Schoolyard - Tips and Advice: How to teach children forgiveness?
by Wai Chong Mak
FeedTheVillage.com - Tips and Advice: How to teach children forgiveness?
Forgiveness is the process of ceasing to feel resentment or anger against another person for a perceived offense, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. (Reference from Wikipedia) Why do we need to forgive What will happen if we do not forgive others? We will be angry or hostile at others and we will not have peace in our life. Holding on to the resentment will affect our physical, emotional and mental health. It is at the expense of our health. On the contrary, if we can forgive others, we can learn to let go of the anger, resentment and achieve peace and healing. How to teach children forgiveness We are the role model of our children. Our children learn from what we do to others. Forgiveness is caught than taught. When we have done something wrong, we need to ask for forgiveness. We need to practice forgiveness in our daily lives. They will learn from our action of asking for forgiveness. We can show our children how to ask for forgiveness. It needs to be specific. For example, Jimmy has broken his mother's vase. He said to his mother, "I'm sorry." She needs to ask more," What are you sorry for?" By asking her son more detail, it helped her son to understand what he has done was wrong and how to improve it. He told her, "I'm sorry that I have broken your vase. Please forgive me for breaking your special vase. I promise to be careful in handling the fragile item in future." If our children have done something wrong to others, we need to tell our children about our feelings of disappointment and sadness. We bring our children to ask for forgiveness. When we are serious about it, they will know that it is important to ask for forgiveness. After they have asked for forgiveness, we tell our children that we are proud of them because they have learned from their mistakes and have the courage to ask for forgiveness.
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