To apologize, or not to apologize?

This blog post is a transcript of Episode 93 of my podcast/YouTube series. Because of that, it is not written to be grammatically/syntactically correct.

You can listen here and watch here.

Once upon a time, there were students who struggled to receive social feedback from others.

Some students believed receiving social feedback meant someone was picking on them or even bullying them. These students sometimes had big reactions to receiving feedback.

Other students learned to apologize when they received social feedback, which led to them apologizing even when they didn't really mean it, and even when they didn't understand what exactly they were apologizing for.

And then there were students who tried to hide or minimize parts of themselves in order to avoid getting social feedback in the first place. I created this lesson for all of these students.

In this lesson, students learn three different ways we can respond to feedback, why apologizing is sometimes the best choice, and we talk about scenarios when apologizing isn't necessary or even appropriate. We also discuss how to respond when someone apologizes to us, especially if it's for something that was not okay. And we end the lesson with having a conversation about over-apologizing, which a lot of students, unfortunately, can relate to.

I open the lesson by sharing and just relating to the students that nobody likes receiving social feedback. Receiving feedback means that we've done something that someone else doesn't like, something that's harming our reputation, something that's maybe not leading to the best outcome for us. Nobody likes to get social feedback in that way. Nobody likes to be told or to feel like they're doing something quote 'wrong'. Maybe we didn't even know that we were doing this thing that someone's giving us feedback about. I want to normalize the fact that nobody likes to get social feedback. And when I say that, it usually helps the students relax a bit and feel more comfortable even approaching this topic and this conversation.

The first question I ask the group is: "When people give us feedback, what are some ways that we can respond to that?" I let anybody who wants to answer that question. Here's the thing about me asking questions in the group: I allow every answer that comes up. If a student were to say. "Punching them in the face," that's an acceptable answer, because that is a way that someone could respond to feedback. We'll talk about the consequences of that later, but anytime I ask the group a question, I allow all answers because I want to hear what they have to say, and I want to get an idea of what they're thinking and how they're feeling when we discuss some of these heavier topics. So I open the floor. For those of you that are listening or watching or reading along, I want you to think about that for a minute. If someone gives YOU social feedback, what are the ways that you typically respond to it?

We all have a typical response. Square students are our students that are socially anxious. Square students would prefer to not do or say things that would even cause someone to give them social feedback in the first place. So a square student receiving social feedback is a really big deal for them emotionally. It can cause them to withdraw even further. It can cause them to shut down. It can cause them to have an emotional reaction because they are trying to not get social feedback in the first place. They are trying to fly under the radar and not have people even notice them. It is very embarrassing to them to receive social feedback.

Triangle students have a couple different typical responses, depending on their personality. Some triangle students will have big responses to somebody giving them feedback, like arguing, yelling, maybe even aggression. They are also more likely to say something like, "This kid's bullying me," or "This person's being mean to me," because they don't understand that, typically, when someone's giving us social feedback, if they're doing it in an appropriate, helpful way, they're trying to help us. They're trying to keep us from doing this thing that we're doing. So triangle students may have big reactions to getting feedback.

They also may be in the category of students who over-apologize, as can square students. Triangle students tend to learn to apologize as a default. They know from a young age that that's what they're expected to do. Triangle students often get far more social feedback than anyone else, even outside of the three shapes that we're talking about. In the world in general, triangles tend to get far more social feedback than anyone else, and so they often will default to apologizing way past the point where they mean it, way past the point where they're even taking a second to think about what this person has said and whether it's even valid. Some triangle students will become what I call over-apologizers. It's just their default setting. They have learned from a young age that if they apologize, that's the expected thing to do, and we can all move on.

Circle students don't tend to get a lot of social feedback, because circle students aren't typically doing things that annoy or bother other people in general. Their reputation is such that people tend to enjoy being around them. People tend to like them. But when they do get social feedback, circle students tend to take it well. They tend to listen to what's being said. Circle students are like social sponges. When someone gives them feedback that's intended to be helpful, they will take that in.

We need to be careful that they are getting helpful feedback. Circle students can quickly adopt what they think other people want them to say or do, and so we need to be really mindful about the input that circle students are being given. It's very easy for them to become robotic in their social interactions. It's easy for them to mimic other people. It's easy for one person to say to them, "Hey, you should do this," or "You should try this," and for them to think, 'Okay,' and now they're doing this and trying this. This is part of what makes circle students really gullible, is that they are willing to take input from pretty much anybody.

