Tera Warner

Saying “Sorry” Sucks! Here’s Why.

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communication tips

 Saying “Sorry” Sucks! Here’s Why

~ by Tera Warner

Apologies are overrated. My  children have had this lesson hit hard with them over the years and they know better now than to “apologize” to me when they do something wrong. It’s too easy to rattle off sappy words of good intention and give a sloppy, teary “sorry” when you’ve caused a problem, and while remorse for wrong-doing is acceptable and reasonably, “sorry” doesn’t cut it when you’re trying to make things right. Apologies can too easily become the scapegoat for avoiding responsibility. Just because you’ve said you’re “sorry,” doesn’t mean you’ve made things right.

Forcing Apologies & Demanding Apologies Won’t Work

It is my humble opinion that one of the WORST mistakes parents make is imposing apologies on their children.

  • “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”
  • “Say sorry!”
  • “Apologize to the little boy, Jennifer!”

It’s true that accidents happen, mistakes are made and humans bumble about trying to figure it all out. It’s not unreasonable to consider that we would screw up sometimes and make a mess. But “sorry” is just a word and offering it doesn’t necessary change things–it just explains how you feel, essentially regretful for what happened.

Before you force or demand or even accept an apology from anyone when something bad or unsettling has happened, you should find a few things out first.

1. What Actually Happened?

Establish WHAT actually happened from the perspective of both parties involved in the situation before assuming anyone was at fault. (Remember what we said about criticism? 😉 Often the person protesting, complaining or “telling on someone” is as responsible, if not more so for that situation at hand.)

Inform yourself. Find out what was done to provoke, what was done to defend, protest, attack, etc. Get ALL the information. THEN, before you start imposing “apologies” START ASKING QUESTIONS:

  • “Can you see any way that this could have been handled differently?”
  • “What might have been a better solution?”
  • “Is this the result you wanted to achieve?
  • “What were you trying to make happen?”
  • “What do you think we should do next?”

If we could just sit down and ask a few questions that help our children, or anyone in a sticky situation like this, review, reflect, observe and reassess the situation so that they could come up with their own solutions and realizations, we’d be doing them a much better service than forcing them to spit out a few words that have no personal significance or meaning to them.

2. What Is the Intention of the Person Apologizing?

Communication without clear intention is more like noise–it’s literally “empty words.” It’s as if the message doesn’t register when the intention is detached. If you are not emotionally, authentically invested in your communication when apologizing, if you’re not actually regretful and sorry, then it’s a bit like offering a dead fish.

*yuck*

So before anything like an apology should be communicated, one of the first things that needs to happen is something on the lines of an authentic, genuine sense of regret for whatever was done. That’s when apologies come out very naturally and they feel sincere.

You can’t force that on a person!  It needs to come from their OWN sense of awareness, realization and sense of personal responsibility! But when you have it, you have the first and most important thing that needs to be there–honesty and sincerity. Without that, communication falls apart and trouble starts brewing.

3. The REAL Reason People Say Sorry

An apology can be expressed for a number of different reasons:

  • To put end to an argument.
  • To regain favor in the eyes of another.
  • To get out of trouble.
  • Out of a sense of “duty” or obligation
  • To trick or deceive another person. (I’ve received a few inauthentic apologies before and believing them got me into trouble.)

But no matter what the reason, an apology isn’t worth a whisper in the wind UNLESS it’s sitting on genuine remorse and a sincere intention to make things right. Even then, an apology is not enough. Stay tuned this week for the sequel to this article where I share the one other thing an apology needs to be worth its weight in words!

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