We were once at a party in a friend’s garden, a goodbye party to be precise, for her grown up son who was emigrating to the States with his sparkling new American wife. Everyone was having such a lovely time, so that when I said it was time to go, our second son, who is normally blessed with a very sunny temperament, became overwhelmed with frustration, picked up the nearest object, which HIGHLY UNFORTUNATELY happened to be a knife, and threw it. The emigrating man JUST HAPPENED to be standing in front of us, and so our parting shot was quite literally lobbing a knife at him.
There was a moment when our eyes met in amused shock over my boy’s actions, then I obviously had to quickly tell my son that while it was normal to be sad to leave a party, it was COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE to ever throw a knife (particularly at someone!), and that he had to get ready to say ‘sorry’, which he then did, begrudgingly, quite shocked and embarrassed by what he had done. The man crouched down to pre-schooler height, listened to his apology, and told him, “I forgive you.” and then bid us all some smiling and high-fiving goodbyes. (I did then hear him chuckling about it as we thanked the hostess and quickly made for the door.)
What lovely modelling of forgiveness – a verbal assurance of forgiveness, confirmed by the demonstration of restored relationship in his manner towards us in the goodbyes. It was easy to spot the excellent years of parenting from my friend, his mum, to achieve this. And to be fair, it WAS pretty funny, that a three year old would be so overwhelmed about saying goodbye that he would accidentally chuck a knife in your direction.
We train our boys to say sorry whether they feel it or not, in the same way that we train them to say thank you regardless of whether or not they are actually feeling thankful (sorry is clearly harder, and sometimes requires calming down time first). Sometimes the words have to come first and then we hope the heart attitude will follow. And we are also training them that when someone apologises to them, they need to say the words, “I forgive you.” like our knife-stabbed friend demonstrated beautifully.
Why a formal-sounding “I forgive you.” rather than a more natural phrase like “It’s ok.” or something casual like “Don’t worry about it.”? Well, simply because it’s not ok. If someone has wronged or hurt you, there’s no point pretending that was acceptable. “It’s ok.” diminishes the wrong done to you; “It’s ok.” sounds like the bad word or action doesn’t matter, when it does. “I forgive you.” however, both acknowledges the wrong done and the choice of the wronged party to suck up that hurt. “I forgive you.” deals with the imbalance rather than sweeping it under the carpet. “I forgive you.” is much harder to say and sometimes takes time, but the power of uttering these words signals a shifting of attitude, of choosing not to dwell in the anger of being wronged, and it points towards restored relationship.
I’m aware this is one area of parenting where some people are going to find me weird. In fact, this is an area of parenting where I even perhaps disagree with the experts.
One of our boys has a Tourette's diagnosis. When we finally got this magic bit of paper, his wonderfully supportive school said there’s not anything they could offer in terms of specific Tourette’s support, but would we like to be referred to the mental health team, even though it's a neurological not a psychological issue? We said yes – all input is helpful, right? So I received via Skype eight sessions of counselling with strategies to try to support our son, with homework to complete in between sessions.
I am IN LOVE with counselling. I’d never done it before, but how wonderful for someone sympathetic to be paid to listen to you rabbit on for an hour and say helpful and encouraging things. What a joy! As I floundered about with, “I don’t know what to do when he…” the psychologist repeatedly reassured me I was doing a good job, talked through scenarios, suggested things to try. I cried a couple of times. (Parents, if anyone ever offers you MHST, jump at the chance – it’s so super helpful).
One session we were discussing how to deal with awkwardness in social situations, and how I wanted to train my son to show concern for others when they are unhappy, rather than, for example, ignoring and stepping over someone crying on the floor and asking me to find the end of the sellotape. The psychologist pushed back at me a bit: why did I want to force my son to have a staged response – wasn’t it ok for him to have an authentic reaction?
I actually think in this one thing she was wrong. We teach children to stop sports matches if someone is injured, and we should teach children to pause play if someone is upset. Even if they are not genuinely concerned, surely the very action of pausing to see if the sad person needs help is an opportunity for learning compassion.
And I think it’s the same with forgiveness. In training them to say, “I forgive you.” we are inviting them to think of the fact that yes, they have been wronged, and yes, that’s not right, but now they have a decision to make in letting go of that sense of injustice and moving on. It’s an awfully hard lesson to learn.
I sometimes get asked to help out with GCSE Religious Studies revision days at school. I’m not an R.S. specialist, but given my Muslim paternal family and my church-going experience, plus my love for lecturing people in general, it’s not too much of a stretch to do a R.S. revision lecture. And it’s great fun – when else would I get to spend a day talking about Jesus? Anyway, there’s this bit about substitutionary atonement, where I always tell the Year 11s a true story they seem to find amusing:
When I started at my current school, it was as a supply teacher, and it was all a bit last minute. Our childminder friend had a space, so I just dropped off my son and off I went. Sometimes I even popped back at lunch to feed him, as I hadn’t weaned him yet as I hadn’t expected to be back at work then. So one time I was dashing into the new-to-me car park, and I was not having a good day. I was newly pregnant, feeling sick, and that morning had started bleeding again, setting off fears and sad memories in my mind. I misjudged a corner, and gave another car a little scrape. It really was only a TINY little scrape, I wondered if anyone would even notice, but I took down the registration plate number and asked at the school office if they could find out whose car it was. The office lady got back to me at breaktime – the car belonged to the school’s inclusion room manager.
Now, I hope I don’t offend anyone when I say that there’s a certain stereotype that comes to mind when it comes to school staff in this kind of role. They are generally experienced, often sporty, tough enough to stand up to the naughtiest of teenage boys. So when the office lady gave me the inclusion lady’s name and extension number, I was actually quite nervous - she sounded scary. I rang the number: “Hello, I’m a new supply teacher and I’ve just scratched your car…”
It turned out she was the loveliest, kindest lady, who was completely understanding and reassuring. In fact she was SO NICE that I then started crying a bit thanking her for not being cross and burst out, “And I think I’m having a miscarriage!” Poor woman. And we paid for the damage to her car to be fixed, and that was that.
But the point of that story (I obviously miss out the crying and miscarriage-related part when I tell Year 11) is that she was forgiving, but that the car was still damaged and someone needed to pay to have it repaired. And this is where the theology link comes in. She was fine with me, I paid to get her car repaired, and that was justice – the car was fixed and wrong was righted. But with Jesus, it goes way beyond justice, he forgives AND HE PAYS THE PRICE for the damage done. He sucks up that wrong for me; he pays it instead of me. And that, students, is substitutionary atonement.
So in teaching my children to say “I forgive you.”, I’m encouraging them to be more Christ-like in their attitude. Forgiveness is at the very heart of what we believe, and so practising and, yes, speaking forgiveness should be a key part of how we live. In teaching them that when their brother breaks their Lego model or says something mean or whatever other heinous crime, they have a responsibility in a decision to say they forgive, I am asking them to follow Jesus’ example. No unforgiving servants here, please, like in that parable.
So perhaps I am a linguistic stickler, but I am all in favour of a cumbersome, antiquated, rehearsed, “I forgive you.” over a dismissive, “It’s ok.”
Because it’s not ok. But we are forgiven.
And I reckon that couple in America who now have a boy of their own will soon be teaching him to say, “I forgive you.” too.
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