What my daughter has taught me about saying sorry

Sorry — a very powerful word.

My six-year-old daughter has a friend from her class who lives in the same neighbourhood. So, they have a lot of playdates together outside school hours.

A few weeks ago, her friend, J, refused to have a playdate with my daughter, M. Her mum said the girls had a fall out at school because M said something that upset J.

I spoke to my daughter to find out what she said. She honestly couldn’t remember. Then, I spoke to J’s mum and she told me what M said, according to J. I asked my daughter again to try and understand why she said such thing and my daughter said she didn’t remember saying it.

Fortunately for me, my daughter is only six and I know when she is lying and when she is not. In this occasion, I believed her. My daughter was a bit teary because she wanted to play with J and J was too upset to play with her.

I am her mother, so naturally, my instinct told me to comfort her. So this was what I said, “Don’t worry, darling. Give J some time to get over it.” What she said to me the next moment caught me off my guard. It wasn’t something I was expecting to hear at all.

My daughter said, “I will say sorry to J even though I didn’t say those mean words that she was talking about. I think J will feel better when I say sorry.”