Something I’ve noticed in recent months is my daughter’s use of the words, “I’m sorry.” She’s 3 and she uses the phrase both too often and not often enough. She will say, “Sorry, mama!” for no discernable reason. And then she will refuse, at first, to apologize when an apology is asked of her (e.g. when she hits someone).

Not apologizing for hitting is something I can work with - we take a break together in her Calming Corner and we talk about her feelings and the feelings of the one she hit. (By the way, this is a strategy that replaces “time outs.” I learned about it at Generation Mindful: genmindful.com). Sometimes she was feeling upset because of something else that happened recently, sometimes she was feeling ignored, sometimes she was just over-tired. She always agrees to apologize after calming down and talking about it.

But the problem of her apologizing for no reason feels like a bigger hill to climb. Specifically, it touches on something I’ve struggled with since I was very young. I’ve always been an over-apologizer. My sister is too (she lives with us as well). We both constantly apologize for saying “the wrong thing,” for talking “too loud,” for talking “too much,” for standing where someone else is going, for inconveniencing anyone in any way, and the classic: apologizing for apologizing too much. Apologizing for everything reveals how we feel about ourselves. We learned as kids to keep ourselves small and to not take up too much space in the world.

I don’t want my kid to feel she needs to apologize for existing (or existing in a way that others might not like). And I think that will start with me teaching by example. There’s a lot here to explore. In a future post, I hope to delve a bit deeper.