Criando sin miedo T1 E6 - El arte de pedir perdón

"The boy did something that bothered the boy B and the boy B hit him. Now the boy B, who is your son, has done something that bothers you, what should you do? It's not necessary when we get home to say, 'Do you know what Pepito has done today in the park?' 'He has hit another boy, no, the episode has already passed.' What you can't do, of course, is tell him one day that he has to wash his hands before eating and think that he will wash them every day from now on, that's impossible. I'm sorry, darling, I didn't have to yell at you, but it's just that I've carried you so badly. No, forgive me. Don't ask for forgiveness to be able to keep laughing and yelling at the other. We are not perfect and when parents are able to recognize their imperfections, the children, I think, feel a great relief." "A long time ago I would have, I don't know, maybe 12 or 13 years ago my father asked me for forgiveness. I don't remember why. I am reasonably sure that it was nothing important. That is, I had not hit a bump, nothing terrible had happened. I think I had hit by something, by something that I considered unfair, I don't know. Remembering the tricks that my father used to have, well, maybe he laughed at me for putting too much pressure on me about the notebook when I was writing, or, God knows, some nonsense, yes. Probably in the school where my father was, they had put a lot of importance to those old rules that the board of the notebook had to be parallel to the board of the table, I don't know how many centimeters, and the child had to be a palm of the notebook, and the pencil had to be on the right, I don't know how many. And convinced that it was really important, my father probably tried to transmit it to me. The case is that one day he said something to me, he shouted at me, I got angry, I went to the angry bed and cried. And then my father came into my room and said to me, I'm sorry. If it is true that God hears the voice of the children, at that moment, all the sins of my father, past, present and future, were forgiven. And there is someone who tells you that you should not ask forgiveness for a child, because you should not go back to your resolutions. What a wonderful thing, that you can listen to your father and ask for forgiveness. What a wonderful thing to know that your son forgave you. "Criando sin Miedo" with Carlos González, the art of asking forgiveness. Hello, I'm Carlos González and this is my podcast "Criando Sin Miedo". Welcome. How to ask forgiveness for children? Sometimes we have to do it, because we are human, because we lose our nerves. Because sometimes we scream, we ridicule, because sometimes even we can lose our hands. How to ask forgiveness? You have to understand that forgiveness is asked with humility and is not guaranteed. You have to avoid that form of asking forgiveness that sometimes politicians have, of going out on the TV saying "I'm sorry if someone has been able to offend my comment". That is not to say "I'm sorry", that is something like saying "I'm sorry that there is an idiot as to be offended by my comment, which was perfectly normal". That is not to say "I'm sorry". It is not to say "I'm sorry", the trick is passive or aggressive, I don't know what it would be called. I'm sorry darling, I didn't have to yell at you, but it is that you have behaved so badly. No, forgive me, don't ask forgiveness to be able to continue laughing and yelling at the other. In "The Cures" they taught me the correct way of asking forgiveness. "The Cures" taught me the correct way of confessing, so that a confession was valid. It had five requirements, that was applied to the Christian or Catholic confession and I think it can be applied perfectly to how to forgive the pious or to any other. First, an exam of consciousness, that is to reflect on what you have done. I really have done something good or I have done it wrong and why have I done it? Why have I asked for nerves? Why have I screamed? How could I not do it again? How could I have avoided it? Heartache, that is to say that it hurts to have done it, that you know that you have done something wrong. If not, if it is not a lie, that is to say, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have screamed at you when you seemed to scream very well". It's a lie, it doesn't make any sense, it doesn't have any value and it doesn't work at all. If you don't think you've done something wrong, you don't have to ask for forgiveness. I'm not your conscience, you have your conscience inside. If you think you've done something wrong, if you have heartache, then here comes the following. The purpose of the amendment, they don't say amendment, they say the purpose of the amendment. They know that we are human, they know that we will do it again, but at least try it. That is to say, if you are not going to try it and you think you behave exactly the same as the next time, it doesn't make any sense that you ask for forgiveness or that you pretend to be regretted. Fourth, say the sins to the confessor and in this case the confessor is your son. That is to say, "I'm sorry, darling, I shouldn't have screamed at you". And that's it. I shouldn't have screamed, but you behaved very badly. It's not justifying you, it's not "I should have screamed", but it's "I'm very stressed". No, I've done something wrong and I'm done. And fulfill the penance. And it's very likely that your