Abstract
Parenting is a stressful and difficult endeavor, and even the most skillful parents are apt to make mistakes that warrant an apology to their child. However, little is known regarding parents’ overall willingness to apologize to their child or the content of parental apologies when provided. Informed by research on apology outside the parenting context, the current exploratory study aimed to characterize maternal apology attitudes and behavior. A sample of mothers (N = 186) was recruited from the community, and they self-reported their proclivity to apologize to their child, as well as their proclivity to apologize generally. Mothers were also asked to model a skillful parental apology through an open-ended text response to a vignette, and these responses were coded for the presence of effective apology components. Mothers reported a high proclivity to apologize to their child, and this was associated with their willingness to apologize generally. However, the majority of mothers’ written apologies included few of the elements recommended for effective apologies. Similar to other literature on apology, this finding suggests that although mothers may be willing to apologize when needed, knowing and implementing an effective apology is challenging.
Highlights
-
Mothers report frequently apologizing to their children after making parenting mistakes.
-
When asked to craft an effective parental apology in response to a hypothetical vignette, mothers used an average of two of five critical apology components in their responses.
-
Mothers’ self-reported apology proclivity was modestly related to their use of effective apology components in written responses.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baumrind, D., Larzelere, R. E., & Owens, E. B. (2010). Effects of preschool parents’ power assertive patterns and practices on adolescent development. Parenting: Science and Practice, 10(3), 157–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295190903290790.
Blatz, C. W., Schumann, K., & Ross, M. (2009). Government apologies for historical injustices. Political Psychology, 30(2), 219–241. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2008.00689.x.
Bornstein, M. H. (2012). Cultural approaches to parenting. Parenting, 12, 212–221. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295192.2012.683359.
Bridgett, D. J., Burt, N. M., Edwards, E. S., & Deater-Deckard, K. (2015). Intergenerational transmission of self-regulation: A multidisciplinary review and integrative conceptual framework. Psychological Bulletin, 141(3), 602–654. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038662.
Buttelmann, F., & Karbach, J. (2017). Development and plasticity of cognitive flexibility in early and middle childhood. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1040 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01040.
Castro, J., de Pablo, J., Gómez, J., Arrindell, W. A., & Toro, J. (1997). Assessing rearing behaviour from the perspective of the parents: a new form of the EMBU. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 32(4), 230–235. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00788243.
Cook, B. G., & Rumrill, Jr, P. D. (2005). Using and interpreting analogue designs. Work, 24(1), 93–97.
Darby, B. W. & Schlenker, B. R. (1982). Children’s reactions to apologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(4), 742–753. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.43.4.742.
De Paúl, J., Asla, N., Perez-Albeniz, A., & De Cádiz, B. T. G. (2006). Impact of stress and mitigating information on evaluations, attributions, affect, disciplinary choices, and expectations of compliance in mothers at high and low risk for child physical abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21, 1018–1045. 10.1177/0886260506290411.
Deater-Deckard, K. (1998). Parenting stress and child adjustment: Some old hypotheses and new questions. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 5, 314–332. 10/1111/j.1468-2850.1998.tb00152.x.
Dunlop, P. D., Lee, K., Ashton, M. C., Butcher, S. B., & Dykstra, A. (2015). Please accept my sincere and humble apologies: The HEXACO model of personality and the proclivity to apologize. Personality and Individual Differences, 79, 140–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.02.004.
Ebesu Hubbard, A. S., Hendrickson, B., Fehrenbach, K. S., & Sur, J. (2013). Effects of timing and sincerity of an apology on satisfaction and changes in negative feelings during conflicts. Western Journal of Communication, 77(3), 305–322. https://doi.org/10.1080/10570314.2013.770160.
Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., & Spinrad, T. L. (1998). Parental socialization of emotion. Psychological Inquiry, 9(4), 241–273. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli0904_1.
Fazio, R. H., & Olson, M. A. (2003). Implicit measures in social cognition research: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 297–327. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145225.
