After acknowledging my mistake I realized the power that sorry has to change the way my daughter lives her life.

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I blow up like a volcano as I rumble through the house brooding and angry. My five year old had just kicked my injured toe sending a painful shockwave coursing through my body. My daughter runs into her room and cries underneath her blanket. After several deep breaths I approach my daughter slowly and calmly ask, “Are you okay honey?”

Her cries soften as she slowly reveals herself underneath the blanket. She wipes away her tears as I try to explain myself. I communicate my reasons for my outburst and try to instruct her on being mindful especially around my foot. She nods and before I let that incident sink into the past I giver her a hug and say, “I’m sorry.”

I can’t let go as I run through all the reasons I shouldn’t have yelled at her. Why I had no right to get that angry. I let her know that daddy will make an effort to be better but that I’ll probably make that mistake in the future so I made a deal with her that whenever I got angry she could remind me to breath.

Now believe it or not that has worked for my daughter and I. Since that incident I’ve been reminded many times to breath and in doing so I’ve found the opportunities to discipline as teachable experiences. Instead of yelling, I talk calmly and do my best to explain why certain things need be done a certain way. In addition, I listen to my daughter and make amendments to certain rules if there is a good reason for it.

Since my daughter has experienced her dad not only apologize but make an effort to change I believe she’ll be able to mimic that in her own life. She often tells me after making a mistake that it’s okay because no ones perfect. That is a lesson a lot more of us need to learn. Can you imagine how much happier we or our kids could be if mistakes weren’t hidden or avoided. Maybe this would give us a better chance at overcoming our faults because we’d address them before they would become a deeply rooted issue.

I believe it’s important that we teach our children how to say sorry. If we do our children will learn important lessons like how to make amends and what it takes to change. We as parents teach them this not by what we say but by what we do. If we say sorry more often and do our best to make changes our kids will witness the power of sorry.

They will see that saying sorry isn’t a weakness but a strength. That acknowledging our mistakes helps us grow and make our lives better. The word sorry will be filled with feelings of gratitude because they’ll know how much better life is because of that word. So the next time you make a mistake be sure to say sorry.

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Pic Credit: Flickr/Kat Mossback