Toddler Says "I'm Sorry" Unnecessarily

Dear parent,

First notice that this is not such a bad thing. After all, saying “I am sorry,” hasn’t prevented you from being a loving and happy person.

If you want to stir your daughter away from possibly feeling failing and guilty, you can do  three simple things.

1) Change your own response to unintended errors. When you do something you wish you didn’t, you can say, “Woops, I didn’t mean to do this,” or, “That’s very funny, did I do this?” Keep an attitude of joy as you undo, or respond to whatever you did. Notice where your apologetic attitude comes from; who you are trying to please or what drove such words when you were a child.

2) Respond to your daughter spills and errors with a benign attitude. A benign response to spills and errors can be simply: “Woops, here I will clean it,” with a smile and a kiss.

If she already said “I am sorry,” you can say, “Nothing to be sorry about, its is only a broken bowl. What really matters is that I love you.”

3) Lighten up and see the humor in every perceived “mistake,” or “accident.” We perceive things as going “wrong.” They aren’t. They are just the next thing to respond to. Most “I am sorry,” follow things that can be laughed about. We goof, we fall, we break things, we forget, step on each other, we utter words we don’t mean... we are really really funny. Enjoy.

Warmly, Naomi Aldort, http://authenticparent.com/index.html