Why I Don’t Make My Daughter Apologize to People
There is a better way to handle her mistakes.
My best friend lives in a conservative, suburban area of town with homes that mostly look alike. She’s more of a bright-colored house neighborhood with a Mexican grocery store nearby kind of person. Her next-door neighbor has not one but several Trump flags adorning his yard. This is disconcerting to her gay daughter.
Turns out, the culprit doodling anti-Trump phrases on the sidewalk in front of the house, who was caught on camera, is said daughter. Whoops.
As we were talking about how she and her husband were handling it, she said she has to take her daughter over there to apologize to the man who can’t open his door without swatting away a few of the conservative flags.
I told her I advised against making her daughter apologize. If there’s one thing that has never felt right to me is when anyone has told a kid, “Say you’re sorry!” Forcing our kids to apologize for something teaches them lessons I don’t find valuable.
There are better ways to handle their mistakes that teach them actual lessons they’ll carry into adulthood. This is the point of parenthood. Raise good humans into…