son won't give you penance. Children forgive you with a lot of ease. They are perhaps very fast in the air, that is to say, very easily a child can cry, they have a stroke. But they are also fast in forgiveness. It is very likely that your son smiles at you, hugs you and doesn't tell you anything else. But you can also find, with a penance, you can also find that your son is still angry and doesn't forgive you. The forgiveness is not guaranteed, the forgiveness is not a right. If you don't forgive you, you can't tell him, "Ah, well, that's fine, it seems like a lie, you're an egoist, you had to see ...". No, you can handle it, you can handle it, accept your penance and calm down, if you don't forgive you now, you'll be forgiven within a few minutes. The children forgive, they always forgive the children, they forgive everything, you already find so many parents saying, "My father gave me a bow and I don't leave any trauma". They have forgiven him, not only have they forgiven him, but they try to justify it, they try to say that their parents did everything right, our children don't want a lot. Parents, many times, we don't forgive so much. We are the parents, what we usually say, "It's that you never pick up, it's that again, look at what you have done". Your son is not going to, he is not going to take you to dinner, that last week you didn't buy him an ice cream. But sadly, you are going to take him to dinner, that last week he didn't study, that last month he didn't pick up the toys. We would have to learn to forgive and forget as much as they do. And our children, will they ever ask for forgiveness? Maybe not now. What to do when a child does something wrong, especially when a child, for example, hits another child? Sometimes parents go there screaming, saying, "Ask this child for forgiveness". I don't think it's a good idea in general, because it's possible, even likely, that he doesn't do it. Maybe a little child won't do it. I don't know if you have read the principle of Senexipiori. There is a very interesting episode, the principle in its travels through different planets. It reaches a small planet where there is a king, who tells him that he is the king of the whole universe. And the sun and the stars obey me. Oh, the sun obeys you. Oh, tell him to amanezca, because I like amanezca a lot. Please, please, please, tell the sun to amanezca. The king tells him that the sun cannot amanezca now, it is not the time to amanezca. And if I give my subjects orders that cannot be fulfilled, I will lose all my authority and there will be a rebellion. When it is time to amanezca, the ideal sun rises and then it will come out and I will be able to show all my real authority. I think it is an excellent lesson. It is not a good idea to give orders that cannot be fulfilled. If you tell your son wash your hands. Many children wash their hands. If it does not work, we can resort to the trick of the mother-in-law enthusiasm. Come on, let's wash our hands. And there the hands are washed in half. If that fails, you can take your son to the bathroom and wash his hands. You are taller, stronger, faster, like the Olympics. You can wash your children's hands if you want them to be washed. What you cannot do, of course, is tell him one day that you have to wash your hands before eating. And think that you wash them every day from now on. That is impossible. That is like being a school teacher, you teach the table to multiply one day and think that your students already know how to multiply. It has to be years teaching multiplication because children never learn things in one day. Children learn by repetition and things that really learn well have had to be repeated thousands of times. Therefore, you will have to say wash your hands that we are going to eat every day for years and years and years. Until when? Well, probably until your children are already so big that you feel ridiculous saying so. In whose case you can wash them or you can not. And then when you are going to wash your hands, my son, well, maybe like you when you have a son. Because, let's see, you do not want to make me believe that before having children you wash your hands every day before eating. You are washing your hands now every day because you know that you have to give an example to your son. Well, maybe your son will also take 25-30 years to wash his hands before eating. So he said, the order of washing his hands. You can get it to be fulfilled even when the child does not want to do it. But the order of asking for forgiveness from this child cannot be achieved. And if the child does not ask for forgiveness, what do you do? You shut up and there you have lost your face, let's say, so that you have seen that you have not achieved it. Or you are going to start yelling, threatening, but ask for forgiveness the same thing. I have told you that you ask for forgiveness. If he does not want to do it, he will not do it. He says, he says an English proverb that a man can take a horse to the river, but between 10 he cannot force him to drink. So it is prudent not to give orders whose fulfillment you cannot ensure. So what to do if your son hits another? First, if you know that your son is a propenso to do these things, there are children more propensos than others, then you have to be vigilant. You cannot sit on a park bench and put the newspaper when you know that many times your son hits others. You have to be there, you have