Things Every Child Should Hear: I'm Sorry

By Leah Dummel

I have worked almost exclusively in some sort of customer service position my entire adult life. When working in customer service, as we all know, one must learn the art of the apology; and as you can imagine, since I have been working with people for the past 10 plus years, I have truly mastered it. Honestly, in recent jobs, I found myself apologizing to strangers 10-25 times a day (I counted once; it was 30 times in one 8 hour day).

The more I was apologizing the easier it got, and the less genuine it became. I didn’t know these people from Adam but I had no problem humbling myself, eating a little crow, and pulling out the most pitiful “I’m sorries” all the day long. But, interestingly enough, it’s not so easy to look into the eyes of my two small children and apologize for losing my ever loving mind over that one extra bath-time splash that completely sent me over the edge (you know, because I asked them not to splash 100 times before that?). But that detail is neither here nor there.

As a “young(er)” parent raising up children in this generation I strongly feel that teaching our children how to apologize is incredibly important. Humbling ourselves, acknowledging our mistakes, apologizing for the pain we have caused, and asking for forgiveness is a life skill that sadly MANY adults have no idea how to execute. 

Although, I don’t think these adults are all to blame. I wonder sometimes, if adults, who can’t find it in themselves to apologize, had parents who never apologized to them and therefore they never learned how and why it is so important.

We can sit and talk to our children until we are blue in the face about how important being humble and apologizing is. However, children learn from our example, they learn from our leadership, they learn from watching us, their parents. And they desperately need to hear us say “I’m sorry” to them when we are wrong. Because guys, we are wrong a lot! I joke with a friend of mine that if my boys learn anything from me; it will be how to apologize! I find myself apologizing to my boys at least once a day, and that’s on a good day!

Our children need to hear us tell them we are sorry, “I’m sorry for screaming at you over spilled milk. I’m sorry I missed your ballgame, again. I’m sorry I hurt you with my knee jerk reaction to your behavior. I’m sorry we haven’t spent a lot of time together lately, this season of life is hard”. They need to know that we acknowledge our mistakes. We acknowledge the pain we have caused, that we accept responsibility and are trying to correct the situation and salvage the relationship. 

1 Corinthians 13:4 says that love is not proud. We love our children and we are desperately trying to teach them to love others tangibly. I have found that an honest and sincere apology and effort to reconcile is one of the most tangible ways we can love others.

Sometimes we as parents are leery to apologize to our children because we are afraid it will show weakness. We are worried it will challenge our authority and that they will no longer respect us. Some days I wrestle with thoughts like, “Man I shouldn’t’ have lost my temper like that I should apologize, they didn’t deserve that. But wait, their behavior was bad so if I say sorry then that will over power the lesson they need to learn regarding this specific behavior”. 

Friends, I promise, God has our back on this one too! 1 Peter 5:5 talks about young men accepting the authority of the elders, BUT the elders must serve each other in humility! Just because we have authority over our children and we are there to teach and shepherd and lead them, doesn’t’ mean we don’t apologize and ask for forgiveness if we are out of line. What sort of example would that set if we didn’t? Our children will grow up thinking they are never wrong and that apologizing and owning their mistakes and taking steps to mend a hurt relationship are not worthwhile qualities for adulthood. YIKES!

One of my husband and I’s favorite folk artists is Derek Webb. He wrote and recorded a beautiful song entitled, “I was Wrong, I’m Sorry, and I Love You”. <<< THIS IS SO IMPORTANT! I love this. I feel like it may end up hanging in our home someday because these 3 phrases, when genuine, are EVERYTHING our children need us to say. Sometimes it’s appropriate to go into great detail in our apologies, explaining exactly what made us explode and how we are wired and all the outside distractions, etc. But sometimes the words I was wrong, I’m sorry, and I love you, are all our children need to hear from us to fully understand and grasp the gravity and importance and beauty of humbling ourselves, writing the wrong, asking forgiveness, and moving forward.