Don't Say "Sorry", Apologize!

A pet peeve of mine is when a person hurts/offends you and all they say is "sorry". Sorry is just a word. When my kids apologize like that to me I answer with another word like "chair". Then they blink and remember that I like to hear an entire sentence:

"I am sorry, I was wrong, will you please forgive me?"

The first part of the sentence tells me they recognize the pain they have caused. The second part shows that they want to make some form of restituation. If someone just says "sorry", they aren't asking me to participate. I don't know if they mean it, either. But when they admit they were wrong and ask me to free them up, I know they get it.

Sometimes being sorry takes a period of time to fully comprehend. If something has been broken, there must be an offer to repair or replace it as part of the apology. Perhaps your child needs to do lawn work to clean up the yard they tee-peed with their buddies. Maybe they have to work to earn money for a new iPod for their brother when they broke his.

When my son was little and he broke something, he thought tape would fix anything. We had to teach him that tape did not hold everything back together. Sometimes something remained broken.

Teaching our kids to apologize is a tender subject because it forces us to look at our own lives. Have we been correct in our own histories? Are we apologetic enough? Do we even owe one of our kids an apology for our own actions? Ouch.

Once someome comes to me and asks for forgiveness, it is my responsibility to forgive them. If I refuse, that's my problem. They can go on their way knowing they have done what is necessary for the situation and the realationship. They are free.

Over time, I have developed my own definition of forgiveness to mean "letting go my right to have any input any longer and leaving their judgement up to God."  If I don't forgive someone, I am dragging them as a weighty ball and chain affixed to my ankle into my future. Why would I want to be dragged down in my present and future because of something awful someone has done to me in my past??

When I hear popular radio shrink Dr. Laura tell people there are some things that are unforgivable, I completely disagree. I think there are some things so horrible they are hard to forget, but when we don't forgive we keep the awful thing alive and current. The harm needs to be addressed (sometimes by good counseling) and then we need to learn how to live because of and beyond what happened to us.

I knew a woman who could not forgive her adulterous husband, even when he fully apologized and worked for several years to rebuild her trust. Instead, she spoke about him to anyone who would listen and defined her life as the injured, on-going victim. After more years of this, the husband was driven away by her unforgiveness.

I come from a long line of unforgivers. Great-aunts and uncles and grandparents who dwelled on slights to the point of getting family written out of wills. That's why I call fanning the fire. Why do that when you could live a life of peace so far as possible?

There's a verse in the New Testament that gives me cause for pause whenever I am tempted to hang on to something. To the degree that I forgive others, Christ will forgive me. Yipes. I need tons of forgiveness!!! Therefore, I am going to do my best to work on forgiving others.

Notice that I said "work on forgiving". That's because some things are just too big to let go of right away. Just like the tide coming in, sometimes we find out how deeply someone has sinned against us. The sin took a period of time rolling in, so how can we snap our fingers and let it go in an instant? I don't think we can. But we can purpose to forgive in an instant. What's the difference?

Purposing to forgive means that you are in agreement with the need to do so, and with God's help you want to do that. Sometimes it takes time to process the level of offense. Sometimes that takes counseling. But each step of the way as you release the offender to God, you are lightened of the load you were carrying. It took me many months of hard work to release the pain my first husband caused. But now as I look back and speak about it, it is as if I am speaking of someone else's life - I am that free now, and have been for more years than the pain existed.

So it's urgent our children know how to forgive. For their souls. For the health of their lives on earth. And especially because we want our heavenly father to forgive them. And to do that, they need tender hearts that admit and ask for that very thing.

My prayer for every parent and child is that they will be open enough to learn how to forgive and to ask for forgiveness beyond the word "sorry."

Overheard at Target

In Target, my favorite endcap display is the one that says “As Seen on TV” and has all the gagets and gizmos offered for sale on TV if you just call an 800 number. Yet here they are and I didn’t have to make a call!

Well, here are some actual comments I’ve heard from parents directed at their kids:

“You just can’t be good, can you?!!”

“Stop it, I mean it, stop it. That’s the 10th time I’ve said this so STOP IT!!!”

“Now you can’t have your birthday party!!”

“How many times do I have to tell you this!!!”

“You just don’t want to listen, do you???”

“Your father should not have let you do that, he’s wrong.”

“You are a bad girl/boy!!!”

“Kid for sale!”

“You two are such brats, shut up!!!”

“I can’t WAIT til you go back to school!!”

“She’s a terror.”

“I will take away your Christmas presents.”

“You can’t ever have ice cream again.”

“How many times have I told you to leave your boots by the door???!”

Most of these comments were made under duress. Many of them were made in public as a frazzled parent was pushing a grocery cart with several kids in tow. I have noticed that the children do not react to these comments, which tells me they are not new. And of course there will still be Christmas presents.

Empty threats. We might as well just recite the Periodic Table, that doesn’t make sense to little kids, either.

Here’s a way to de-personalize teaching opportunities – omit the personal pronouns. Instead of “You go put your boots away!” calmly state: “The boots belong by the door.” Carry this further: “Feet go on the floor” (resist following that by “not on the furniture”), “Dirty dishes go in the sink”, “China is not touched”, “Inside voices inside the store”, “The water bucket stays outside”. Short, simple and instructional. Say it in a non-negotiable, calm voice as if the entire solar system follows this procedure. Expect the kids to follow through.

If you are teaching public behavior in the store, then I would add a “we”. “We stay by the cart (or in the cart) in the store. We listen to mom.” (Then if they don’t, do the thing I mentioned in an earlier blog and promptly leave the store. Do not check out or finish shopping.) I used to let my kids pick out a couple of food items during a grocery store trip. They could not exceed our limit, and learned to self-edit or replace items if they wanted something different from another aisle. “Can I just have this?” “Sure, just put something else back.” The thinking and selection was up to them, not for me to narrate.

Every once in awhile I hear a parent encouraging their kids in public. Here is where I would use the personal pronouns big time to affirm positive behaviors or decisions. “You are doing a great job of standing in the hotdog line.” “That was so thoughtful the way you held your sister’s hand.” “Thanks for staying so close to me while we walk through the parking lot.” “You listened so well, way to go!!” “Wow, thanks for holding the door for us” “You were so polite, awesome job buddy!”

The point is to affirm the act, not the person. If we tell our kids “Mommy loves you because you stood in line so well,” that places the condition of love on their appropriate response and they might not always respond correctly. Better to say “Mommy loves you all the time”, period and save the affirmation of the act for a separate sentence. Little kids are very literal. When we were moving and told our six year old son we would be taking his room, he wondered how the room would fit on the truck and attach itself to the new house. Simple, short sentences work best. “Every THING inside your room will come to the new house.”

If you have ever been that empty-threat parent described above, it is never too late to sit with your kids and apologize for the words you have used and ask for their forgiveness. Then ask God to do some erasing of those memories and move on.