Crying after an apology:
- Feeling of separation or distance from parents creates anxiety and they feel the need for reassurance they are loved. With a sensitive kid a quicker and more perfunctory handling of it may be enough for them to internalize a concept. If even a quick, "Oops did you hit? Hitting hurts. Say sorry" is still upsetting then perhaps inject humor -- tell the hand to apologize rather than the child, or after the sorry do an "all better" dance together, holding hands. (Beware humor with other kids, who may then hit on purpose to get mom to talk to the hand).
- Or perhaps overall emotional intensity is just high. They were already unhappy and now it's all just way worse. Basically over-stimulated. (nothing much to do for that but distraction or time for bed).
- Truly sorry and feeling bad, guilt or shame. Or upset over lack of personal control. Or since they may not feel like hitting any more, it may be difficult to feel responsible for it at all. Developmental incongruities where the ability to empathize is more developed than self-understanding or control. (wait for a calm time and have a deep conversation. Or read a book about manners together at some calm time).
- Confused because the aggression was due to anger but the communication of that (inappropriately) caused a problem and now the focus is on something else entirely. Apologized, and now parents say its all okay but it's clearly not because still mad. (Reward any use of words to express anger (offer compromise or hug, or gently talk it out) so that he can have success using words when angry).
DSs preschool interestingly did not have children do a direct apology for aggressions. They felt the process (sometimes long) of getting such a young child to say sorry loud enough and to the right person distracted from the objective of getting both kids to say words to eachother next time. So each kid was to tell the other with words how they felt, and the aggressor was told to use those words next time. Then the aggressor was to go get a cold pack and give it to the victim, a concrete job to do. Both kids seemed to feel better after the process.
Not suggesting you step away from asking for an apology, saying sorry is a good skill and consistency is good too. Was just interesting to me that this school's feeling was it was complicated to both do apology and encourage using words to express feelings.
Polly
