How do you get a 5 year old to say sorry?

[irish]

I've been having a hard time getting DS to apologize on his own. I constantly have to prompt him to say sorry, and when he does it's a half-hearted apology, with no sincerity. I've tried explaining to him that when he does something naughty, or hurts someone's feelings that he needs to apologize, but it just isn't clicking!

Any thoughts or advice?

[cissy]

I heard in a class that I took that if you make a child say they are sorry every time they will not know what it actually is, that they have to say it themselves. Maybe that is for the start of apologizing when they are younger, they did not say an age to start or stop or make them say it. With that being said I never forced my kids to say sorry, they now go in their room when they are bad and when they know they did wrong or maybe if it is that they are not allowed out until they are done and realize what they did was wrong and apologize. With the younger kids when they are done taking their break they have to give hugs.

I do not know if that helps at all but there were no other responses so I thought I would put something out there.

[sharon]

I don't think it works to force an apology either. In my experience, what I've seen it does is cause a child to get in the habit of saying a very insincere apology and thinking it fixes everything.

Instead, my approach is to emphasize that the child who has done something that effected someone, listen to that person tell them that. So they have to stop and listen to the person say something like "That hurt when you hit me!" So the emphasis is on listening, not on saying "I'm sorry." I find that doing this, when the apology comes, the kid actually means it.

[dara1012]

DS is the same age as your son and for awhile we were realizing he was just saying "sorry" as standard response but with no emotion or remorse. We stopped telling him he had to say it, and started waiting until things had calmed down to engage him in conversation using "I feel" statements. For instance, "It makes me feel sad when you don't listen to what I ask you to do? How would you feel if you asked me to do something and I didn't listen?".

After time outs we make him say he is sorry and explain what he is sorry for. We just ask once and then ignore the situation and he will now come up to us when he is ready and apologize. He is really sensitive when his feelings are hurt so we try to emphasize how his actions make us feel.

[irish]

Thanks for the great responses ladies, it's very much appreciated! I will definitely put these techniques to use.