“Stop forcing your toddler to say sorry”

[Caarri]

Now I’ll lead with, I’ve not forced my toddler (3) to. Over time we’ve taught him how it’s good to say sorry

So my best example is when he pushes/shoves his younger brother (who’s nearly 1) or smacks him and younger brother cries. I’ve taught him it makes his younger brother sad when he does that and it hurts him. He now does say sorry I don’t think he obviously fully gets the word but he says sorry, gives him a hug and a kiss. So in my eyes I thought that’s good that he recognises it upset baby brother when I explained to him etc

i just seen this post. I’ll attach it with all the points

Instantly made me feel guilt that I’d been teaching my toddler sorry but I didn’t think it was a bad thing?!

thoughts??

Sounds like a load of gentle parenting wish washyness. If my kids do something wrong to someone they apologise end of story.

A forced apology is useless

To your child perhaps. To the child just punched in the face it may not be useless. You don’t have to hurt someone twice.

Why not? Why can't it be the end result even if they don't feel it?

Ideally, after talking to them about how it made the other child feel, they'll empathise and actually be sorry.

If they're not sorry then the options are to make them lie and say it anyway or just end the interaction and say nothing. You cannot force them to feel something they don't.

Why is lying the worse option? Sorry likely makes the other child feel better and diffuses the situation so that when (hopefully) later they do actually feel sorry, there's still a friendship there to go back to next week.

Saying sorry is an important social skill like saying thank you for a gift you hate.

I don't personally think lying is the worst thing in the world. I definitely don't think lying is worse than punching another child in the face and going home and carrying on with your day as if nothing happened.

I force my kids to say sorry if they have hit or snatched from each other

I don't understand the problem with this making them feel ashamed. They should be ashamed if they hit someone.

If children don't say sorry they think they can get away with bad behaviour. Would have been good if Boris/trump had learned about shame so they could have done a lot more good overall

It is useless if the child parrots the word out and doesn't learn from the incident.

I heard too many insincere, token uses of "sorry" when I taught, and the behaviour patterns carried on unchanged. You can show appologetic behaviour by other means.

It is a word I use and it is modelled in our family, but DS1 is autistic and we have far more sucess talking about behaviour, motivations and society's standards than having a huge stand-off over the use of a single word that he can't use if he doesn't mean it.
Years ago at Beavers (around the time we srarted the diagnostic pathway) a child made a derogatory comment about DS's long hair. DS returned with what he believed was an equally factual observation about the child's fatness. Child was obviously offended, reported to leaders, children both stated their case, and child said sorry to DS. DS got himself into a hole because he didn't feel sorry for his response. He didn't understand that society weights comments about long hair and fatness differently. He felt aggrieved that the other child started it then he got in trouble for it because he broke some obscure, invisible rule of society. It took talking about it to understand and learn from that situation, and credit to him many years on, it ptoved to be a genuine lesson. He wouldn't have learned from it if he was able to blurt "sorry" on command and the situation brushed aside in 10s.

With DS2, I always ask "what are you sorry for?" to try and make him think about the situation and model an answer with the reason if he's looking nonplussed about it so at least he knows what the issue is rather than some vague wrongness.

Sorry has its uses but society overrates it. It works better for trivia (like people bumping into each other) than learning how to do better and how the subtleties of society work.

Then we get them in school and they’re incapable of having basic manners. Parenting is honestly over complicated now! Just tell them to say sorry and move on. All of this talking children through every movement and expectation is ludicrous.

I think that's ridiculous advice. You don't give your toddler more attention if they've hurt someone, otherwise you're reinforcing poor behaviour.

(There is also some dubious grammar on that post).

We teach children to say "sorry" for the same reason we teach them to say "thank you" - because life isn't all about how they feel.

Who would teach toddlers that they only have to say "thank you" for the birthday presents they really want?

Learning when to say sorry is part of learning empathy for other people's hurt, in the same way that learning when to say thank you is part of learning gratitude and appreciation for other people's effort. That graphic is (at best) misleading and possibly plain wrong.

I'm not sure i understand the point about forcing apologies making toddlers feel shamed... I mean, i don't think we want toddlers crying themselves to sleep for days with shame, but broadly speaking teaching kids they should feel shame (to a degree) when they've done something that hurts someone else isn't a bad thing. Or am i missing something?!

I imagine that a lot of the insensitive inconsiderate idiots that get so many threads created about them on here are likely that way because they have no shame about the negative impact they have on others!

You are right, that post is wrong and they can't even spell 'apologies'...
HTH

This is a good post

I think I am uncomfortable with implying it's positive for children to "feel shame". I think if the word "shame" was replaced with "helped the child to understand and be encouraged to show contrition", that would be something I'd feel more comfortable with personally.