All the students can share and think of ways and ideas of how we can respond to someone giving us social feedback. One of the ways that we can respond is by acknowledging that this person has given us feedback. We can say, "Okay." One phrase I use a lot is, "Got it." Even something pretty insignificant, like someone saying, "Hey, can you please move over? You're sitting too close to me,," all the way up to, "Can you please stop saying that over and over? It's really annoying."

In both of those scenarios, one option is to just acknowledge that this person has given you feedback. You can say, "Okay. "You can say, "Got it." We talk about how you can even just stop doing whatever it is that you were doing that this person's giving you feedback about without saying anything. So if somebody says, "Hey, can you please move over? You're too close to me," you don't even have to say anything. You can just move. The same with, "Can you please stop saying that?" Every kiddo that I can think of, if someone said that to them, it would be kind of embarrassing. And so you don't have to say anything. You can just stop saying the thing that you're being asked to stop saying.

Another option is that you can do it even more. This tends to be a triangle thing. I've actually witnessed and experienced this numerous times: If somebody says, "Hey, can you please stop saying that? It's getting really annoying," a triangle student may continue to say it. It's embarrassing to get social feedback like that from somebody, and some of our students are not yet socially mature enough to recognize that this person is actually trying to help them out by trying to point out something they're doing that's bothering other people.

Another way to respond is to apologize. I talk to the students about how we're all taught to apologize from when we're really little. We're all expected to apologize in certain situations. For me, personally, I don't ever expect or require my students to apologize, for a couple different reasons. One reason is that, if they're going to apologize, I want it to be their choice. I want it to be what they honestly, truly, want to do. I don't want them to apologize just because I'm towering over them saying, "You better apologize for that! I want whatever they do to be what they really think will have the best outcome for them in that moment. I don't require or expect students to apologize, no matter what happens. Later in this episode, we get into apologizing a lot because it's a really big topic. There's a lot to unpack when it comes to apologizing. It's a very complex topic.

I give the students an activity: What are some situations or scenarios when someone would be expected to apologize, and what are some situations or scenarios when you wouldn't be expected to apologize? This is to break down the point about how, both never apologizing and always apologizing, neither one of those are the ideal situation for any student. Neither one of those extremes are ideal.

I tend to throw out some examples first, because I find that the over-apologizers don't have a good concept of things that they wouldn't be expected to apologize for, and the under-apologizers don't always recognize that there are legitimate things that we should apologize for. The examples that I give are: If we do something on accident, whether it's physically hurting somebody, hurting somebody's feelings, interrupting somebody, if we do something on accident. I ask the students, "What if I kick somebody under the table and I don't apologize for that? They say, "Hey, Steph, you kicked me," and I don't apologize. What does that person think? The group understands that they think I did it on purpose.

That's the big concept behind apologizing when something is an accident, is it demonstrates that this thing was an accident. Even saying something that hurts someone's feelings. We all do that on accident, and when you can acknowledge it and apologize for it, then it shows this person that that's not what you are intending to do. Honestly, even if it was on purpose, even if we were friendly teasing and it hurt their feelings, that's another example of something that we should apologize for.

I will typically split the group into two, and each group comes up with examples of things that we don't need to apologize for, and examples of things that we probably should apologize for. They write them down, and then we switch papers. Then the other group gets to look at what was written down without knowing ahead of time whether it's an example or a non-example, and we see if we agree.

Some of my favorite things to discuss in this activity are things like winning at a game. While to most of us, that seems like: Why would you even talk about something like that? Some students, if they win at a game, and another student gets upset that they didn't win, a square student or a circle student may feel the need to apologize for that. That goes on our list of things we don't need to apologize for.

Another one I notice a lot with square students is having a different opinion than someone else. We do not need to apologize for having a different opinion than someone else. It's things like this that I've noticed in my groups that some students feel like they should be apologizing for when really they don't need to.

Another big one for me is not paying attention. I teach my students that it is impossible for everybody to pay attention all the time. If you're watching or listening or reading this, I guarantee there is at least one time so far that you have zoned out. Nobody can pay attention to everything all the time. But I also don't think it makes sense to have to apologize for not paying attention, especially for those of us who have neurodivergent brains. It is not something that is under our control. We can implement strategies to try to help us pay attention, but if we lose our focus, that is not something that we need to apologize for.

