I’m sorry about this post.

I say “sorry” a lot.

If I accidentally kick a table, I mumble a “sorry”.

I don’t know why I do this,  especially since I believe that “sorry” should be taken from the language almost entirely.

My four-year old has started saying sorry as well. She makes a huge mess, “Sorry” she says and dances away. “NO…”, I say, “Come back and help clean it up.”.  “But I said sorry!”.

When did this happen? When did “I’m sorry”  make up for an inappropriate action like a magic wand? Bash you sister? Oh..sorry!

The truth is, I think that mandating an apology from a child is introducing children to acceptable deceit. We order them to lie. And we relax, believing the lie, and we can return to our perfect delusion.

We call it being polite.

So what should we do?

If a child whacks someone, have them get some ice. If a child snatches something, have them return it. For my older girls, if one of them hurts the other, the victim gets to think of a favor the other has to do.

There are lots of articles about it on the internet, here is one if you need to share it with a grandparent or a teacher. (although any trained teacher should know this already)

This concept of acceptable lying and mandated deceit has me thinking.

When people meet my partner, they are usually quite taken by his integrity, is ability to “walk the talk”. I wonder if this is because as a society not walking our own talk is freely accepted. Saying one thing, but doing another is what as become socially acceptable. So, when someone actually follows through with their word, people are more surprised than when they don’t. Just pondering… 🙂