I don't force my kids to apologize. Here's why.
How (and why) to let kids resolve their own conflicts
Unless you were a perfect angel of a child (or your parents were very unconventional), you know exactly what it feels like to be forced to apologize.
Maybe you screamed at your sibling in a fit of frustration, and your mom made you apologize… even though you were still angry.
Or maybe you and another student were working out a disagreement and, to spare herself a headache, your teacher sent you to opposite corners of the room to sit quietly until you were ready to say sorry to each other… even though you didn’t get to finish your discussion.
Or maybe you refused to share something you valued, and an adult stepped in to “help” (i.e., force you to share), leaving you feeling hurt and wronged.
And every time something like this happened, you probably eventually said those golden words: “I’m sorry.”
But did you mean them? Odds are, probably not.
That’s because a forced apology is not the same as a real apology. It’s not sincere when it doesn’t come from within.
When we make our kids apologize they only do it because they want to move on from the situation or to avoid punishment, not because they genuinely mean it.
And it’s why we need to stop forcing our children to apologize.
Apology is a life skill
Knowing how to apologize, and more broadly, how to resolve conflict, are life skills that our children absolutely need to learn.
Conflict resolution teaches kids how to:
Express their feelings
Meet their needs without any victims on either side, and
Deepen social bonds
As difficult as it is to avoid the impulse to force an apology or solve issues for them, we want to take a step back and think of ways we can help build these skills instead.
When kids are forced to apologize, the implicit message they receive can be profoundly damaging. While internally we might just want the screaming to end and for the children to get along nicely (like we know they can!), our children hear: “My needs don’t matter, my perspective doesn’t need to be understood, and I need to either give up on trying or fight harder to be heard.”
Ouch.
And although it takes more time, energy, and patience on our part to model healthy conflict resolution, it’s so worth the effort.
In a surprisingly short time, you’ll be amazed at your child’s ability to express their emotions healthily and resolve conflicts on their own.
By fostering understanding and giving our kids the tools to resolve conflict, they’ll create lasting resolutions, rather than short-term fixes.
Here’s how:
What to do instead of forcing an apology
For young children
For children under 6, conflict resolution is mostly adult-led and routines-based, with the goal of equipping children with the skills they’ll need to solve conflicts independently when they get older.
Here’s what we mean:
Adult-led: Rather than forcing one child to apologize to another, the adult in the room can use tools like sportscasting, where they narrate the conflict to help children understand what’s going on: "Oh, Adam is playing with the car and Ava wants it too." When someone gets hurt, the adult can also draw the child’s attention to the consequences: “Ava’s skin is red and she’s crying.”
Sportscasting offers kids clarity, attention, and support in a challenging moment. The goal is to simply state the facts of the situation, not the feelings or intentions of either child.
As Janet Lansbury writes:
“...the whole point of sportscasting is actually not just to give children language and a better understanding of the situation and to help them feel heard and understood, but it is for us to remind ourselves not to project, to really be observant, and try to see from the children’s perspective rather than with our adult lens.”
Routines-based: The child’s routines in the home and classroom can support and scaffold the efforts we make when conflict arises.
In a Montessori classroom, for example, children lay out a mat on the floor before they start working with a material. This classroom norm creates a designated area in which the child can work without interruptions, either from their parents, guides, or another child.
Because this is an established norm, children know better what to expect, and it becomes easier to redirect them.
“Overall,” says Samantha Westmoreland, “the strategy with younger kids is to give them the language to describe the situation and each other's emotions, separate them when they're being violent, comforting the victim, and working to engage all children in work of some kind that will captivate them, because focus and success will stem a lot of negative behaviors on its own.”
For elementary-age children and adolescents
Starting at the elementary-age level, kids are ready for a long-standing Montessori activity called the peace table.
This is a designated table in a quiet corner of the classroom, on which a flower stands in a vase. When children are in conflict, they are each invited to sit at the peace table and self-regulate: quietly recentering, taking deep breaths, or doing an activity that calms them.
Then, each student takes a turn speaking — but only when they’re holding the peace flower. If they’re not holding the flower, it’s their turn to listen.
The goal of the peace table is to encourage each child to explain what happened, from the beginning, from their perspective. At the same time, they should be willing to truly listen to the other child and try to understand their point of view.
You can recreate this activity at home using a flower or any other object that symbolizes peace to your kids.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_lossy/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F20780787-7e15-44d6-9afa-793e59097a96_351x564.gif)
You can also try talking through what happened like you're reading a storybook. Ask each child to start from the beginning: “What happened on the first page?” Then, as you “flip through” the book, keep asking, “What happened next?”
Both activities invite your kids to self-reflect, thinking through how they got to this point and how their actions may have caused harm.
Self-reflection is one of the prerequisites to being able to apologize and mean it. If they’re stuck pointing fingers and playing the blame game, they’ll never experience true conflict resolution. They won’t feel seen or heard, and they won’t be inspired to change their behavior in the future.
But by giving your kids space to calm down, investigate what happened, and tell the story from their perspective, you show them how to do more than apologize. You teach them how to listen with the intent to understand, practice gentleness, and value peace.
Why this matters
Think for a moment what might happen to a child who is consistently:
Asked to swallow their real feelings
Dependent on adults to resolve conflicts for them (cue the constant, “Mom, Danny hit me!”)
Made to feel like no one understands their point of view
Shown that the only way to get what they want is to not get caught — or to play the victim so adults will step in and give them what they want
This is why we don’t force kids to apologize — even though it might make a situation easier in the moment, the long-term gains of teaching children how to resolve conflict are worth the effort.
Because we want our children to grow up to be kind, generous, and gracious. We want them to be adept in the art of handling conflict.
How many adults do you know who truly handle conflict well? It’s a rare skill, but it’s so important for healthy interpersonal relationships.
Your child will eventually encounter conflict with friends, romantic partners, coworkers, etc. And they will need to know how to handle those conflicts.
Teaching true conflict resolution enables our kids to:
Listen to understand (not just to talk)
Take responsibility and hold themselves accountable
Feel remorse for behavior that hurts others
Empathize with different perspectives
To raise kids who genuinely care, we can’t force them to apologize in one situation after another.
They need the ability to be able to seek a peaceful resolution by themselves.
☀️ This week’s bright spots:
If you have 1 minute…
Watch this video on what makes a Montessori classroom so different.
If you have 5 minutes…
Read this thread from Matt Bateman on why teaching grammar isn't a waste of time.
If you have 10 minutes…
Read
’s post on why you should read folk and fairy tales to your kids.
The Peace-whatever is an excellent route.
My kiddo, five, attends (almost done) a Montessori daycare where they have a little nook where they go for complete quiet--just time for themselves to think things over. Without even telling her to build one, she built one in our living room and she heads there whenever frustrated and comes out on her own once ready to go on with the day.
I love the peace rose. Actually this whole article just makes sense.
I treat my 2 years old son exactly this way, narrating the situation, the feelings, the consequences.
A few days ago, he naturally said: "I am upset because I wanted to play with Play-Doh."
I was just amazed at this.