Yesterday the whole family made a trek to a bookstore. We were all in one aisle looking at books. Asa was crawling around, Lydia was pulling on her Daddy’s arm to go LOOK! AT! THE! AMERICAN! GIRL! I was sitting on the floor reading a book about ::cough:: twitter. Suddenly, Lydia decided to give Asa a big hug. Around his throat. Then she thought it would be fun to pick him up. When I saw what was happening, I yelled, “Put him down!” And she did. Dropped him like a hot potato. It would have made his teeth rattle if he had any.
This is not a new occurence. In fact, a few days ago, I tweeted this:
I know she’s just having fun. She doesn’t know how delicate our little guy is. (He better enjoy being called delicate now ’cause I can tell my 20 pounder will never hear that description again!) But I can see something new developing…selfishness. She wants what she wants. Period. She can’t fathom that Asa has needs and desires (or bones that can be broken!). She’s 3 1/2. That’s just who she is. But, hopefully she won’t stay there.
So, this new sibling interaction has got me thinking about selfishness, learning to put the other sibling’s needs first and the fine art of THE APOLOGY. You’ve seen it happen before:
Kid #1 takes Kid #2’s toy.
Kid #2 wails.
Mom enters.
Mom confiscates toy.
Mom makes Kid #1 apologize.
Kid #1 barely opens mouth and mumbles “sorry”.
It means nothing. The wailing may have stopped. The toy may have been returned to the rightful owner. But the matter of the heart (read: selfishness, greed, etc.) is still there!
Apologies should come from the heart. Jesus talks about reconciling with friends BEFORE you even ask God for forgiveness. After King David committed murder and adultery (yikes!) he repents and writes the song recorded in Psalm 51. He says, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”
God wants us to be TRULY sorry…or rather truly HUMBLE. We need to realize that we’ve put our wants and needs above everyone else. I feel like teaching my kids to humbly apologize is going to set up their hearts to be able to easily (and quickly) ask for God’s forgiveness. I do not want to have their first “i’m-sorry” experience be a shoulder shrug, some eye-rolling and a mumbled “sorry”. God desires a contrite heart. And I think our family members desire the same!
YOUR TURN: how do you help your kids see the need to apologize? how do you help them do it? do you make your kids apologize to you? to their siblings? friends? what’s worked or not worked for you?
I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot lately, too. We are focusing on discipline and obedience right now in our home out of necessity. We’ve gotten lax in our parenting and it’s starting to show. In that, I’m teaching my children to apologize after being disobedient, often including a prayer of confession and repentance. You’re right, God does desire for us and our children to be truly sorry. I pray that my children learn this lesson as well as it is modeled and taught in our home.
This is hard! I try to help Elias see how what he did hurt someone else or was wrong – and we also pray together for repentance. I’ve overheard Elias praying for forgiveness after he’s done something, so hopefully it’s sticking!
this is easy for conner – he’s always been the most compassionate child i’ve ever met, so it’s been easy to help him understand why we think before we act, and ask for forgiveness when we’ve hurt others (physically and emotionally). max i know is a totally different personally so we will have to pray about this very thing – not shrugging away someone else’s pain in a half-assed apology. one thing that conner has trouble is accepting forgiveness. he’ll do it from us, but it’s hard from other kids and he’ll talk about it for days later. we’re having to teach him at such a young age that forgiving someone is not saying what they did was okay, but that’s so hard to tell a 3yo.
.-= Candace´s last blog ..The great re-organization of 2009, part one =-.
We teach our kids that they should say: I am very sorry for _____. Would you forgive me, please?
When they ask for forgiveness instead of just offering their “sorry” it does something to their heart, and they really offer their apology from their heart. Then the offended side would say: “yes, I forgive you” and that teaches kids to forgive quickly.
We do as Julia does. We require them to confess the specific offense, and ask for forgiveness.
Also, I will not force an apology, because I think that just teaches them to lie. If a child refused to apologize (which we haven’t yet had happen), we would probably remove some privileges until after we’d seen a legitimate apology, but we won’t make apologizing a battle of wills.
.-= Rachel R.´s last blog ..Super Food Recipe Roundup – Carnival of Super Foods =-.