What I teach my students in the groups is, if I say something to you, or ask you a question, or if you just come back to us and realize that you haven't been paying attention, you can simply say something like, "Can you please repeat that? I wasn't listening," and I will repeat it. And when somebody does that, I make a really big deal about it. "Did you guys hear what just happened? I asked her a question, and she said, 'Can you please repeat that I wasn't paying attention.' Isn't that amazing? Isn't it okay to not pay attention?" I'll make a really big deal out of it.

I am very aware that that is not how most people handle things in most environments, but I would much rather my students be upfront about that than pretend they were paying attention, because that's when they say things that don't make sense, things that are kind of off the wall. I also don't ever intend to embarrass anybody or call anybody out, so I don't want to take advantage of someone not paying attention as an opportunity to embarrass them. I really love being able to teach my students to acknowledge if they weren't paying attention. It's similar to not knowing the answer to something. Just acknowledge that we don't know the answer to it, and it's totally fine.

So we do the activities where the groups come up with things that we would probably be expected to apologize for, and things that we don't need to apologize for. For the over-apologizers in the group, this is typically a difficult conversation. They recognize that they've been apologizing for a lot of things that they don't need to apologize for. I've even had some students cry a bit and get upset and need to take a break because they recognize how much they've been apologizing for things.

Next up, we have a poll. For my students in person, different parts of the room represent different possible responses, and for my students on Zoom, I can do polls through Zoom. The first poll question for this lesson is: Is saying sorry all that needs to happen when someone apologizes, or do you think there's more to it? We have a yes option, saying sorry is fine. We have a no option, there should be more to it. And then we have an 'I'm not sure' option, because it's always okay to not be sure. Because I'm asking the question, a lot of students recognize that I must be asking the question because there should be more to it, but they don't know what it is. They don't know what that 'more' would be.

The first part of an apology is apologizing. It's the actual apology. You can say, "I'm sorry." Or, "I apologize." I do tell the students that we typically want to avoid things like, "My bad," which is really popular amongst the youngsters, but it has a really negative connotation. The same actually, with, "No problem." "No problem," doesn't have the same feel to it. It's feels like you're blowing something off. So we definitely want to avoid 'my bad', it doesn't sound like you're actually apologizing for something. I recommend we say, "I'm sorry. " I typically say, "I apologize." Whatever people are comfortable with saying.

The second part of an apology is changing your behavior. It's actually doing something different. I go back to the example of kicking somebody under the table. I'll always pick one student in the group that I know I can use as an example, and I'll pretend I kicked him under the table, and he said, "Hey, Steph, you just kicked my foot. " And I say, "Oh, I'm sorry." But then two minutes later, I do it again. "Steph, you kick me again." "Oh, I'm so sorry. "And then three minutes later, I do it again.

I'm going to say this as someone who struggles with time management, because I have ADHD, I struggle with being places on time. If I am repeatedly late to the same thing (meeting, appointment, whatever), and I apologize every time, but I am continuously late the next time, the next time, the next time, that person really starts to disrespect my apology. They start to feel like I'm saying it because I think I'm socially supposed to say it, but I don't really mean it. If there's something that I keep being late to, I will make other plans so I am not continuously late to that thing. Even for our classes, I intentionally arrive an hour ahead of time, just so that there's not a situation that's going to cause me to be late. I do the same for Zoom meetings. I will intentionally log in 10 minutes ahead of time. It's a pet peeve of mine when someone has organized a meeting with me and they don't log in until the time of the meeting. It makes me wonder the whole time, 'Are they going to show up? Are they not going to show up? Am I just sitting here waiting for them?' Any time I'm the organizer of a meeting, I always show up early. I want the other person to know that I'm there and that I haven't forgotten about the meeting. I haven't blown off the meeting. If I have somewhere to be and somebody's waiting for me, I will do my best to call them, text them, email them and let them know that I'm on my way. I do not like the feeling of knowing that someone's waiting for me.

I remember a few years ago, when we had a school at Starfish Social Club, I was interviewing teachers. In the emails it had our phone number, our address, it's an email so you can respond to it, and somebody showed up for her teacher interview about 12 minutes late. And while I don't mind people being late, things happen, I do mind someone who shows up late to something like an interview, and doesn't even acknowledge it. That's what I mind, when it's not even acknowledged. So that's kind of a tangent, but point being, apologizing is the first step of the process, and the second step is changing our behavior. Doing something different. Making a different choice.