Fehr, R., & Gelfand, M. J. (2010). When apologies work: How matching apology components to victims’ self-construals facilitates forgiveness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 113(1), 37–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2010.04.002.
Frantz, C. M., & Bennigson, C. (2005). Better late than early: The influence of timing on apology effectiveness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41(2), 201–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2004.07.007.
Gottman, J. M., & DeClaire, J. (1997). The heart of parenting: How to raise an emotionally intelligent child. Simon & Schuste.
Grose, J. (2021, March 10). How to apologize to your kids. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/parenting/yell-kids-apologize.html
Guan, X., Park, H. S., & Lee, H. E. (2009). Cross-cultural differences in apology. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33(1), 32–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2008.10.001.
Harach, L. D., & Kuczynski, L. J. (2005). Construction and maintenance of parent-child relationships: Bidirectional contributions from the perspective of parents. Infant and Child Development, 14(4), 327–343. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.393.
Harrist, A. W., & Waugh, R. M. (2002). Dyadic synchrony: Its structure and function in children’s development. Developmental Review, 22(4), 555–592. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0273-2297(02)00500-2.
Honaker, J., King, G., & Blackwell, M. (2011). Amelia II: A program for missing data. Retrieved from http://www.jstatsoft.org/v45/i07/
Howell, A. J., Dopko, R. L., Turowski, J. B., & Buro, K. (2011). The disposition to apologize. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(4), 509–514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.05.009.
Howell, A., Turowski, J., & Buro, K. (2012). Guilt, empathy, and apology. Personality and Individual Differences, 53, 917–922. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.06.021.
Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277–1288. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687.
Kaminski, J. W., Valle, L. A., Filene, J. H., & Boyle, C. L. (2008). A meta-analytic review of components associated with parent training program effectiveness. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36(4), 567–589. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-007-9201-9.
Kemp, C. J., Lunkenheimer, E., Albrecht, E. C., & Chen, D. (2016). Can we fix this? Parent-child repair processes and preschoolers’ regulatory skills. Family Relations, 65(4), 576–590. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12213.
Koehn, A. J., & Kerns, K. A. (2018). Parent-child attachment: Meta-analysis of associations with parenting behaviors in middle childhood and adolescence. Attachment & Human Development, 20(4), 378–405. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2017.1408131.
Krippendorff, K. (2018). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Sage publications.
Lazare, A. (2004). On apology. Oxford University Press.
Leijten, P., Gardner, F., Melendez-Torres, G. J., van Aar, J., Hutchings, J., Schulz, S., Knerr, W., & Overbeek, G. (2019). Meta-analyses: Key parenting program components for disruptive child behavior. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 58(2), 180–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.07.900.
Lerner, H. (2017). Why won’t you apologize? Healing big betrayals and everyday hurts. Simon and Schuster.
Lewicki, R. J., & Polin, B. (2012). The art of the apology: The structure and effectiveness of apologies in trust repair. In R. Kramer & T. Pittinsky (Eds.), Restoring trust: Challenges and prospects (pp. 95–128). Oxford University Press.
Lewicki, R. J., Polin, B., & Lount, Jr, R. B. (2016). An exploration of the structure of effective apologies. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 9(2), 177–196. https://doi.org/10.1111/ncmr.12073.
Masten, A. S., & Shaffer, A. (2006). How families matter in child development: Reflections from research on risk and resilience. In A. Clarke-Stewart & J. Dunn (Eds.), The Jacobs Foundation series on adolescence. Families count: Effects on child and adolescent development (p. 5–25). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511616259.002
McDowell, D. J., Kim, M., O’Neil, R., & Parke, R. D. (2002). Children’s emotional regulation and social competence in middle childhood. Marriage & Family Review, 34(3-4), 345–364. https://doi.org/10.1300/J002v34n03_07.
