“I don’t want you!” my three-year-old yells, tears streaming down his cheeks… “I don’t want anything!”. He flings the egg cup across the room, shattering porcelain all over the floor, and runs off in tears. Teaching forgiveness as a parent often involves learning it first…
I am finished. This reaction is all out of proportion – by simply scooping the last bit of egg white out of his soft boiled egg and soldier toast breakfast when he asked me not to, I have awakened the dragon.
But I know what this is really about: I haven’t listened to him. This has made him more than angry, it has made him feel ignored and unimportant. Not even he realizes why he is so upset. Luckily, I do – this is a perfect time to both teach, and learn, apology and forgiveness…
Teaching Forgiveness
Before the age of six, our children’s personalities are particularly malleable. Sure, there are some traits that are just a part of who they are from birth. There is nothing like having a second child, completely and utterly different from the first, to make you realize that your parenting actually has a lot less to do with the way they turn out than you think it does. But you do have an opportunity as a parent to influence the way your child thinks. It is so vital to grab that opportunity with both hands and do the best we can for our kids while we are still the main influence in their lives.
For me, this is all about Grace. We try, at every opportunity, to tell our sons that we love them when they are good, we love them when they are bad… we love them all the time. Our love is unconditional. It cannot be earned. It also cannot be lost… a lot like the love of God. You see, we try to love with a love that is not about how much we can handle in our own strength (we often mess up in the heat of the moment). We try to love with the love that God gives us on a daily basis. That way, love is a conscious decision rather than an emotion. Our kids are secure in the knowledge that we love them no matter what. You can see it in the smile you read in their eyes.
But we do mess up – as do they. This is when Grace manifests in forgiveness:
I crouch down on my haunches in front of my sulking child, so that I am eye-to-eye with this little man sitting on the stairs wearing a deep frown. “My boy, I am sorry for scooping your egg when you didn’t want me to. I didn’t listen to you and I know that made you cross…”
My eldest looks up at me, silent, eyes heavy with tears over this slight. “I forgive you Mamma, but don’t do it again.” – the words I have taught him to say when an apology is offered. Sometimes teaching forgiveness involves learning a few words they can use over and over again.
“You know you broke my special egg cup (one of a set of four with cute silicone chick covers in different colors…), my boy, and that makes me sad because we can’t each have our own any more… but I love you much more than I could ever love anything I could ever own and I forgive you.”
“I’m sorry Mamma – I won’t do it again”
“I forgive you my love. Give me a hug” – our hug is followed directly with:
“Now come, Mamma! I want to show you something…” and all is forgotten like a windy afternoon on a summer holiday.
I wish more adults knew how to apologise specifically, forgive and be forgiven like this. We would carry so much less with us – less baggage, less resentment, less pain. Families would have better relationships, more marriages may survive and our children would be better equipped to navigate relationships of their own.
Teach forgiveness. Teach your children to forgive, and be forgiven. You are setting them up to live lives that are authentic, clean-hearted, happy and real.
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