Going back to the example where somebody has said, "Can you please stop saying that? It's really annoying." They can choose whether or not they want to apologize. The more important part of it, in my opinion, is that they stop doing it. So again, this goes back to: I don't require or expect people to apologize, but I do expect them to make a different choice if they're doing something that someone has given them feedback about. That part of it is much more powerful than the apology, because we can all apologize and not mean it, but if you make a different choice, it shows that you're really making an effort to do something different.

I can think of a time where I had a kiddo, and other students had built something with blocks during game time, and he intentionally knocked it over. I think he thought it would be funny. He thought they would laugh. They did not think it was funny. They did not laugh. They got pretty upset about it. I pointed it out to him. I said, "Did you think that would be funny?" And he said, Yes. And I said, "I can see how you would think that. I want you to look at their faces. Did they think that was funny?" He said, No. And so I said, "How can you make this better?" I left it up to him, and he rebuilt the tower. He never apologized, but he rebuilt the tower. And out of the two, rebuilding the tower is a much more powerful option than apologizing, so that's what I'm looking for from my students. I don't care whether they apologize or not. I do care that they make a different choice when that's the appropriate outcome. I call that 'making it better'. How can we make it better? And to me, that's the second part of the apology. Or the whole part, if somebody chooses not to apologize, is the process of making it better.

The next part is flipping it a bit. Now the question is: When someone apologizes to you, what are some ways that we typically respond? My opinion on this, I am aware, is a little bit controversial. My goal is for my students to become independent and functional. I'm not a big fan of the concept of compliance. I think compliant kids are definitely not what I'm going for. I don't want kids who are compliant. I want students who can stand up for themselves. I want students who can assess social situations. I want students who don't allow other people to say and do things to them just because they think they're supposed to be nice about it. So with that in mind, when I ask, "What are some ways that we typically respond if somebody apologizes to us?"

The number one response is: We can say, "It's okay." That's the number one response, "It's okay." Sometimes somebody will say something like, "No big deal." Sometimes somebody will say, "I forgive you." My challenge with 'no big deal' is that that's not always true. Maybe it was a really big deal. The same with 'it's okay'. It's not always okay. We've all had people say or do things to us that are not okay, and saying 'no big deal' or 'it's okay' undermines the fact that it's not okay. Those of us that are adults have probably had relationships end over things that someone has said or done because it was not okay. So for us to respond in that way, 'it's okay' or 'no big deal', that's not real. That's not honest, And that is not us standing up for ourselves.

I had a student one time that was taught that the appropriate response to someone apologizing is to say, "I forgive you." One time he had said something to somebody, and he apologized, and the other student didn't respond with, "I forgive you." That's not everybody's mindset. That's not in everybody's vocabulary. For a lot of people, that's not even a thought that they have, to say, "I forgive you." For me, personally, I don't think I've ever said that phrase. It's not how I speak or how I handle apologies. So the student who had been taught to say, "I forgive you," when someone apologizes to him got really anxious and worried and upset because he had apologized to someone, and they did not respond with, "I forgive you." He was telling me, "Steph, Steph! I told him 'I'm sorry', and he won't say, 'I forgive you!'" The other student was very confused, because he had accepted the student's apology. There was no bad blood or anything. But Student A was getting more and more upset that the other student didn't say, "I forgive you." I explained to him that I can't make somebody say, "I forgive you." It's every individual's choice as to whether they say that or not. I can't make somebody say that.

That's part of the challenge with teaching our kids black and white things, even phrases and concepts, is that the social world is not black and white. We can't control whether someone apologizes. We can't control whether someone accepts our apology. We can't control whether someone forgives us when we apologize. None of that is under our control. All we can control is how we respond. I think there are some things that are based in culture, based in religion, based in family structure and dynamics, but we can't guarantee that the rest of the world is going to operate that way. So that's my soapbox about how we respond to that.

Then I share with students ways that we can respond if somebody apologizes to us, but what they did wasn't okay. We have a whole conversation about how we can respond to that. We really want to avoid saying 'it's okay' or 'no big deal' if what somebody said or did wasn't okay.

