When Craig Smith’s son was about 5 years old, another boy bit him on the playground. His son was upset, he remembered. The other boy never apologized, and instead, father and son watched as the other child’s parents bought the boy ice cream.
“Even at that age he (understood), ‘This kid just bit me, and he’s getting an ice cream cone,’ ” said Smith, a research investigator at the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan. Incidents such as this sparked his interest in finding out whether parents should force children to apologize, and if kids can tell when those apologies are coerced.
In his latest research, released Nov. 19 in the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Smith and his co-authors found kids were aware when apologizers were coerced and didn’t like that — for them or the recipient.
Parents often urge children to immediately apologize, he said. And although that is not out of bad intentions, it can be counterproductive. Other children see a lack of authenticity, and a child forced to apologize is learning to feign remorse.
“One of the reasons I think we do it, with apologies, is because it’s a really accepted script that we use; it’s really almost an expected script,” he said. “We want to prepare them to be successful socially, and part of what that entails is being able to make amends.”
The study included 90 kids. Researchers questioned the children after having them watch several types of apologies — including unprompted, prompted but willing, and coerced — after transgressions like taking a toy away or shoving a child. In each case, a teacher was present. In the unprompted apology, the teacher was present but silent, and the child apologized. In the prompted but willing, a teacher prompted an apology and the child apologized. In the coerced apology, the child told the teacher he did not want to say sorry but the teacher insisted, and then he issued an apology.
They separated the children into two groups — ages 4 to 6, and 7 to 9. Both groups of children thought the spontaneous apology and the prompted-but-willing apology conveyed remorse and soothed feelings.
The researchers wanted to explore whether children are sensitive to the fact that some apologies do not convey true remorse. Even young children, Smith noted, understand that an apology is a way of showing that someone feels bad about something. “They understand that if a victim gets an apology, they’re typically going to feel better than a victim who did not get an apology.”
But instead of coercing an apology after your child throws sand at another child on the playground, for example, it might be better to wait until a child is calm and able to understand why he or she should apologize. Wait until the child can acknowledge why it was wrong and help him or her come up with words to offer an apology.
Smith noted that there are many ways to model remorse instead of offering a script for an apology the child doesn’t mean — giving a toy back, helping fix something the child broke.
“Part of what we want our kids to be able to do is repair situations where we’ve caused some kind of harm or upset,” he said.
As children get older, Smith said, they are able to better understand nuance. The younger group viewed a coerced apology as leading to an emotional boost for the victim, but the older children viewed it as having no positive effect on the victim’s emotions. The research indicates that as children get older, they are more pessimistic about forced apologies.
Smith said the research points to the importance of helping children understand how and why to apologize, especially at a younger age when transgressions often occur.
“It’s really common in that age group (4-6) as kids are trying to figure out how to get what they need and get what they want,” he said.
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