The Importance of Saying You're Sorry

I was on vacation last week. This is a good thing.

My husband and I get very little time off from work and a lot of our time on the weekends is spent catching up on household stuff while trying to cram in quality time with the kids. Needless to say, a week away from the office and home to be with just my family was incredible. However, with a lovely vacation comes the painful re-entry to regular life.

My first day back at work was not particularly good. In fact, it felt like 10 horrible Mondays squished into one. I’ll spare you the details, but by the time I got home from work I was cranky and exhausted.

I don’t know about you, but one of the first things that go when I am exhausted is patience (and I’m not a very patient person to begin with). So when my daughters - who also happened to be pretty tired - were goofing off as we ate dinner, I got upset.

When they left their toys and crayons all over the living room floor, I gave my usual lecture about not being their maid and their needing to clean up after themselves. You get the idea: cranky exhausted mom and cranky exhausted kids lead to yelling and crying.

After I put my daughters to bed and caught my breath, I felt pretty terrible. I didn’t do anything awful per se but I could have been a lot more patient and less nagging with them. I believe in teaching kids to be responsible, but there are better ways to do it. So when my daughters woke up the next morning the first thing I did was give them each a big hug, and told them that I was sorry for being so cranky the night before.

I explained that I was really tired and while yes, they need to have better table manners and no, I shouldn’t have to remind them to clean up, that I definitely overreacted. I was met with huge hugs and kisses in return. All was right in our little world once again. When I dropped them off at school later that morning, I felt really happy that I had apologized.

I’m sure one cranky parenting evening won’t do any damage. In actuality, and I’m not even sure they remembered it after a good night of sleep, but I think it’s really important to say you’re sorry. It shows them that parents aren’t perfect and do stupid things, while also teaching them to be honest and apologize when they do something wrong.

Do you apologize to your kids? Post a comment below and let's get this conversation going.