Parents listen up! Teach your kids the art of forgiveness for a peaceful future

Forgiveness is both difficult and beautiful and instilling in your children the ability to forgive is even tougher. Here are a few methods to teach your kids how to forgive.

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It is both challenging and rewarding to embrace forgiveness. By forgiving, we start the healing process. The opposite worsens the hurt and disconnect. Teach your kids how to forgive and let go. It will make their life and relationships more harmonious.

Teaching kids to understand viewpoints of others may make it simpler for them to learn how to forgive others. The associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State Universitystudy Kelly Lynn states that encouraging children to apologise sincerely can help them gain forgiveness from others.

"Forgiveness is important in children and adults for restoring relationships and limiting future conflicts, but we didn't know much about what makes children more likely to forgive others, particularly from early childhood to adolescence. That's what we wanted to explore with our study."

'Theory of mind' is your ability to understand that someone else's beliefs, intentions and desires are different from your own.

In this study Lynn conducted there were three main findings. 

- Children are more likely to forgive someone if they have apologized.

- Children are more likely to forgive people who are "part of their group." 

- The more advanced a child's 'Theory of Mind' skills are, the more likely they are to forgive others.

Children cannot be forced to forgive. Nothing changes if we force them to say something when they don't mean to. While emphasising the value and advantages of forgiveness, stress that the act itself must originate from the recipient's heart and not from our demands. Give it some time.

Children are capable of restoring relationships with others, and are usually interested in doing so.

Two things that parents and teachers may want to focus with regard to forgiveness are- One is helping kids understand how important it is to apologize in a meaningful way.

The apology must indicate that the guilty understands why their actions were unacceptable. As a result, other kids will be more willing to give them another chance in future.

Second area of emphasis is teaching kids to appreciate other people's viewpoints, even when they disagree with their own.

The golden rule is to teach your kids to treat others as we would like to be treated.  You should  question your children about how they would like to be treated if they made a mistake. They would hope for forgiveness and then teach them instruct them to follow the same path when another person or a friend/sibling is involved.

(With ANI inputs)