How to Apologize to Your Child: Breaking Generational Cycles

Some parents don’t believe in apologizing to children.

But in my opinion, children are people too, and they have feelings. When parents learn to apologize, they begin modeling what healthy relationships look like for their children.

My parents are Jamaican, and I grew up in an era of children must know their place. As a child, you basically had no rights. You did as your parents said, even if it didn’t make sense. You didn’t dare question them, or tell them that something they said upset you.

If you had strong emotions about a situation, you’d better not let your parents think it had anything to do with them, or you would probably be facing some punishment–physical punishment at that.

I remember there were many times when I felt wronged, but there was nothing I could do about it but write in my journal or vent to my friends.

My parents apologized sometimes, but I often felt their apologies weren’t entirely genuine because there was always a next time. And even though there was an occasional apology, I wasn’t free to state how I felt in the situation, so our “reconciliation” was one-sided.

I parent my children differently.

I’m not bashing my parents, but they didn’t have the tools to know how to nurture open communication between parent and child. They were raised in a similar fashion, so that’s the only frame of reference they had.

I have the privilege of going to school for counseling, so many of the techniques I applied in my old household have partly come from my professional background.

The hard part, however, is battling to not repeat what I’ve seen because it’s just easy to fall back on your upbringing, even if it wasn’t the best or didn’t yield the best results.

I’ve had to reset my thinking so that my children can feel heard.

There has been a rise of people interested in the gentle parenting way of parenting, and equally, there has been a fair amount of criticism too. I used to be one of the critics, but I didn’t fully understand gentle parenting. I confused it with permissive parenting.

Now I understand the beauty in raising your children with a voice, and it doesn’t require you to be less in charge.

It may feel weird to apologize if you weren’t raised that way, but if it’s something that you’d like to start doing, here are a few ways:

Analyze why it’s hard for you

In order to change behavior, you have to look at the history of current behavior. Why is it hard for you to start apologizing to your children?

Did your parents not apologize to you, so you are repeating the cycle? Are you triggered by your child’s behaviors, so you react in negative ways?

Do you feel like apologizing weakens you? Do you feel too vulnerable? When you get to the root of why you feel the way you do, it’s easier to make changes.

Start Small

You may have apologized this week, but last week you blew up and said nothing. Don’t beat yourself up over every detail.

You can always say something like: hey, I’m sorry I blew up at you last week. There was a lot going on and I’m sorry I made you feel bad.

And if you have little kids,

Realize That It’s Never Too Late

Maybe your kids are older now and you’re reflecting on all the mistakes you made. You wish you could go back an apology to them. And now you’re living in regret.

The beautiful thing is that it isn’t too late! Tell your children how much you love them, and that you’ve made some mistakes along the way.

Share with them what was happening for you in those moments (grief/loss, pressure from work, feeling overwhelmed, etc) Then apologize and ask for their forgiveness.

It’s such a beautiful thing when we can humanize ourselves to our children. We can show them that we are real people who make real mistakes but are actively working towards being better people.

We get the opportunity to model for them how to apologize–a skill that they can apply to any relationship they have or will have in the future.

Don’t be hard on yourself, when you are trying to adopt a new behavior and break generational curses, it’s hard work!