Whenever one of my children wrongs another, I ask the offender to apologize, but in a very specific way.  Too often I see parents asking their children to simply say sorry.  But merely saying the word “sorry” doesn’t cost the child anything, not does it actually involve admission of fault.  In addition, the child doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for or how he has wronged another.  For these reasons I have my children identify the sin and apologize with that specificity.  These are some of the examples from our little sinners:

• “I’m sorry I sinned against you by hitting you on the arm.  Will you please forgive me?”
• “I’m sorry I sinned against you by taking your toys.  Will you please forgive me?”
• “I’m sorry I was careless and stepped on your foot.  Will you please forgive me?”

Our children need to understand that in order for reconciliation to happen, they have to identify how they have sinned against another.  As I teach my children how to apologize, I find that this is a lesson not just for the little ones, but also for ourselves.

To illustrate how we’ve “successfully” taught our children to be specific about their sins, here’s a situation that just happened two days ago.  While playing happily together, my little 2.5yo girl started to cry and she then identified her brother as the culprit in hurting her.  Given the circumstance I deduced it was an accident so I said to my boy, “Andrew, I know it’s an accident that you stepped on your sister, but you still need to apologize to her for hurting her.”  Well, he protested and said, “Mommy, I DIDN’T step on her.  I kicked her!”  Hmmm. . . . We certainly got the “being specific” down.  We need to work on the repentance part.