by Alicia Slansky

Created on: January 25, 2009

Earning your child's trust by showing them forgiveness

If someone makes a mistake that you cannot forgive, you will no longer have trust in their ability to make decisions, especially decisions involving your life. We all have vulnerabilities. We all make bad decisions sometimes or speak out in anger. Our children see these things. We have taught them right from wrong from the very beginning. In order for them to trust anything that comes out of our mouths, we have to be able to live by the same moral code that we set for them and we have to humble ourselves to being simply human in their presence.

How forgiveness relates to trust:

If, no matter what they do, your child cannot earn your forgiveness for small mistakes, they will begin to feel worthless. They will also never learn how to truly offer their own forgiveness to others, including you. Once they grow into the teenage years and start to see for themselves that even parents make mistakes, they will find criticism in your choices the way you used to find in theirs and forgiveness will be very hard to achieve. Without the ability to forgive those mistakes, there will be little trust in your relationship.

Saying "I'm sorry"

Saying "I'm sorry" is admitting that you are wrong. Many parents think that to say "I'm sorry" to a child puts them in control of a situation. They think that if you admit being wrong, then you are also admitting that the child was right, when that may not be the case. Most adults get this same sensation when speaking to any other adult who admits to being wrong. We make jokes about it and tease people close to us when we were right and they were not. Too often, we assume that this is a natural reaction to the right and wrong debate and our children must get that elated feeling when we express being wrong as well.

The thing is society teaches us how to feel giddy when we are proven right. We learn that being wrong is bad. In reality, being wrong is human nature. It is the exact force that we learn from. If we are never wrong, then how will we ever learn what NOT to do? Saying I'm sorry does not admit defeat to another person (in this case, your child.) It opens up the door to share a personal vulnerability. We are all human. We all make mistakes.

Apologies and Self-Esteem

If you grew up thinking that it was never okay to make a mistake, you don't likely think very highly of yourself deep down. If you burn the toast in the morning and think about it all day, it is probably because you had very

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