This article provides tips on how to apologize to your children.

Building a healthy parent-child relationship requires constant and conscious efforts of speaking the right words and taking the right actions. It is why Jessica Schrader believes that the most important words in any relationship are: 'I love

There is the fallacy that apologizing to our children would reduce their respect for us; however, our lived experiences show the opposite: we actually respect people more when they offend us, own it up, and apologize. While apologizing may seem uncomfortable, we may have learned over the years that growth- in whatever forms- comes with doing the uncomfortable: in this context, it helps show our children we are not proud, we are humans, and that we care for our relationship with them more than our ego. Besides, apologizing for mistakes does not deny our rights from correcting our children when necessary.

Hence, below are the 3 simple steps to apologize to your child:

1. Accept your feelings and take responsibility for them

Accept that it is okay to be angry about something and it is fine to be upset sometimes. We are human beings with emotional feelings. However, how we choose to express these feelings is equally important to the emotional development of our children. Most times, our children would accept this as the basis for expressing themselves too – after all, kids learn more by watching than by being told what to do.

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2. Connect the feeling to the action and apologize

When apologizing to our children, it is important to explain to them why we felt the way we did, telling them what happened that caused the reaction. This should be done as honestly as possible by pointing at the action that was inappropriate and explain it to the child. This should not be taken as a chance to place blame; thus, this way, the child will learn how to act and how not to in an appropriate way.

3. Recognize the feelings of your child

Acknowledge the way the child feels about the situation and empathize with their feelings- this is because when we know that someone understands how we feel, it opens us up to hearing what they have to tell us. Afterwards, ask for forgiveness, and share plans on how you would avoid this situation in the future to prevent it from recurring. Doing this would be an avenue to teach our children how to learn from a previous mistake and altogether make them better in handling their emotions.

By committing to apologizing to our children when we offend them, we are teaching them two things. First, human beings are fallible; as such, when we make mistakes that may hurt others, we should acknowledge it and ensure we make things better. Second, there is no shame in apologizing and no human being is too big to apologize to another. More importantly, when we apologize, we feel better individually and collectively and our relationships are restored.

Example: I felt frustrated when you weren’t ready for school on time, but it was not okay for me to let out my anger by yelling at you. I’m so sorry I yelled. I’m sure that was scary and hurtful for you. I need to work harder to use my calm voice, so I put sticky notes around the house to remind me. Can you forgive me? I’d like to talk about how we can fix this problem and move forward. (Adapted from Positive Parenting Solutions)

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