How To Say Sorry

     Saying sorry seems like a simple thing. But is it really that easy? Sometimes a simple, "I'm sorry for doing that," is enough. But other times, it's not. Fighting with friends is never a good thing. It can make you or the other person feel hurt, sad, and angry. Here are some tips you can use for saying sorry to a friend. 

    To start, I'm going to give you a situation here. Let's say you're at lunch with a friend and she has a really tasty looking cookie for dessert. Well, you have a cookie too, but it's a sugar cookie, and you love chocolate chip, which is what your friend has. She turns around to talk to someone else. You decide it's now or never. She'll never know! You grab the cookie and stuff it in your mouth real quick. It's so delicious! Your friend turns around again and looks inside her lunchbox. The cookie is gone! She accuses you right away, so you confess. Now your friend is mad. What do you do?

    An important step in saying sorry is understanding how the other person feels. You may have heard of empathy before at your school. Empathy is when you put yourself in someone else's shoes. Not literally, though. It just means trying to feel how the other person is feeling. It's important to understand why your friend is mad. Sometimes, you might not even know or think it's no big deal! But when there's a friend fight, your friend may not always be mad. They might be feeling hurt, sad, jealous, confused, annoyed, and more! It's complicated sometimes when they are feeling all these things! 

    You realized your friend was mad already. But she was also really sad. Her grandma had baked the cookie especially for her, and now you ate it! Your friend is hurt and also confused that you would do such a mean thing.

    Another thing you can do is realize you made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes, and it's okay to! You did something to make your friend mad. You need to acknowledge that. If you take a minute to stop and think, "Hey, I took that cookie. It wasn't right for me to do," you can understand more about your friend being mad. 

    Something else that's good to do is not fight back. If you're in a fight with a friend and they're really mad at you, they might say mean things and try to put you down. It's all part of their process and they tend to not really mean those things. Your friend might have told you, "You're being so selfish for taking my cookie. You're the worst!" In that situation, you might want to yell at them back. But you shouldn't do that. It can make the fight much worse. Taking time to take a deep breath, stopping and thinking is a really good idea. 

    Here are some steps you can take (in order) for saying sorry: 

    1. Stop. Stop and realize the mistake you made. You did something to make your friend mad. Now think about why you made that mistake. It's okay to make mistakes sometimes. But it's important to realize that you made a mistake and you did something wrong.

    2. Think about your friend. Feel how they feel. Give them some empathy. They're mad, but are they sad? Are they jealous? Confused? Surprised? 

    3. Start to tell them you're sorry. "I'm sorry for taking your cookie," you might say. "It looked yummy and I really just wanted to eat it. That was wrong of me. I shouldn't have eaten it. I know your Grandma made it for you, specially. I'm really sorry. You must be really mad at me. And sad, too."

    4. You can assure your friend that whatever happened won't happen again, or you will try your best to make sure it doesn't happen. 

    5. Give them something of yours. It doesn't have to be a thing. It could be time. Maybe your friend was mad because you weren't playing with them at recess. Tell them next recess, you will. In the cookie situation, remember, you also have another cookie! You can give it to your friend to eat. Your friend will definitely appreciate this. 

    Sometimes, you might be on the other end of the story. You can stay tuned for more posts about how to handle fights. Thanks for reading!