Saying Sorry...Do they mean it? What we do...

Hi there I wanted to write a bit of advice I feel has worked in our home for us and the dramas we faced with this type of behaviour in one of our children...Saying Sorry... What do you teach your kids? Do you teach them to say sorry even if they aren't really? Or do you teach them to say sorry and mean it? Maybe like me a few years ago you had never really thought about it....Here is some background on what happened with one of our children and how she used the word sorry...

Shyenne is now 7 and is a bundle of energy...She was not always the kind hearted and friendly child she is today...You see when she first came to live with us she would not only say sorry all the time for everything...She would also use it as an excuse to hurt people, knowing what she was doing wrong and try to get out of it without too much reprocussions by saying sorry...You see she would hit one of the kids and immediately say sorry...She was planning on doing this...She seemed to have worked it out in her mind that if she hit someone or hurt them then immediately said sorry that the word accident would come into it and it would all be forgotten....

This is not the right context for this word to be used in at all...It did not take us long at all to realize what she was doing and how she was abusing the word sorry...This is what we have done with this now in our home and I just thought I would share a bit of what is working for us now...

If any of the kids hurt each other and say sorry immediately assess the situation and see if it was an accident...Alot of the times it is but in our home there are a few times it is not...To do this the first question we ask is... Why did you do that?...If the answer is...It was an accident then you can be pretty much guaranteed it was...But if the answer is something like... Because she did this or he did this then we need to look at the situation closer...

We have a rule in this home that saying sorry and not meaning it is not the right way to approach any situation...We as parents need to explain to our kids why we say sorry and it goes with the feeling of  actually being sorry for the action involved...So If one of our kids hits the other in retaliation for something they have done to them, then we ask them...If that person did that to you how would that make you feel?...Usually the answer to this question is hurt or upset...The next question is... and if that person made you feel like that what would you want from them?  The answer in our house is I would want them to say sorry...We then turn to that child and say to them... Well? (if they have not already apologised) With this the other child in my home will usually say something along the lines like...That's Okay or something similar...My kids have been taught also to say sorry with a reason...For example if one of the kids trips over someone then they will say sorry ____, For tripping you over i should not have done that and it was wrong.

I really think alot of kids use the word Sorry tooo losely...If you find you child saying sorry for alot of things try asking them this question...What are you sorry for? You will be amazed at the answers...Can they answer your question at all? Lets try to teach our kids to understand why they are sorry and what for....It is working for us in this house...Just a quick note too this rule applies to all adults in our home too...If Ken or myself do something or say something that was not right... we use this method also...

This is just my thoughts on this for you to mull over...What do you do in your home?

Have a great day
Cheers
Angie