ADVICE RATING |
 4.67 (Highly recommend) from 14 votes (196 Visits) |
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Forgiving |
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by lightbee  (December 2006) (rank 25th) |
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I think it is so important to teach your kids to say sorry when they hurt someone or do something wrong, but I also think that's only half of the picture. The other half being forgiving each other.
Often I'll see my kids do something to the other and
then just say "sorry". I've noticed that just saying sorry without anything else means that the person who's hurt doesn't have any way to accept or reject the apology or to resolve the situation. So what I do is encourage my kids to respond to "I'm sorry" with "I forgive you". As well as providing some positive closure to a situation where someone has been hurt, it is a first step in learning to let go of those hurts (which kids do so easily!). I've noticed that when my girls do this, and actually say "I'm sorry" followed by "I forgive you", they seem to get over things quicker and get back to playing happily together.
I don't know if they yet understand the real implication of forgiving, but I doubt they understand the real implication of apologising either! I hope that by teaching them to forgive as well as apologise that it will make it easier for them to do so when they get older.
