Comments on: making kids apologize (cuppa comme ci comme ca)

By: sumac

sumac — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 16:38:29 +0000

In reply to tanita. Yes, thank you. "I'm the grown-up." That really nails it for me.

By: nettie

nettie — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 16:15:14 +0000

Agree. great comment, Tanita.

IJWTS, Having been apologized to both with and without an accompanying request for forgiveness, I must say that “with” gave the apology an added urgency and weight (the person was apologizing for a pretty dreadful deed committed years before). It didn’t feel to me that i was obliged to forgive her, more: that she honestly wanted to know whether I could forgive her, that this was something she needed to know, and if i hadn’t been there yet, she would’ve accepted it. I saw it more as an opportunity for me to let go of any resentment i might’ve still harbored. Forgiveness always feels like something i do more for myself than for the apologizer anyway. But that’s going off on another tangent.

However, I can see how being asked for forgiveness cd make some people feel put upon, and how it may not be appropriate to train little kids to ask in a rote way for someone to forgive them.

By: snarly

snarly — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 20:00:07 +0000

In reply to tanita. Great, great comment, Tanita. Thanks.

By: tanita

tanita — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 17:25:48 +0000

When I was teaching at a school for kids with learning disabilities, we did a lot of role-playing for the simple fact that I agree that some children who have trouble tuning in to frequencies outside their own head often miss social cues. So, we practiced them. We practiced apologies, too, because we frequently needed that exercise. I am not a fan of forcing forgiveness, nor would I have ever required the class to apologize to me. This is the opinion of a childless person here (and while I believe I’m right, I’m just giving any parents the opportunity to get off at this exit and say “she doesn’t know what she’s on about,”) but many children – not all, by any means, but many – don’t see adults as anything but extensions of themselves sometimes for a long time. You know how infants are — they see the ability to get up high, get a bottle, get dry pants, period. We’re caretakers, drivers, and medical personnel. Maturity gives them the ability to see us as “Hey, Mom is someone other than Mommy…” and to allow you to take on other identities in their eyes, but you can’t demand maturity at apology-point in the middle of a classroom, especially if you have a repeat daydream-y offender who might not be able to help it.

I did sometimes tell my students, “When you guys are noisy and don’t want to listen, I feel…” usually something like “taking a nap” or something, because we practiced articulating feelings. However, again: mine were the least important in that room, because I’m the grown-up. School is not grown-up time, it’s kid time. I’m a facilitator, not the main event. If this sounds ridiculously self-sacrificing, trust me, there was plenty of time during my free periods when I locked the classroom door, wouldn’t allow them to come in for ANY reason, and read a book at my desk. I’m sure parents delineate that sort of time, too.

I like the scholarly discussion the Talmud provides in this. When we were kids, I remember big thoughts on things like “Thou shall not kill,” and how “kill” wasn’t as cut/dried as it appeared; that you could kill someone’s reputation, their sense of self-worth, their joy. These philosophical explorations make the entire discussion more meaningful.