to be close and sometimes, when you see your son doing this, you run and hold your hand and you have avoided it. Other times you will not get there in time. So you can. First, separate them, of course. Second, console the child who has been hit. "Sorry, darling, I have hurt you. My son is small and sometimes I hit him, I am very sorry." You have to do that, on the one hand, because if they are not going to hurt the mother of the other child, and on the other hand, so that your son sees it. That is, it is not about forcing your son to ask for forgiveness, which he may not do. It is about asking for your forgiveness in the name of your son, because that is what you can do, it just depends on you. If you want to say, "Sorry, darling, my son sometimes hits me, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have hit you." You have achieved it, you have triumphed, you have done what you wanted to do. Your son is seeing it. Little by little he is learning what the correct way to ask for forgiveness is because he sees you do it. Of course he will not do it tomorrow or the next month. You have taken decades to learn to do this, your son will take decades too. You will have luck and for when he is adolescent he is able to do it. And you take your son. You take your son not as a punishment, it is not like, "How have you hit this child? Now we are going, no, no, no." You take him so that he does not hit him again. Look, darling, we are going to play somewhere else. That your son seems to be very good at playing somewhere else. Well, that's it, keep playing without problems in another place, nothing happens. It is not a punishment, there is no threat, there is no reproach beyond telling him, "You don't have to hit my son, you don't have to hit the children, they don't like it, you don't have to hit them, you don't have to hit them." And that's it, you just said it, you don't have to convince him, you don't have to give him arguments until the child says, "Yes, dad, you're right, you don't have to hit him, I'm sorry, don't hit him again." No, your son will not say that, you don't have to give him more explanations. That the child is playing somewhere else well, nothing happens. You don't have to make more reproaches, you don't have to tell him when we get home. You know what Pepito has done today in the park? He has hit another child, no. That's it, the episode has already passed. That your son, when you take him to somewhere else, he cries and protests. "No, I want to stay there in the arena, I want to keep playing with..." Maybe he is his friend, he has hit him, but he is his friend, "I want to keep playing with Manuel, I want to..." No, honey, it's that you've hit him, he doesn't like that they hit him. If you convince him, it's over, he keeps crying and protesting, "No, but I want to go!" Well, you can say, "Well, come on, let's go again, to play with Manuel, let's go again, to play with Laura." But don't hit him anymore, eh? Because Manuel, Laura, they don't like that they hit him, you don't have to hit him, eh? Many parents ask, "But what do I do to my son when he hits his brother, when he hits another child?" Eh, I think it's a very, very, very didactic situation for everyone, because a child has hit another one. Rarely a child hits another one, because yes, I get bored and I'm going to hit him. Normally, the child that hits has seen a reason, a reason that can be absurd, that can be false, but that something has been seen. That is, this child took away the toy, or this child didn't want to give me the toy that I asked him, or this child called me a fool, or this child has given me bad, or this child has got bored of me, and that's why they hit him. The child A did something that bothered the child B and the child B hit him. Now, the child B, who is your son, has done something that bothers you. What should you do? Do what you want your son to do when another child bothers him. Do you want your son to hit the children that bother him? Well, you give him a bouffet, that's how he will learn. Do you want your son to laugh, scream, punish? Well, laugh, scream, punish. That's how your son will learn. Do you want your son to feel his friends in the chair of thought, when they behave badly? Well, come, sit in the chair of thought for a minute in advance. And then what do I do? What is difficult? With 25 or 30 years, from the moment you think what I do to my son today, tomorrow, his friends will do it, from that moment on, it is difficult. It is difficult for you, with 25 or 30 years, with all your experience, with all your knowledge, with all your moral values, with all your convictions, it is difficult. Well, it is more difficult for a 3 or 5-year-old child. So, first, think what you could do. Second, try to do it. Third, don't think that because you have done it today, your son will not do it tomorrow or the next month. Your son will learn very little by little. He will learn over time. That is, those who hit the 3-year-olds usually do not hit the 18-year-olds. But he will learn more easily and faster if he has an example of how things are done. You are the one who can show your son what you have to do when someone does something that bothers you. If he hits you in that same afternoon for a second time, well, there it is true that you take him and this time he doesn't do anything else. This afternoon, tomorrow we start the count from scratch, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to