Can / Should you make a toddler apologise?

[mezzer]

My dd (21mo) is in the "hitting" phase. Hits other kids if she doesn't get her way, wants a toy, etc and sometimes for no apparent reason at all. I grab her hand, firmly say "No hitting. We do not hit!" remove her from the situation. Give her a talking to (we don't hit. hitting is not nice. need to be gentle. bla bla bla) and then say "You need to say you're sorry." Sometimes, she agrees and goes and says sorry (her version of the word plus a stroke on the arm). Sometimes, however, she outright REFUSES to apologise. Should I insist? At times, I've tried insisting but make no headway (she is STUBBORN beyond belief). So, my questions - should I force her to apologise? If so, how to get her to do it when she refuses... Or, is it unnecessary and better if I just apologise for her (give other child attention, etc).

I've been wondering about this too - I have a friend who always makes her 2.7 yr old apologise for things (hitting, pushing, biting) be does quite deliberately. He grins, says sorry and then does the thing again. I'm not sure I believe in making children say sorry unless they truly are. But at what age do they have any sense of remorse?

My dd is a bit older - 5 - but gets very upset when she is asked to apologise (gets embarrassed i guess). Most of the time she will say sorry without too much persuasion but on other occasions I have stood like a lemon saying 'say you are sorry' with other parent saying ' oh don't worry'. but i do insist that we stand there until she says it! Seems meaningless by then! but feel it is v important.

What a good question. I've not thuoght about it before - too busy worrying whehter what im saying to dd 2.2m will sound ok to the other parent!

but thinking now that the telling off and removing bit is quite sufficient, and a sincere sounding apology from you to other child is plenty. This is what my friend who's a v well informed nursery teacher does, and it always sounds sweetly respectful to other childs feelings, as though they're being taken seriously by adults.

I agree with batmother. Set the example.
My DD is 2.10 and has started apologising by herself! Just picked it up from the rest of the family.

For the OP, I think 21 months is a bit young to feel remorse and you'll just embarrass your child by forcing an apology. She will just feel angry at you rather than the other child.

If you want to get her more in touch with her feelings, at this age it's probably more effective to concentrate on the feelings that made her hit.

I make my 2.7 year old apologise. I think it's good practice for when she's older. I wouldn't force it on a 21 mth old though.

my 18mth old says sorry to her brother (2.10) for accidents without being asked to.....if she;s naughty and does something on purpose i make her apologise- i think its rude not to!!! she may not fully understand why she does it, but she goes from angry girl who did something naughty to sweet girl giving a cuddle and a kiss sorry......ds apologises and fully understands why he is made to do so, he also apologises so quickly now without meaning it, so i make him think about what he's done and tell my 'why' he's sorry!!

so in conclusion- 18mths will apologise but not fully understand why, and 2.10 yr old can fully understand why and apologises.

I don't think forcing children to apologise is the answer to be honest, especially if you really are forcing it out of them. All it is teaching them is to say sorry when they don't mean it.
DD has never been forced because if she was it wouldn't be for her benefit or mine it would be giving lipservice to it for the other childs parent. Now when dd does say sorry she means it, it is not always immediate but she will come and say sorry off her own back.
I do know a woman who has always forced her children into saying sorry and they too do the smirky sorry and right back to doing what ever it was and I really can see from the outside that they have been taught that sorry solves it all and neither of her children feel remorse because they have never been given the chance to find out what it actually feels like.

My thoughts are yes they need some thing to get them used to understand ing the principle of apology, whether it be a sorry, a stroke on the arm, some people ask kids to hug, but as the victim you do no alwasys want someone who hurt you to them coer you in their arms and invade your personal space. It is all age approriate tho, If they do not talk much then sorry is too much, if they talk in sentences then yes, sorry with a reason. Even 'sorry, hittin ' helps them think about it a little bit of seperation can help. a simple 'play apart until you are playing like a nice friend' type comment can help, sorry does not have to be immediate but needs to be in there somewhere.

Ds2 has just turned two and has always used hitting to vent his frustration, especially on his brother who is 4. We have always tried to get him to say sorry from about 18 months and give DS1 a hug (to demonstrate how he should be behaving).

He will normally always say sorry now (sometimes uprompted) if he is reprimanded. But with other children he has his stubborn moments, and if after coaxing he refuses to say it I don't push it and will apologise on his behalf.

I'd rather he learnt to say it and understand it's meaning than be forced to say it to please us IYSWIM.

Thanks for all your comments. I agree that the best idea is for it to come from the child and sometimes dd does come to it on her own. I'm digesting the comments about the lack of sincerity of forced apologies. I see the point but then wonder how they will learn to genuinely apologise... I'm thinking my solution might be to "suggest" that she apologise and if she doesn't, then I will apologise to the victim and give him/her attention.

I am a firm believer in instilling principles in children from an early age, regardless of whether or not you feel they fully understand them....it's setting the pattern for life.

