as a mom, so often i am having to instruct one of my kids to say "I'm sorry" for whatever reason. my oldest son, josh, seems to be saying it more lately. for some reason he and jordyn are in this phase and they are bickering and picking on each other -- i have been introduced to sibling rivalry. a lot of times he is the one who starts the agitating. so, we have to stop a lot to correct his behavior and have him apologize. if he is still upset or angry, he will say with a not so nice tone or mutter under his breath, "sorry". i will correct him and tell him that is not how you apologize, that you need to say " i am sorry" and tell why you are sorry. it never fails typically within that same week or day or sometimes as early as an hour, we are repeating this whole process AGAIN. i have been trying to teach him that when we apologize and then we do the same negative action again, the apology wasn't real. and that when you say i am sorry, that means you will not do whatever hurt the other person again. he is only six and he is learning as we go. although we will continue to work on it, i want him to grasp the concept of how he truly made the other person feel, and that should not make him happy it should hurt his heart for making someone else hurt. he is gifted in making other people laugh, just like his daddy. he has been recognized for showing a real true compassion for others in school already this year! something i am very proud of, and i want him to continue to care about others and be empathetic.
as an adult, i know first hand (from being on both the giving and receiving end of an apology), it can mean the world to hear the words "i am sorry". i have been in a situation where i would love to receive an apology from someone who has deeply deeply hurt me. it would mean the world to me to hear this person say i am sorry and truly mean it. it would heal some deep wounds in my heart, help me in my process of removing bitterness and help me to forgive and gain closure to this situation. although, i don't want to be given the apology unless it is coming from their own heart and not merely because they think they should say it. and i want to know that they won't repeat the same hurtful act on the next person down the line. i want to see a heart change when this person says they are sorry.
i may be wrong in expecting an apology to help me gain total forgiveness. i am going to do some scripture study on that. and if any of you can direct me on this that would be so appreciated. i don't want to wait on something i may never receive in order to forgive. i would be very interested to find some scripture or story to direct me in this process.
recently, i have given an apology to someone who is very dear to me. i have said i was sorry and truly truly meant it and still mean it. i have grown and learned and changed so much over the past few months. During my growth, God revealed to me what i had done wrong in our relationship. i was able to humble myself and say i am sorry to this person. i was able to admit that what i had done was wrong and hurtful. i am able to accept responsibility for some poor decisions i had made throughout our friendship. the actions that i chose to take hurt not only my dear friend but also put a lasting damage on our friendship. our friendship of many years was so damaged that eventually we didn't even speak. i followed God's prompting and my heart and took a leap of faith to reconnect with this friend. i was confident in the fact that i needed to apologize and if that was as far as it went, i had to accept that closure. i didn't know how i would be received. but i know i had to take the first step.
a few weeks ago, my friend allowed me the opportunity to apologize and she accepted it! i am amazed at what saying i am sorry meant not only to her but also to me and to our friendship. over the past several weeks we have spent a great deal of time together, sometimes just the two of us, sometimes with us and our kids and once even both families spent an evening together.
i have been amazed at how God's hand has been all over this friendship. our friendship has entered a whole new dimension, it is healthy and alive and so much fun. we have had a blaset reconnecting and catching up on the last couple of years. we have been able to share some deep issues that we are both going through. we have been able to trust and love each other and Christ is being glorified through this friendship!! we have an awesome testimony to how He has worked in both of our lives and in our friendship.
i am so excited and happy to have this old - new friend (as i referred to her in a past post!) back in my life. i am thrilled that she has accepted my apology !! she also accepts me for who i am -- my mistakes and my weakness and she loves me anyway. i am overjoyed to have her as part of my "entourage" !!!!
3 comments:
I came across your blog from someone else's. Honestly I don't believe in forcing a child to apologize when he is not sorry yet. I want my child to apologize because he is sorry, not because he was told to. Because in essence, if you force an apology when he is not sorry, what he's really doing is being forced to lie to his sister. Once you know he is truly sorry then it would be better to have him say it then. But when he just mutters "sorry" then that is indicative of he's not really, he's just doing it because he was told to. That's my take on it anyway. Don't know how helpful it is or isn't. I do believe in children apologizing, but I believe in talking to and or disciplining the child first and when they truly are sorry, then get them to apologize.
Have a nice day anyway!!!
hmm...interesting to have someone comment on how you raise your own children. Ok, interesting is my polite and way of saying that I don't believe in people telling other people how to raise their children, unless they have asked for such advice. And I don't recall you asking.
Children learn by example and often repetitive examples. They don't always understand concepts such as "apologies" but they will get the idea and understanding when their minds are capable of grasping the total idea one day as you reinforce the "apology process/action". I sometimes find it appalling when people can take a good value/idea and find a way to make it over complicated or so complex that we are afraid to even teach the orignal value/idea. If we wait until children really understand about "hurting and apologizing" or "right and/wrong" behavoir then they might be so entrenched in bad habits and actions that they can't grasp the concept of appropriate behavior. Children will listen to parents and do what they say a long time before they really understand why and what they are doing. But at least when they are old enough to understand why they should apologize, hopefully, they won't have to do it very often because they will have learned the proper way to treat others through years of parental guidance, even when they were too young to really understand the idea in its entirety.
I think you are on the right track Dawn...even if he doesn't always want to apologize you should explain and help him understand what he did to hurt someone's feelings and ask him to apologize to them. He might not really understand what it means to be "sorry" about something until he is much older and you don't want to wait until then to teach him about apologizing. He might not want to apologize but he will learn why he should. And he will soon think about his actions and how he is making others feel.
Remember, life teaches a lesson every day and we won't always get it right the first time (sometimes not the second or third time either) but as long as we learn something from our actions every day we will start tomorrow a little smarter and will be ahead of yesterday's game!!!
Keep teaching and reinforcing good behavoir and values. We all need them to fall back on from time to time.
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