In article ,
"R. Steve Walz" wrote:

dragonlady wrote:



I didn't actually MAKE her apologize; I asked her to apologize, and
told her that if she didn't, the boy in question (a 10 year old whose
company she really enjoyed) probably wouldn't want to play with her any
more, since he didn't like being called names and had been so upset by
this one that he'd felt compelled to come and tell me he didn't want to
play with her if she was going to keep doing that. (He was a very sweet
kid, and not prone to tattleing -- he was visibly upset by hearing
language that I know was NEVER used in his house.)
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You, a much larger person upon whom she depends even ASKING her to
makes her become dishonest and non-genuine to herself, and that makes
her resent you. Apologies are only real when unbidden.

How little faith you have in children! By this age, I know my daughter
was perfectly capable of refusing to apologize for something -- she'd
often enough told me that she wouldn't, because she wasn't sorry (and
she knew that I wouldn't make her). My kids knew that a request from me
was not an order, and that my feelings about them were not dependent
upon them complying with my request.


I've never forced my kids to apologize -- a forced apology is pretty
meaningless. However, I've let them know how their actions have made
other people feel,
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And so you don't think SHE knows that? You really ARE a fool!
Pretending she doesn't know that at some level calls her own
competence to know such things into question in HER mind. And it
delays the full flower of that sophistication in her. You sound
like the kind of idiot who thinks he taught his child to talk or
walk!

She doesn't need you to tell her such things, wait till she asks
YOU for suggestions, if you shut the **** up they actually DO,
you know, in fact quite a LOT!

In this case, she honestly didn't seem to know how upsetting this had
been for the other people. I don't know why. She was four, for
heaven's sake -- surely offering her information that she didn't seem to
be getting on her own isn't oppressive? If she had WANTED him to be so
upset that he refused to play with her, I think she'd have been capable
of doing that -- but she apparently didn't use the language to upset
him, and he was upset.


and that NOT apologizing would have certain
consequences -- in this case, not being able to play with a kid she
liked, not because *I* wouldn't allow it, but because *he* wouldn't.
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So now you're arranging her friendships?
Pitiful. How crippling.

I engineered nothing -- I gave her information. If she hadn't wanted to
play with him, I would not have forced her to. In this case, I neither
arranged or disarranged anything -- I made sure that SHE knew that the
consequences of not apologizing to him would be that HE didn't want to
play with HER -- however, the choice of what to do about that was
entirely hers. I fail to see how that is doing more than providing her
with information that she didn't seem to be getting on her own.

Maybe I should have told the ten year old to talk to her himself -- but
he wasn't my kid, and he came to me for help because he was so upset.

Once she realized that she really had made him feel bad, and that the
language was really over the top for most people, she was genuinely
sorry.
--------------------------
And you had short-circuited her own process and made it a pale ghost
of her actual inner self. It was to please you, and to an important
degree of depth, entirely ungenuine.

I don't think so. She did it to get what SHE wanted -- to be able to
keep playing with an older kid that she liked, and not because *I*
wanted anything.

My own approach to her language had been to ignore it; possibly because
I never used language like that, and she'd heard it the first time from
children her own age and it had made other kids laugh, she honestly did
not seem to understand that some people found it highly offensive.

Interestingly, as she has moved through her teens and into her twenties
(she'll be 21 soon!) she's always been very careful about her language
around adults or young children or anyone she knows might find it
offensive. She's perfectly willing to use scattological terms -- I've
heard her with her friends! -- but I've also heard her explaining to
younger teens that they should clean up their casual use of swearing
around people who find it offensive (mostly us unreasonable adults . .
.); her general position seems to be that language should only be used
to offend someone on purpose -- not because you're too lazy to clean it
up.
-------------------------------
She is now successfully brainwashed and says things she doesn't
really even believe just out of habit, thinking she must do so
to be accepted. Monkeys imitate.


Again, you seem to have very little faith in children and youth. If I
were good at brainwashing, she would not use foul language at all. At
the very least, her siblings would agree with her about when to use it
and when not to -- her position is hers, not mine. Her siblings have an
entirely different position. (Actually, two different positions -- one
seldom swears unless he is angry, and then is likely to say anything to
anyone. The other uses swearing casually and constantly, and doesn't
seem to care if weird conservative folks are offended, but finds the use
when angry offensive.)

My kids are perfectly capable of making up their own minds, and
following their own paths. Lord knows, I don't like some of the paths
they have chosen -- but they all know I love them and accept them even
when I don't approve.

Maybe if I *had* made my acceptance and love contingent upon my approval
of everything they did, they'd do better in school and not do some of
the high risk things they've been doing; however, I have a great deal
of faith in them, and basically I like them all -- I know they've got
great futures.

My faith in them, however, is strong enough that I don't think an
occassional suggestion or request from me or their dad (or any other
adult, for that matter) is going to derail them from their own path!
They are strong people, with their own minds, and I'm not sure I could
have changed that even if I'd wanted to.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care