Children do react about being corrected. It is their instinctual power play. How much can they away with? Hence why some parents do not want to correct and think they went too far.
I really disagree with this analysis. It is true that many adults use the forced apology as a power play themselves. I can MAKE you apologize. On the other hand, kids react badly when corrected for many different reasons. Some kids are not looking for power at all. They genuinely feel bad and out of control and at two don't know how to handle it. Our child who reacted in a way that many would see as out of proportion turned out to be very frustrated with himself any time he didn't measure up to behaving like an adult because that's who was comparing himself to. Any adult correction was just a louder voice saying the stuff he was already saying to himself in his own head. He didn't need harsh correction for behaving in age typical ways. He needed opportunities to try again and not be so hard on himself.
From my perspective forced apologies aren't teaching real responsibility. They are teaching faked forced apologies. Based on what we see with politicians in the news this is a skill some have totally mastered but I can't say I find it a particularly valuable one. I'd much rather a two year old begins to hear how others are hurt and then in time evolves to giving voluntary apologies and other methods of taking responsibility. We never forced apologies but saw very genuine ones emerging by age three and four.
