Accept My Child’s Apology, and It Made Everyone Happier.

3 min readNov 20, 2020

For my three children, who are each under the age of ten, reinventing school and adapting to new ways to go about our lives had been fun and novel at first. They would wake with wide eyes in the morning and marvel at being able to do their math and reading in their pajamas. Bedtimes stretched later and later. And because we never knew what the grocery store would offer, dinner and snacks took on an almost adventurous feel.

At first, it was bickering. The kids snipped and snapped at each other over who got to eat out of the orange cereal bowl. No one could sit on the couch without a frustrating back-and-forth over whose spot belonged to whom. Even the toothbrush holder became contested territory.To be fair, my husband and I went through a honeymoon phase with the pandemic as well. We each moved our jobs home, making life feel cramped and awkward but doable.

Getting through the day in one piece without someone having a meltdown became a goal. Without the release of taking breaks from one another, a luxury that school and work afforded each of us created a household of anxious, exhausted, grouchy people.

My kids would pinch each other or say nasty things to one another, and then I would step in, demand an apology, and then lecture my kids on decency and respect before I went back to cleaning or typing.

My oldest kid had snatched a video game controller out of his brother’s hands and took over his game, leaving his little brother crying and babbling on about how much he hates being home.

“I do not accept your apology,” I repeated. “But I will accept changed behavior. Now, tell me what you plan to do about this.”What phrase could he spit out that would make this moment stop so he could keep going about his game?

“But Mom! You’re supposed to accept my apology because you’re the MOM, Mom!” His confusion that I stepped out of this dance said it all. I was part of the problem, and I was refusing to do my part.

I genuinely was sick and tired of intervening in my children’s drama, and it was time for me to correct my lazy parenting and hold them answerable for their own crappy choices.

These are the words that I find myself saying lately. The idle apologies that are more performative than teachable moments are no longer acceptable here, and my kids know it.

But that isn’t enough; they have to sit with me and talk through how they will change their behavior. I listen. They have to talk about how their actions made another person feel. I listen. They have to tell me how they would feel if someone acted out similarly toward them. I listen.

Yesterday, my youngest was needling at her brother’s last nerve, and my oldest kiddo walked over to her and said, “Hey, how would you feel if he kept jumping on your legs and yelling your name really loud?” She was too young to rational this, but in a parenting win for me, I was proud to see that my oldest, my eye-rolling, knows-everything-about-everything-Mr-attitude tween, was trying to teach his little sister the lessons that I have been trying to teach him.

And that’s when I realized that as clunky as it might feel, we have a new dance in our family.

Accept My Child’s Apology, and It Made Everyone Happier.

Written by Toypawtab