Apologizing

Apologizing to Your Kids (Breaking the Cycle in Real Time)

This one isn't funny. Well — it's a LITTLE funny, because growth is awkward. But it's the most important thing I do as a parent, so let's talk about it.

I yell sometimes. There. I said it. I'm a trauma-informed coach, a cycle-breaker, a reformed pantry-hider — and sometimes, at 7:45 PM, when the shoes aren't on and someone's crying about the wrong cup and the toddler is eating a crayon, I lose it. My voice goes up. The words come out sharp.

The old script — the one I grew up with — says: never admit it. You're the parent. Parents don't apologize. Move on like it didn't happen.

I don't follow that script anymore. Here's what I do instead: I go back. I get down to their level. And I say: “Hey. I'm sorry I yelled. You didn't deserve that. I was frustrated, and I took it out on you, and that wasn't fair.”

The first time I did this, my kid stared at me like I'd grown a second head. Because in their little world, grown-ups didn't do this. Grown-ups were always right, even when they were wrong.

But here's what happens when you apologize to your kids: you teach them the single most important relationship skill on earth — repair. Not perfection. REPAIR. You're showing them that love isn't the absence of mistakes. It's what you DO after the mistake.

And something else happens, something I didn't expect: it heals YOU too. Every time I apologize to my kid, I'm also apologizing to the little girl I used to be — the one who never got an apology. The one who learned that grown-ups don't say sorry. I'm rewriting that story in real time, in my own kitchen.

This is what breaking the cycle actually looks like. Not grand gestures. Not perfect parenting. Just: I messed up, I'm sorry, I love you, I'll do better. On repeat. Forever.

When's the last time you apologized to your kid? Tell me it gets easier. (It does. Promise.)