I'm fine with it. It's a common, short word that children will likely have heard. There are some things that everyone - children included - should be ashamed to have done.

Shame may be a loaded word, but I do think we should all feel a little shame when we behave badly. Not for accidentally spilling their milk, but hitting or throwing a toy or whatever.

Understanding their behaviour and showing contrition is one thing, but I don't think feeling embarrassed they've behaved badly is a bad thing.

Embarrassed, ok, that sounds sort of ok. It suggests the child is being helped to understand something they've done isn't ok. Shame is different from being embarrassed and I just don't think it's helpful to make children feel "shame".

I think you're putting adult feelings on the word. I think to little kids there's not much difference between shame and embarrassment.

I understand and respect your opinion. I am not speaking as an adult putting feelings on the word. I am recalling being a child in a Catholic school being taught we should all feel shame because of the Original Sin (Woman Eve gives Adam the apple). I didn't really understand why I should feel shame for an action that I didn't do but I was taught to do so and for quite some time I internalised the feeling that the woman (Eve) was the villain of the piece so it was "shame on me". I didn't find the feeling of shame to be useful to me as a child. I ensured my own children weren't brought up to feel shame, but I did ensure they were brought up to think about others' feelings. They are both kind and happy adults. I am glad I didn't bring them up to feel shame. If others think shame is a good thing for children to feel, I understand that's for them to decide.

But often by saying sorry they are getting away with bad behaviour. Sorry makes it all better. We forget and move on.

DC’s were taught to say sorry but bad behaviour had a punishment ie toys taken away

Totally agree. If the level of grammar on the document the OP shared is anything to go by, I would completely ignore the document and carry on as you were. Of course it's fine to teach kids empathy (although I believe natural empathy doesn't develop until after they're two), but you're setting a great example of the correct behaviour when you've done something wrong.

Why has parenting become so complicated? Saying “sorry” is a normal social convention that people must learn in order to get by. It can be for something big or something trivial, but it generally shows you’re not a completely self-centred idiot.
Toddlers should get used to saying sorry if they have done something wrong or hurt someone.
Honestly, this wishy-washy, softly-softly approach is why we have the behavioural problems in schools that are causing teachers to leave in their droves. I wish these parenting ‘experts’ would get lost. The current generation of early twenty somethings are bad enough, god help us when the toddlers of today reach adulthood.
The world is going to stop revolving.

Teaching sorry has to be done right.

Not for the reasons the poster seems to advertise.

But because I've seen so many children think they do what the fuck they please as "sorry" makes it alright again.

I prefer the lesson that actions have consequences. And acknowledging those consequences were as a direct result of your actions - which can include an apology - matters. But that no one has to forgive you unconditionally.

Not everything can be made ok with an apology. It's an important lesson to teach thinking before you act.

Aha, just one more thing to make parents (mostly mothers) bad about their parenting.
Don't we have enough on our plates? We're all trying our best.
Years ago, as a teenager, I learned that sorry was probably actually one of the easiest most productive words to say. That doesn't mean that I fully accept blame for situations, rather than demonstrates empathy towards the fact that someone has been hurt. I have no problems in saying it first in order to dissipate and negative energy and move on. Holding on to anger is destructive and emotionally damaging.
There will be pros and cons to every approach. A child forced to say sorry might well feel shame. A child who isn't made to apologise might struggle later on to take accountability and resolve conflict. Who knows! We're all just doing our best.

It’s really cultural and I see a lot of this parroted on social media - Dr. Becky is a good source, but you need to listen to MANY of her podcasts to understand her context there. And she admits there are kids who are exceptions.

But I’m Canadian and she is not, and sorry here is definitely good manners. For an accident like bumping each other while walking or both reaching for a door, a double sorry (both people) is normal. My 2yo has picked this up. My almost 5yo needs explicit instructions and so he’s learning there are different kinds of sorry. If we spill something we might say sorry or oops, and we clean it up. If we rip brother’s book, even by mistake it makes brother sad. That’s a sorry, an explanation and trying to make it better. If we hit, it’s similar to the book explanation but we need to not do it again.

Daniel Tiger does a good job teaching that - “saying sorry is the first step”. Then Daniel learns how to make it better.

But if you’re in a culture like mine, you also need the good manners sorry. I do think that gradually we ought to be ashamed of breaking social norms by hitting, destruction of property and public masturbation (all of which some gentle parenting sources say we must not make children feel ashamed of). We need to teach toddlers and little kids the norms, remind the big kids, and if teenagers are still doing any of it they need absolutely to be shamed and public pressured out of it.

If my 5yo has his hand in his pants he needs a reminder. If a 15yo needed a reminder he SHOULD feel ashamed. If a grown man does that in front of me he will be reported.