I think you have to parent the kid you have. My child needed me to make him apologize and script it for him until he understood what was required. (And yes, it did freak him out, mostly because he felt that admitting he was wrong would somehow have earth-shattering consequences.)
With this kid, "fake it till you make it" has been necessary: practice saying the right things, and sooner or later, you'll mean them and say them at the right occasion.
P2P, it's great that your child didn't need this level of support. Everyone's mileage will vary in this, as in so much else. But I don't think this is a black-white moral issue; it's a matter of getting the child to perceive and do the right thing, and there's more than one way to get there.
DeeDee