do the same among adults. Perhaps precisely because some parents or grandparents made the mistake that comes from the great-grandparents, from the great-grandparents, and God knows when, of accumulating engravings, that you never study, that you never pick up, that you are already again, I don't know what it is, that I have told you 20,000 times, that you are still. Perhaps that is why we tend to do the same when we are adults with other adults. And frankly, it is very sad. It is very sad that we go taking our husband, our wife, or our best friends to graves and complaints from last week, last month or five years ago. We would have to learn to put the count to zero. If you are the one who has lost the nerves, the one who has screamed, well, we already said, you have to apologize, and it is also a very didactic situation. It is didactic for both. On the one hand, your son is seeing how he apologizes, he is learning what is the right way to do it, and one day he will be able to apologize to other people when he behaves badly, one day, not tomorrow. But on the other hand, your son is seeing that you have done something wrong. We parents don't need to be perfect, we are not perfect, and when parents are able to recognize their imperfections, I think the children feel a great relief. That is to say, yes, because the children also feel guilty, you feel guilty for what you have done, your son too. And guilt, I think, is an innate feeling, except for the psychopaths, of course, because there are few. That is to say, we do not feel guilt because we have suffered a repressive education that forces us to feel guilt. I think it's not like that, I think that any non-psychopath human being, with or without education, with or without religion, would feel guilty if he had done something that understood that he was wrong. It may be that some education makes you feel guilty for things that are actually not bad, there may be people who feel very guilty for writing with their left hand. I thought that it was terrible and that I had to correct the wrongs. It may be that there are people who feel very guilty for staying calm, I don't know. But the irrational logical guilt is to feel guilty for having hurt someone, feel guilty for having left someone crying, feel guilty for having stolen, for having killed. It's normal, you don't need a religion or an education to feel guilty for that. You feel guilty for what you have done wrong, for what you have done wrong, your son also feels guilty for what he has done wrong. And seeing that his father also makes mistakes, that his mother also makes mistakes, is a great consolation. Because it is very, very hard to think, "I am a monster, I don't do anything else than spoil things, I don't do anything else than behave badly." No, no, no, I am not a monster. My parents also do it. I am human. It is educational that your son sees that you are not perfect and it is educational that you see that you are not perfect. That is to say, I am 25, 30 years old, I have an education, I have a culture, I have moral criteria. I was convinced that there was no need to shout, to punish and much less hit my son. And look, I have shouted, I have punished him, even maybe I have hit him with a bouffet. What I had thought, I have never done, I have done. Learned. That is to say, if you have been able, despite everything, to do something that you knew was wrong and that you did not want to do, maybe your five-year-old son will also do things, even if he knows they are wrong and even if he does not want to do them. Because he is human, as human as you. Recognizing our mistakes helps us to better understand the mistakes of our children. Sometimes this guilt of the children manifests itself as angry or as angry. That is to say, that afternoon after the fight, when I am angry, without getting close to anything, it is not a fall in the abyss, it is getting worse and worse. It is the shame. That is to say, that child feels such shame and such guilt that because he hit his friend, his cousin, because he insulted him, he pushed him, that now he does not know what to do, now he does not know where to get involved. Now he would like him to be hit on the ground. He has no better social skills. It is not able to say, "Oh, sorry, I'm sorry, I did it very badly." And he will be angry and he will leave and he will not be able to play with anyone and he will not be able to talk to anyone and he will try in a bad way. We have to understand that that child is not getting worse, expressed by the guilt and the aspiration. What he needs is our attention and our love. We would have to learn to put the count to zero. We would have to learn, on the one hand, to ask forgiveness when it touches you and on the other, to forgive when it touches you. And to forgive means, "We will pass on the count tomorrow, or the next month." To forgive means that it is over here and we start from scratch. Well, thank you very much for your attention and I hope that these little tricks on the art of apologizing have been useful to you. Thank you for listening to the podcast of "Creating without Fear". Carlos González "Creating without Fear" is an original podcast by The Voice Village, presented by Carlos González, executive production by Ricardo Villa. Guión Carlos González, director and assistant director in Guión, Sara Cuesta and Carolina Pizarro, edition by Pablo de Diego. "Sintonia" by Joseph Siancope.