For the past three weeks I’ve been hobbling around on crutches, having had surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon (I was attempting to impress a cute 6 year old on a Ninja wall. She was not impressed). Last weekend, sitting at the kitchen island after having hippity-hopped over from the couch I asked Kai if she would bring my crutches over. Being a helper and nurse in training she scooted over and brought them right to me. After a few seconds of silence she gave me a sly smile and prompted “and what do you say…..?”

To which I replied “Well – I created you, care for you, pay for everything you have and essentially own you. I expect you to do whatever I tell you, when I tell you, without complaint. But remember that when I do something for you I fully expect you to thank me“.

Just kidding of course. I am not a narcissistic jackass (mostly not). I smiled and gave a sincere Thank You to the little lady. But that attitude is something I’ve seen in parents across my lifetime. They prompt their children for politeness on every little detail (‘now what do you sayyyyy?’), usually in that condescending lilting tone reserved for the wee ones. But those same adults often just plain suck at giving similar gestures, especially to their kids but even to other adults. For just a single day, I challenge you to pay attention to yourself and others and see if the adults in your world can live up to the politeness expectations we set on kids.

A couple weeks ago I was having one of those mornings, between not enough sleep and leaving late to school. Being the empathetic soul she is (sic), Keelyn picked up on the palpable tension and chose that moment to decide she had to have her light up shoes, which were apparently visiting the ‘other sock’ in the land of Torture Parents and none of us could find them. She proceeded to lay on the floor, pout and put on a show until for the first time ever (that day) I simply and honestly lost my shit. I yelled, swore, shoved shoes on her feet and pushed her stubborn little ass into the car for an ever so joyful ride to school.

Now, I am not against yelling. A little righteous anger at your little one is appropriate at times and I would argue can be useful in certain moments. But I am against uncontrolled and thoughtless screaming which happens simply because my patience level is stretched thin at that particular point. And so, a middle aged man sincerely apologized to a 4 year old. 

I let her know that I was not apologizing for being angry, asked her if she understood why I was angry (she did) and explained that I was sorry for yelling like a Packer fan after a loss to the Bears. I told her I would work on not yelling when I get annoyed and asked her what she could work on (“not fighting Daddy”). 

I was under no illusions that this conversation would turn my mornings into a silky smooth breath of fresh air. If she went one week after without throwing some curve ball into the routine I’d be ecstatic. Nor do I think she took much away from the apology itself. But I am extremely confident that at 6 years old, Kai (who was also in the car) does take something away each time I offer such an apology. 

She sees me own up to doing something wrong (or just doing it poorly), humble myself and make amends. She witnesses how to offer a true apology in action. And this is really the point to me. Just like with saying Thank You, ordering someone to be polite is one small step above useless. But this is what I see all the time: Kid A screams some meanness at Kid B, we tell Kid A “go say you’re sorry!”, and think we are actually teaching something because dammit, we said so. 

Perhaps you’re the type who thinks I’m a pushover or a pussy for apologizing to my own children. If so, you can take your authoritarian attitude, head on back to the 1950’s and get your wife (or yourself if you’re a woman) to make me a sandwich. Cause if you think that proper parenting is about telling your kid what to do and then making damn sure they do what you say no matter how wrong you are, well, then you’re an idiot. 

It doesn’t take any amount of psychological expertise to know that kids learn by example much more than anything else, especially from their parents. If you want your kid to be an arrogant rude ass who can’t wait to be the one bossing people around: then by all means order them about, scream at them and never show any remorse for being a dick. 

Myself, I’ll stuff myself full with humble pie as needed. Because I want my kids to learn that somebody who is truly confident and in control of their environment is not a person who is never questioned and never wrong, but is instead a person who can admit to being wrong, give a big ol’ hug of apology as required and ask for forgiveness from a kid who still has training wheels on their bike.