Loving the Unrepentant Child

Q: What do we do when our child refuses to be reconciled with you? In adult-to-adult relationships, each adult has the same responsibility to initiate reconciliation when conflict arises. But how does this apply to the parent-child relationship? For example, my teenage son has cursed at me, been outright rebellious, and has threatened to leave the house. Should the parent in such a situation take the initiative toward reconciliation, such as telling him I still love him despite his over-the-top misbehavior? Or do we wait for the child to humble himself and come to us?

A: This is a question as old as time itself. How do we as parents deal with a child who clearly has no desire to repair a relationship to which he has taken a sledge hammer?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Let’s remember that the parent-child relationship is fraught with mistakes and outright messiness. The parent makes mistakes, the child makes mistakes. Emotions get out of control and things can slide downhill fast.

That said, we should try to model forgiveness and love as much as we can. That means, yes, we tell our children that we love them no matter what they do--because we do and we should. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t get annoyed, hurt, angered, or saddened by their behavior and choices, but it does mean that we love them as unconditionally as we can in our imperfect human state.

In your example, you should take the initiative for two reasons. One because you’re the adult and he’s the child (even as he nears adulthood), and two, because you’re his father. This isn’t to say you condone the behavior, but we have to be the ones to hold out the olive branch of forgiveness in order to make it easier for our children to ask for it. We should be the ones who try to heal the breach first because we need to show our children how to do that.

Most of the time, children of all ages find it difficult to be the one to take the first step toward righting a wrong. It’s not easily to be humble and apologetic in the best of circumstances. Throw in a fight with a parent, and that step could morph into an insurmountable mountain for a child to climb.

Of course, we pray that our children will see the wrongness of their actions, but in the end, it’s not up to us to convict their hearts—that’s the province of God--so we tell them we love them, we levy appropriate consequences when necessary, and we make the way back “home” not steep or rocky, but paved with love and forgiveness. 

A Sorry Battle

Q: My 4-year-old daughter has begun to stop saying “sorry” recently. Here’s an example:

Child throws a toy and hits Mom

Mom says: “Ouch!”

Child stares silently at Mom.

Mom says: “That hurt Mommy. Are you sorry?”

Child shouts: “No!”

Mom says: “When we accidentally hurt people, we apologize and say we’re sorry.”

Child responds: “I will NOT apologize, Mommy!”

Mom says: “Okay, you are going to stay in your room and think about how you hurt Mommy. You can come out when you are sorry.”

Child cries, goes to room and comes out 3 minutes later.

Mom says: “Are you sorry?”

Child says: “No!”

We go back and forth for 10 to 15 minutes until she will finally say she’s sorry. I’m tired of fighting with her on this. Is this a phase and will it pass?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A: Whether this is a phase or not, this will only end when you stop playing the game. More than 90 percent of the time, children don’t “feel” sorry—that’s something they need to be taught. You’ve been clouding the issue somewhat by advocating that she only apologize when she feels sorry by asking her if she’s sorry.

That approach has led to a battle over whether or not she will say she’s sorry, and it’s become one that is taking its toll on you both. So, let’s forget about the “sorry” business for a while and focus on the real issue at hand: her disobedience. You can help curb that by changing the way you talk to her.

First, stop asking her if she’s sorry. Start telling her that she needs to apologize. Practice this when she’s not done something for which she needs to apologize. For example, in our house, we have the child (or adult—goes both ways!) to say exactly why they are apologizing, as in, “I’m sorry I threw a toy that hit you” instead of just “I’m sorry.”

Second, when she refuses to apologize, simply send her to her room for the rest of the day without her favorite things, then to bed directly after an early supper. The catch is that even when she wants to apologize after being sent to her room, you must accept the apology and still enforce the punishment. You want to avoid sending the message that if she says she’s sorry, she will get out of the consequences for her actions.

Yes, this may appear to be an over-reaction, but you need to send a message that obedience is expected the first time and that apologizing is important. Nipping this in the bud will keep it from mushrooming into an even bigger problem, of which you’ve just begun to see with her current behavior.

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Accidental Apologies

Q: I think our 12-year-old son may be jealous over a girl classmate’s desire to be around one of his friends. In the classroom, she wants to be his partner or in the group with my son’s friend. I don't think my son “likes” her because he finds girls very annoying right now, and his behavior supports it.

On the playground, she wants to play football with the boys, but ends up standing in the middle and doing nothing. The playground teacher makes the boys throw every third pass to the two girls, while there can be 15 boys. My son threw a football to a friend, whose fingertips it went off and hit the girl in the face. We were told our son said, “That’s what happens to ugly girls.” Later, our son told us that he didn’t say that, only that he thought of her as a “teacher’s pet.”

I meet with her parents, teacher, and children tomorrow at school, probably with the principal and school counselor, too. What can I do to help our son? I want to be supportive, of course, to our son, even if he's made some unwise choices. I want to give him some tools to deal with others’ comments about himself. He's dyslexic, so there's a confidence issue with schooling.

A. My initial thought is this is building a mountain out of molehill, but I suspect you probably didn't have a choice in regard to school meeting. Whether or not your son likes the girl is not relevant to this situation. Likewise is the fact that he may or may not be jealous.

Those are clouding the issue and should be avoided because the “why” something happened is not nearly as important as the “what” happened. This is contrary to a lot of talk today by professionals, so be prepared to stick to the “what happened” in the meeting and steer away as much as possible from the “why did this happen” discussion (and it's near cousin, the why did he do that or why did she react that way).

The best way you can help your son is to ensure he takes responsibility for his actions. He hit the girl with the football and said something not nice to her (true or not, others think he did, so he should own it. Yes, it's not fair, but frankly, it's how life is sometimes).

Come up with what you would have him do to make amends. I’d recommend a verbal apology to the girl, plus having him hand-write in legible script a longer, formal letter of apology to the girl. Bring the letter to the meeting. If this is an out-of-the-blue type of situation, that might be enough of a consequence, as he’s likely to be extremely embarrassed by having to do those two apologies.

If you think this might be a pattern, then level home consequences for his actions, too, i.e., some sort of meaningful restriction, like removing electronics and/or limiting his interaction with the outside world for a time--in other words, make it matter a whole lot to him, not something token. Implement said restriction immediately.

In the near future (once this has had a few days to settle down), you can talk with him in brief spurts (or have your husband do so) about walking away from situations where he feels his self control loosening, about counting to 30 in his head, about replacing mean thoughts about a person with positive or affirming ones, etc. I have a daughter who I work with on occasion on this issue, as she tends to flare up like a tornado when she's frustrated, and it does help to remind her what to do when she feels that way--but only when she's not feeling that way. Avoid over-lecturing, though. Say what you want to say in as few words as possible, then stop talking:) That will sink in more than a long discussion.

One final thought: his dyslexia has nothing to do with his actions, so I'd keep that out of the discussion here as it will only muddy the waters.

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