“I’m sorry I was being mean to you, K.” is what I told my son when I distressed him.
It was not too long ago I had to apologize to my 4 year-old son. Nothing extreme or abusive occurred, obviously so. However, what I did was wrong; I made a mistake. With any mistake made, it has to be corrected. My way to correct the wrong I did to my son was by apologizing to him genuinely.
I’m blessed to have my better half, J., use logic and reasoning calmly to help me realize the wrong I committed. At first, I was obstinate and stubborn. I refused to believe I did anything wrong; in fact, I justified why it was OK for me to have said the things I said to our son. But, J. told me that what I said to K. devastated him. And that is when I knew that I took it too far. I had to swallow my pride and apologize to my precious son.
I felt so humiliated that I had to ask my son for forgiveness. It was embarrassing that me, a 31 year-old woman, had to ask my 4 year-old son for forgiveness. Having that kind mentality as a parent is toxic though. Thinking so pridefully will hurt my son in the long run. There are so many benefits to be gained by simply saying, “I’m sorry.”
- Prevents resentment toward the parent
- Build trust, and possibly, strengthens the relationship between parent and child
- Teaches the child about accountability
- Increases child’s respect to the parent
- Validates the child’s feelings
- Prevents the child from becoming toxic to his/her future spouse and friends
It’s time we normalize apologizing to our children. It’s time we break the cycle that has been set by previous generations of not asking us forgiveness when they have erred us. A lot of us may not have ever heard our parents apologize to us. It hurts, doesn’t it? A feeling of betrayal mixed with anger and frustration with a touch of resentment toward our parents churns deeply in our souls for every time they hurt us, but never want to be held accountable for it. A great sense of injustice from our own parents – whom we trust to keep us safe and love us unconditionally – grows stronger for every time they gaslight us instead of take ownership of the error they made toward us. I believe I describe accurately how every adult feels toward their parents. If this is how we feel when our parents fail to say, “I’m sorry,” to us, why would we want to do this our beloved children, too?
Why do we never apologize to our kids?
We may pervert the Commandment that states, “Honor thy mother and father,” to think that our children must worship us while another proverb we tend to adulterate is Confucius’ proclamation that children must respect their elders. Adults, especially the ones entrenched in the Eastern Asian ideals, interpret these sayings to mean children must do our bidding no matter what. Us adults have sullied the essence of these rules that were meant to emphasize that children must humble themselves before elders to learn from them in order to grow and mature into respectable members of society. Instead Christians and Asians weaponize these sayings to justify gaining total control over of their children; that it is justifiable to treat them as inferiors.
Our children are not inferior to us. I think we fear apologizing to them because we fear that they will lose respect for us if we admit to them that we made a mistake. We hold ourselves to such a high standard that we have to be strong for them 100% of the time. And therefore, admitting fault shows them that we are weak and untrustworthy. That is absolute fallacy! Humbling ourselves before our children and holding ourselves accountable causes them to gain more respect for us, as a matter of fact. So, we shouldn’t be afraid that saying sorry to our children will cause them to think of less of as their caretakers and protectors.
