how people function, often comes from how we are raised. If a person has never seen anyone give a genuine apology, how do they know what it looks or feels like? When you genuinely apologize you are modeling humility for your child. They are learning from you that sometimes people make mistakes, and accountability matters. An apology is meant to show that you recognize that someone was wronged by your actions, and you want to repair that wrongdoing. An apology helps to maintain or restore trust in relationships. All of these are good things that we would want children to learn humility, integrity, trust, and accountability. We have to remember children are people, and as they live and grow they will do things that require an apology whether that’s to a friend, partner, coworker, or even you. You apologizing to your child models for them that it is okay, and what it feels like to be validated.
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