34| Teaching Kids to Apologize & Restoring Family Connection
Download MP3Hi friends, welcome back to Intentional Motherhood, where we explore what it means to raise wholehearted kids while staying grounded as mothers in the process. I'm your host, Kelsey Redd, a mom of four, formerly a mental health counselor, and an adventurous entrepreneur, homeschooling my kids and figuring this all out at the same time as you guys. Together, we're gonna talk about emotional wellness, faith, and family rhythms that bring more peace, connection, and presence into your home and your heart. Let's get started. I'm so happy to be with you here today.
Kelsey Redd:And I just wanna tell you how much I really, truly, thoroughly enjoy recording these podcast episodes. Unfortunately, I'm just here in my closetoffice recording alone, but I really feel the connection to my friends and fellow mothers as I record these. And I hope that comes across. I hope you feel that in these conversations. I know they're somewhat one-sided conversations, but I hope you really truly feel that I'm in it with you.
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Kelsey Redd:So you're going want to make sure that you're getting access to those. So if you're not, like I said, on my email list, get on it through the Linktree or the link in bio or of course the show notes will always have my links. Okay, so let's get into today's topic. I want to talk about something that is really a struggle, but is also so critical that it requires some intentional, proactive thinking and planning. And that is how to manage apologies in the home.
Kelsey Redd:I of course come from a faithful biblical perspective. And the reason apologies are so critical is because we're talking about the relationships in the home ultimately. And I'm gonna reference again one of my favorite parenting books. It's called Parenting, Getting It Right by Andy Stanley. And I really like this book.
Kelsey Redd:The reason it's my kind of go to favorite book is because it really takes a long term perspective in parenting. I feel like a lot of parenting books kind of teach you how to get through this phase of parenting or how to help your kids get through this milestone in parenting and what to do in that stage, which is of course helpful. But the whole point of Andy Stanley's book on parenting is that you have to parent through every stage of your child's life with the long term goal in mind. And he defines the long term goal as what getting it right, it in quotations, right really means, which is having children who want to spend time with you as their parents and together with their siblings when they no longer have to. As in after they have moved out of the home and they are adults, that you have a relationship, a friendship with your adult children that they want to spend time with you and they want to be close to you.
Kelsey Redd:Because isn't that ultimately the goal of parenting? We actually have such a small window of parenting, eighteen years really, where we get to be hopefully the main influence in our child's life. And after that, they're not required to spend their time with us any more than they want to or have to. And I want to have a relationship with my kids where we want to talk as often as possible and they want to be home, they want to come visit, they want to bring their children to be with me and they want to get together with their siblings. I want that kind of closeness in a couple decades from now.
Kelsey Redd:So because of that, Andy Stanley talks about every parenting and especially discipline decision has to be made with the relationship in mind. And the relationship is priority over everything. That relationship is priority over everything. So how do we deal with this when inevitably there are conflicts and little and the relationship is damaged here and there by little things that happen between siblings and parents and child and all the everyday things that we experience where we would need to apologize. So now you're gonna hear how I kind of connected this to a faith based or spiritual perspective, which is that anytime we disrupt the relationship, there needs to be some sort of repentance, I.
Kelsey Redd:E. An apology. So I want you to be thinking of this two lines, two directions, as I talk about this from here on out, because I actually, this is the way I define repentance for myself, as in how I ask God for repentance, or how I apologize to God when I have done something, and how we apologize within our family so that there's a consistent understanding of what it means to apologize slash repent, as in turn back towards the person who we sinned against or we did wrong to, and reunite that relationship, reconcile that relationship. So in our home, repentance and apologies have two parts to them. They have the confession and the restitution.
Kelsey Redd:Because any time we do something that hurts another person, it's hurting the relationship. And so we need to restore that relationship. The restitution of the relationship is the top priority. And we do that through the two parts, confession and restitution. And again, you might wanna apply this to your own prayer and spiritual life.
Kelsey Redd:So in our home, we help our children to say these two things as they apologize to their siblings or even to us as parents. I am sorry that I fill in the blank. That is the confession. They're acknowledging verbally what they did that hurt the other person. I'm sorry that I dot dot dot.
