Sincere apologies

By Michael (Speech Pathologist)

Sincere apologies are often a tricky thing for young children to master. For one thing, it takes time for children to be able to mentally move beyond the bounds of their own perspectives, and begin to consider how other people might think and feel about things. Second, their vocabularies are still developing, and thus they lack the words necessary to offer a full apology that contains not only the words ‘I’m sorry,’ but also some statement about why and what for; along these same lines, a relative lack (compared to older children and adults) of social experience means that they may not have a great deal of familiarity with the different forms that an apology could or should take in different situations.

Ordinarily, these gaps in a child’s awareness and knowledge will be plugged by observing, and interacting with, people within the social environments which the child moves through. For children on the autism spectrum, however, such learning through observation often only occurs to an appreciable degree when the thing that they are learning about strongly corresponds to their interests. Thus a child may readily learn the letters of the alphabet after hearing them recited a handful of times, but never tune in to social interactions closely enough to recognise the how, when, and why of offering apologies.

Apologising is a skill, then, that may need to be explicitly taught. But while it is easy enough to teach most children to offer some variation of “I’m sorry” in at least some of the situations when an apology is called for, it is another thing entirely to teach the empathic response necessary for the formulation and demonstration of a sincere apology. What follows is an outline of some of the ways in which you might help your child develop this skill:
What happened?

Before a child can experience an empathic response to a situation, they need to understand the what of the situation itself. In order to guide this understanding, you can start by gently prompting your child with questions like:

Why is Steven mad?
What happened to Chloe that made her cry?
How do you think Negin felt when Robert pushed her?

It might also be helpful to explore your child’s own emotional responses, both to the incident under consideration, and also to the emotions they recognise in those involved in the situation.
What was my role?

Once your child understand what has happened, the next step is for them to recognise what role they played in how events transpired, and what is their share of the responsibility for how people felt as a result. It is very important that your questions be phrased and delivered in as-gentle a way as possible, so that they do not sound like recriminations—rather as genuine entreaties for reflection and learning. The sorts of questions you work through with your child might include:

Do you think that it made Susanna upset when you pushed in front of her?
How would you feel if someone threw your favourite toy over the fence?

The value of an apology

Your child is more likely to be motivated by, and invested in, an apology when they perceive that it will yield some benefit for all the parties involved. It is important that children learn how an apology not only makes people feel better, but that it also benefits the one offering an apology—either by avoiding negative consequences (e.g., some form of retaliation), or reaping positive benefits (making a new friend, or repairing/strengthening existing bonds of friendship). You could prompt your child to consider statements like:

Giving someone an apology is a way to show them respect. If we treat others with respect, they’re more likely to treat us with respect too.
Apologising to someone usually cheers them up, and sometimes it may even make you better friends.

Next time, we will delve into some ways you can work with your child on what to say in an apology, as well as how to say it.