I am constantly telling my kids “no” in various forms: no pushing, no shouting, no dumping a bucket of sand on that man at the beach reading a newspaper minding his own business, no hitting your sister with a stick. It goes on and on. They say sorry to appease me and carry on.
Young kids don’t really get what sorry really feels like but quickly learn to use the word as a get-out-of-jail free card. It diffuses the the tension they caused and they don’t have to have a time out. But they haven’t learned anything.
As adults we know it means saying, I was wrong. No one likes admitting that. But is it even enough to just say sorry? I know I’ve been apologized to and you just know the person isn’t being genuine. It just makes it worse. I’m sure I’ve done the same.
Being sorry means feeling someone else’s pain – empathy – and accepting that you could have done better by them.
“An apology is the superglue of life! It can repair just about anything!!”
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Perspectively Yours 