My dd is 2 & ever since about 10 months old we have had some form of naughty behaviour -I appreciate, extremely common and nothing out of the ordinary - it started with scratching and now we are at ripping off my glasses and chucking them on the floor when angry.

Every time she's done something naughty even at 10 months old with the scratching, I have always corrected her and told her to say sorry. Obviously at 10 months, I had no chance of an apology but reiterating it from then on has got us to the stage now where she is fully aware of when she's been naughty and what an apology is. She is Balamory mad at the moment and I have also started to ban her Balamory DVD's for the day if she is naughty, just to underline that I'm not happy and she's done wrong. I firmly believe she is contrite and she will offer an apology now without being prompted....just hoping the taking away of a treat, ie the DVD's, will stop her doing it in the first place!!

ditto meemar. exactly the same thoughts, same situation and ages.

I think the toddler person has to learn that the thing they've done is 'not nice' and will make someone else sad - once they have got that message then they tend to do the apologising of their own accord. As you say, modeling an example, starting with how we behave to everyone at home, works much better for us.

I always led by example and apologised to my DDs if I bumped into them or tugged their hair or even if I felt I'd been unnecessarily cross - not as a forced thing, just part of the same manners you would show anyone. It is important that they come to see that they must do it as 'closure' for an incident and to realise they did wrong, but sometimes you can get into another battle of wills just over forcing them to say the word itself, which deflects away from your main aim - that they should realise they did wrong and that the behaviour wasn't acceptable. (expecting a toddler to feel genuinely 'sorry' is perhaps a little idealistic.)

Yes and yes.

I don't really care whether or not it is a forced and not very genuine apology, the point is that it starts to reinforce that this is not acceptable behaviour and helps the lesson sink in

I would say (massively smug here ) that my children are empathetic, well mannered and respectful of others - and that was through imprinting and reminding...

I get ds1, 2.5, to give a kiss/cuddle to say sorry if he hurts one of us (almost always though overenthusiasm - he very, very rarely hits deliberately). He is just beginning to get the concept of a verbal sorry too.

And yes, I always say sorry immediately if I catch ds1's hair while dressing him, for example, or if I have been disproportionately angry with him.

loving the firework name bero!
yes, we try to treat the children with the same courtesy that you would to anyone else, they have all picked it up pretty quickly. Having said that, DC's personality is a big factor in there too - my two younger ones get the idea of the whole thing, but the eldest of the three DS1 is a typical little capricorn (sounding familiar, mezzer?) often insists that he is right, tries to justify what he did and the refuses to apologise. at this point the focus of attention gets taken completely away from him - which he does not like!

If dd1 has done something naughty e.g. annoyed the dog/dd2, I tell her off then lavish attention on injured party, sometime giving them a treat of some sort. This usually leads dd1 to swiftly apologise!

Hmm... wondering if I should be blaming the capricorn in her gigglewitch...

Most of the time, I say "apologise, please" or something of the sort and she does. Esp if I've been the target of the hitting. The problem arrives when I say that and she says "no!" Me "You need to apologise" "No!" "You hurt the little boy, you need to say you are sorry" "No!" "Why did you hit him?" "Scared (her all purpose word at the moment for anything unpleasant, any form of discontent). And so on until I give up. So, to say, sometimes I have to recognise that I'm not going to get a "sorry" out of her. And so I wonder about trying beyond the initial request for her to apologise as it often turns into a Yes, NO, YEs, NO, YEs, NO match...

I had a little boy around for a playdate who thought he could do anything to ds as long as he immediately gave him a hug and said sorry.

Ds got really frustrated and said "look I don't want hugs - why can't you just be nice instead - it would save time".

So I'm against little children being forced to apologise. I think it's more important to tell them what they did was not acceptable and then move on.

I went through a v difficult couple of months with dd pushing smaller toddlers shes big and strong, i did what i thought was right time out 1 min away lots of chat about why we don't push then we go to the injured child! she always said sorry and touch wood she is over it now three months on. I never said sorry myself i didn't push the child over.

Having read through the thread - v interesting - I think I'd now:

move my child away by a couple of metres
explain why hitting wrong blah blah
invite them to apologize to victim
If they don't want to, apologize myself to bloodied child, with 'more in disappointment than in anger' tone to my little bully.

Good compromise?

mum2too

When talking about apologizing myself to the poor child, I meant more an "im sorry you got hit' sympathetic acknowledgement, rather than an actual apol from me, or even on daughter's behalf..

Message withdrawn

I tell DD1 (2.2) to say sorry if she hits/pinches/steps on DD2, sometimes she does, sometimes she just gives her a cuddle or kiss which I think is good enough. She does seem to get the idea of remorse though so I shall keep making sure she doesn't forget!

I've also started introducing things like saying 'bless you' when someone sneezes or 'pardon me' when she burps, she seems to understand that certain actions lead to others and that Just The Way It Is