Miller, G. (2018, April 16). Should parents apologize to their kids? Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2018/04/16/should-parents-apologize-to-their-kids-and-if-so-whats-the-best-way-to-do-it/
Molinsky, A. (2016, November 25). The 4 types of ineffective apologies. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2016/11/the-4-types-of-ineffective-apologies
Newman, L., & Kraynack, L. (2013). The ambiguity of a transgression and the type of apology influence immediate reactions. Social Behavior and Personality, 4(1), 31–46. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2013.41.1.31.
R Core Team. (2018). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Retrieved from https://www.R-project.org/
Ruckstaetter, J., Sells, J., Newmeyer, M. D., & Zink, D. (2017). Parental apologies, empathy, shame, guilt, and attachment: A path analysis. Journal of Counseling & Development, 95(4), 89–400. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcad.12154.
Scher, S. J., & Darley, J. M. (1997). How effective are the things people say to apologize? Effects of the realization of the apology speech act. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26(1), 127–140. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025068306386.
Schmitt, M., Gollwitzer, M., Förster, N., & Montada, L. (2004). Effects of objective and subjective account components on forgiving. The Journal of Social Psychology, 144(5), 465–486. https://doi.org/10.3200/SOCP.144.5.465-486.
Shoikhedbrod, A., Struthers, C. W., Guilfoyle, J. R., van Monsjou, E., Halilova, J., & Saleemi, S. (2019). How, when, and why transgressors’ narcissism affects motivation to apologize (or not). Journal of Research in Personality, 78, 36–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.11.003.
Siegel, D. J., & Hartzell, M. (2013). Parenting from the inside out: How a deeper self-understanding can help you raise children who thrive. Penguin.
Skowron, E. A., Kozlowski, J. M., & Pincus, A. L. (2010). Differentiation, self-other representations, and rupture-repair processes: Predicting child maltreatment risk. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57(3), 304–316. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020030.
Shih, T. H., & Fan, X. (2009). Comparing response rates in e-mail and paper surveys: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 4(1), 26–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2008.01.003.
Smith, C. E., Chen, D., & Harris, P. L. (2010). When the happy victimizer says sorry: Children’s understanding of apology and emotion. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28(4), 727–746. https://doi.org/10.1348/026151009x475343.
Smith, C., & Harris, P. (2011). He didn’t want me to feel sad: Children’s reactions to disappointment and apology. Social Development, 21(2), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00606.x.
Sroufe, A. L. (2000). Early relationships and the development of children. Infant Mental Health Journal, 21(1-2), 67–74. 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0355(200001/04)21:1/2<67::AID-IMHJ8>3.0.CO;2-2.
Sugimoto, N. (1997). A Japan-US comparison of apology styles. Communication Research, 24(4), 349–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365097024004002.
U.S. Census Bureau (2019). QuickFacts: Lane County, OR. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/lanecountyoregon/POP060210
Wade, N. G., Hoyt, W. T., Kidwell, J. E., & Worthington, Jr, E. L. (2014). Efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions to promote forgiveness: A meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 82(1), 154–170. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035268.
Wickham, H. (2017). tidyverse: Easily install and load the “tidyverse” (Version 1.2.1). Retrieved from https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=tidyverse
You, Y., Yang, X., Wang, L., & Deng, X. (2020). When and why saying “thank you” is better than saying “sorry” in redressing service failures: The role of self-esteem. Journal of Marketing, 84(2), 133–150. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919889894.
Funding
No funding was obtained for this project. Funding for participant payments was supported by the faculty start-up fund of the Science and Treatment of Affect Regulation Team (START Lab; PI: Maureen Zalewski, Ph.D.) at the University of Oregon.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
Ethics Approval
This study was approved by the University of Oregon Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects (Institutional Review Board)
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Adams-Clark, A.A., Lee, A.H., Martin, C.G. et al. Characterizing Maternal Apology Attitudes and Behaviors. J Child Fam Stud 30, 2379–2391 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02031-0
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02031-0