Kelsey Redd:And then what can I do to make it right? And this is where I'll start to explain the second kind of catchphrase that we say when we're asking our kids to apologize. But we typically tell our kids that you have to make it right. If you knocked over their tower of Legos, you might say, Can I help you rebuild it? Do you want me to give you space so that you can rebuild it by yourself?
Kelsey Redd:But you have to do something that helps make it right. Or a lot of times, I have one sweet, sweet daughter who really struggles to say these apologies in person, but she will often make a card, write a little love note to the person, and that's her way of helping make it right again, because that's more comfortable to her. So along with the two parts of repentance or apologies, the confession and the restitution, we also explain to our children, your apology has to include heart, hands, eyes and mouth. We tell our children, are you using all four parts in your apology? Heart, hands, eyes and mouth.
Kelsey Redd:This means they have to, the heart is they actually have to mean it because we've all heard our children say, I'm sorry. And it's like, okay, you're not using your heart, that didn't sound like an apology from the heart. We have to use our heart, we have to use our hands. This often means for our children that they have to give their sibling a hug, or at least maybe even hold their hand, touch their arm, some sort of physical contact, or it sometimes just means use your hands to go rebuild the Lego Tower. That's part of how you use your hands if your brother or sister doesn't want a hug.
Kelsey Redd:Heart, hands, eyes, they're required to make eye contact. And I'm laughing because it's become almost a joke in our family because I say, heart, hands, eyes and mouth. And my son will grab his twin sister by the face and open his eyes as wide as he can and just stare into her face and say, I'm sorry. And I'm like, okay, well, it's progress. It's something.
Kelsey Redd:So heart, hands, eyes and mouth. And of course, the mouth is the words verbally saying the words, I'm sorry that I What can I do to make it right? So again, the point of these apologies, and if you want to think of it in your own spiritual life as repentance, is to again, reconcile the relationship that has been damaged or where there has been a separation introduced through some sort of conflict or mean deed. The goal is always to reconcile the relationship. Not only is it about teaching accountability, taking accountability for your actions, but it's also taking it a step further to say, not only do you have to take accountability for what you did, but when you hurt someone and when you cause some sort of chasm in a relationship, because these relationships are so important, our family, we always tell our kids, our family relationships are the most important relationships in our lives.
Kelsey Redd:You have to do something intentionally and proactively to restore that relationship and hopefully actually bring it even closer. We of course even try to implement the same steps when we inevitably need to apologize to our children for something that we've done, you know, when we've yelled or we've punished in the heat of the moment or we've reacted based on our own triggers that wasn't fair to the kids, I try to also use heart, hands, eyes and mouth, and do the same thing, look into my child's eye, get down on their level, hold their hands, and look in their eyes and say, I'm sorry that I yelled at you when I got frustrated earlier. That wasn't fair of me. What can I do to make it right? And a lot of times they don't have a way of making it right.
Kelsey Redd:But I at least can, I usually will ask them, will you forgive me? I love you. Can I hug you? You know, those are all things that we try to implement into our restitution or our turning back toward the relationship that was damaged, so that we can restore those relationships and keep the relationship as the highest priority in our home. Those connections are the highest priority.
Kelsey Redd:Those relationships are what will continue throughout our children's lives and hopefully to the end of our lives. We want our children to know that no matter what, can always fix something that was broken, repair something that was damaged, and reconcile our relationship. So I hope that helps you. I hope it helps to hear some actual scripts. I know sometimes I like to hear, like, what do you actually say though?
Kelsey Redd:Like, I like the theory, but tell me literally what to say. So I try to include some of that. And I'm of course, I don't know if there's a better way out there to do it, but we are doing it the best we can. And it's not always perfect, but I hope I can just give you guys ideas of things that are helpful to you and that will serve you in the future. So I appreciate you being here with me.
Kelsey Redd:And please don't forget to connect with me on Instagram creating. Intentional. Mothers or on my link tree, link tr.eekelsierd or in the show notes below. Get on my email list. Let's be in touch.
Kelsey Redd:I'd love to hear from you. And of course, please rate or review this podcast and share this episode with anyone who might benefit from it. Maybe even just a spouse or a sibling who you want to get better at repairing relationships with. And remember, you're doing an amazing job. I'll see you next time on Intentional Motherhood.
