Children having responsibility. | Page 1 | 33. ✿ - - - Parenting | Guild Forums

Digital Fiend

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Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:32 am

This thread I'm mainly wondering how moms feel about their kids taking responsibility for their actions. I know most moms here have kids too young to really think about this yet; but I've been around friends, nieces, nephews, and cousins that are prime examples to what I'm talking about.

I've noticed that a lot of parents apologize for their children's actions and they try to fix the problem. Which is at least better than parents that feel like their kid does no wrong.

I just feel that instead of apologizing for your child, it's an even better idea to have them apologize themselves. Most of the people that I've never seen apologize aren't the greatest of people to be around imo. They're selfish and hurt people willy-nilly; just because they can. {These are usually the adult versions}

How do you feel about this?
If your child is old enough to know better, do you require them to apologize? How do you go about this, do you explain to them why they should feel sorry and then talk about it?
What's a good age to start this habit?

{Sorry if this topic doesn't make sense. I went to bed around 1am and woke up at 3am with one bathroom break between those times.}

Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 7:23 am

While I do agree that the child needs to apologise for themselves, I often find that as a parent, it's only polite to apologise myself first, as often getting my child to the point where she understands what she has done wrong takes a little time.
Apologising myself first tells the other person that I acknowledge that what she did was wrong, and that it will be dealt with. However, it may take a few minutes until she apologises herself, and it's poor manners to make that person wait. Especially if you're at the park or something, and the other people may leave by the time my daughter understands, or passing each other in the street.

I'm not the kind of parent that will see my child do something wrong, bark "SAY SORRY!" at her, and then just have her mutter some insincere "sorry". (I see other parents do that a LOT.)
That's not good enough. Sorry is just a word.
She must understand that what she did was wrong, understand why it was wrong, and then try to make up for it.

That's why we use "make it right" as one of our key phrases.

For example, if she's playing with her friends and she snatches a toy.
I would remind her that we don't snatch, and if she continues to not share/doesn't apologise, I will say "sorry Pandora, just give us a minute."
Then I would take my daughter aside, talk about why it's important to share nicely and not snatch, and how that makes our friends feel.
Once she understands that, I go for "So what can we do to make it right?"
And then let her come up with a way to "make it right" with her friend- such as saying sorry (and at this point it would be sincere), and giving her friend a hug, or showing her friend one of her other favourite toys etc.

It is a longer way of going about it than just demanding that she say sorry for herself right away, but it's very important to me that her apologies are sincere.

Tute Sweet

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ilover1508

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Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:56 am

I agree with both of you, not sure what I will do until it happens and my baby girl is only 3 weeks so I may have awhile for that

Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:59 pm

Tute Sweet

It is a longer way of going about it than just demanding that she say sorry for herself right away, but it's very important to me that her apologies are sincere.

I wish we could tip in guilds. When I wrote this, it was an incident involving my 13 year old cousin. I feel it's important to talk to your kids about what they did wrong and try to get them to understand, but like you do with your daughter, get them to follow through with "making it right".

I was also remembering an ex's brother. His parents always "bought" his way out of things. If he broke something, they would pay to fix it, but wouldn't have him hold any responsibility {this was around 10-11}. I mean, it's good that they were willing/able to try and fix it, but they didn't hold him responsible . This guy went down a really bad path. Was in jail several times before he was 18 {17} and did drugs and got kicked out of the house, not to mention stealing from his family members.

I feel like the "say your sorry" barking is rather lazy and passive. My friend's daughter {2yr old} was yelling at her dad "you're not my dad" and things of the like. Because he told her to wait until a certain time and he would play with her. My friend sat there on the couch and just told her "That's not nice".