e-mail
I had already planned to write this blog before I got the e-mail and apology from the wrap around worker yesterday. It just seems even more fitting to do it now.
How many of you have ever made your kids apologize for something, knowing full well that they weren’t sorry for what they did? We’ve all done it.
Nancy Thomas does a little bit about this in her presentations, and it is funny, but it makes sense too. When we “force” our kids to apologize, we are basically teaching them to lie, and in some kids it teaches them that they can do something wrong, and just apologize later.
She does a mini role play about one child hitting the other, and the mother forcing the child to apologize. She then says “There. You’ve just been hit and lied to. Don’t you feel better?” That was an eye opener for me.
When the supervisor apologized to me yesterday, I didn’t feel any sincerity. I knew he was apologizing because he got caught. Much the same as our kids.
I can remember several years ago, when Sammy was in third or fourth grade. He was playing with a pen in the classroom, and it burst, putting ink all over the desk. He was sent to the office to get the cleaner, and handle his mess. (Yes, his teacher got it). On the way back to the office, he passed a young girl who he said called him a name. He sprayed her in the face with the cleaner. Thankfully, it did not hurt her, but I was quite shocked.
I knew the girl’s family. They are adoptive parents as well. I called the girl’s mom, and asked if we could come over. We went over to her house, with the intention of Sammy telling her parents what he did. The sight he got was priceless, and beyond any consequence we could have given.
This young girl has a large family. There are 8 or 10 kids in the family. As we stood in the hallway and Sammy had to tell her parents what happened, her brothers began to hear the story, and quickly began to line up behind her. My son quickly realized he messed with the wrong kid. He couldn’t wait to get out of their house.
So, if your child should, in good conscience and sincerely, offer an apology, but you know the child doesn’t mean it, what do you do?
One of the biggest things that parents I know do is have the child offer restitution. If an item has been stole, the offending child pays back double. Whether it’s money, candy, pencils, or something more major. The child earns the money and makes the payment. Not the parents.
If it was an act of physical aggression, your child can offer restitution by providing “community service” to the child hurt. You need the cooperation of the other parents to do this. Your child could clean the other child’s room, or wash a bike or some other chore you can come up with.
If the victimized child is another child in your home, you can have the offending child do the other child’s chores for the day.
Be creative with this. Your child making a physical or financial investment in repaying the child will send a larger and longer lasting message than a forced apology that they don’t mean.
My husband just made my 14 year old son apologize to me!! When he came to apologize I told him I didn’t think he was sincere. His reply was “that’s cool” and walked away. I really like your ideas here. I will certainly try them because I often find myself searching for a consequence in situations that we have never had with our bio kids.
Thanks much