I had a student who really struggled with understanding the way that other people think, which is, for most neurodivergent kids, a process that usually develops later than for neurotypical kids. Understanding how other people think. This kiddo was in middle school and really believed that anytime somebody said or did something that he didn't like, that they were saying or doing it to him on purpose. It's not an uncommon thought, especially for triangle kids. Triangle kids often will think things are negative, even when they're neutral. And they'll think that they're personal, even if they had nothing to do with that person. I remember when I was teaching in a school, which was a very long time ago at this point, I got called out to the playground because one of my students was being physically aggressive to other kids. I got him back inside and I asked him, "What are you thinking about?" He said the kids were laughing at him, but they weren't. They're at recess. They're just laughing, having fun playing. But he was convinced they were laughing at him, so he became physically aggressive in response, even though it had nothing to do with him. So it's one of the struggles of our triangle kids is they will be more likely to interpret things as personal and as negative, even when they're not. Our square kids can fall into this too, just because of their heightened anxiety, thinking that things are personal or that things are negative, even if they're not.

Sometimes I'll read an email or I'll see a post on social media that will bother me or upset me, and I've learned to walk away and come back to it later. Sometimes, often, when I reread it, it's very neutral. There wasn't any intention from this person to say something that would bother or upset me. It's just whatever frame of mind I was in at that time, or whatever I had just read right before, possibly. So even for myself, I've learned to be mindful of that. There's a conditioncalled rejection sensitive dysphoria, RSD. It's very common in ADHD, and it's where your brain is more sensitive to perceived rejection. It doesn't even have to be real rejection. People with RSD are much less likely to put themselves out there, to say things, to do things, because they're so concerned about the response that they'll get.

Back to my story, I had this kiddo who, when someone would apologize to him, because he always thought everything was negative and personal, his response would be, "Apology unaccepted!" That's his choice! There's no such thing as punishment or anybody getting in trouble at Starfish Social Club. If that's what he wants to say, that's his choice. I pointed out to him the effect that has on everybody else in the group, and how it typically makes people not really want to play with him anymore. This was during game time, and so it typically makes people not want to play a game with him anymore when that's how he responds to someone trying to admit and accept that they've done something they didn't mean to do. Once I explained that to him, he stopped saying that. He didn't accept people's apologies, but he stopped unaccepting them, which is a really big deal. It's okay for someone to apologize and for you to not respond. That's an option we all have. It's a much different response than, "Apology unaccepted!" That was a really big deal that he was able to formulate a different response in not having a response.

Then we talk about over-apologizing, which again, tends to be our triangles and our squares, but for different reasons. Over-apologizing is apologizing when we don't really need to, like apologizing for winning a game, it can be apologizing even when we don't even know what we're apologizing for, we just default to saying, "I'm sorry." So why does this matter? It matters because, when we apologize, we're acknowledging that we said or did something that upset another person. If we're constantly apologizing, we are constantly telling ourselves that we have said or done something that has upset someone else. Imagine if that's the message you're sending yourself all the time. 'I did it again. I upset somebody. I said something I shouldn't have. I did something I shouldn't have. I was in this person's way. I interrupted again. I was late again.' Imagine what your mental health starts to look like when you are constantly sending yourself the message that you've done something wrong over and over and over and over again.

Even something like, "Can you please move over? You're sitting too close to me." Nobody did anything wrong in that scenario, so there's no need to apologize for something like that. But we all can think of kids who do, because that's what they think they're supposed to do. Either triangle kids, because they think that will get them out of the situation and we can all move on, or square kids because of their anxiety. They truly feel like they've done something wrong just by sitting too close to somebody. So I really encourage my students to be mindful of over-apologizing, because I do not want them to apologize for things they don't need to apologize for.

As a side note, this is often something that they have gotten from someone else, usually an adult. Typically, if there's a kiddo who's over-apologizing, there's an adult in their life who's over-apologizing. Shout out to any of you that may be watching or listening or reading, you don't have to apologize for everything either. There are definitely things in your life that you do not have to apologize for, just like my students don't have to apologize for them. So if this is something that you struggle with, I would really encourage you to do an activity like what I've talked about for yourself. Maybe with a partner, a friend, somebody that can help you get a little bit more clarity and feel a little bit more comfortable around the things that you apologize for that you do not need to apologize for. We're working on all of our mental health here, it's never just about our students, it's all of us!

That's the end of that lesson about receiving social feedback from someone. It comes after the lesson on giving social feedback because we're much more open to learning how to give people social feedback than we are how to receive social feedback. So just know that this lesson is preceded by a lesson on giving social feedback.

Let's do the random number generator and see what we're going to do next. It says 10. Ten would be module two, the second lesson. Module two is all about awareness. Awareness of ourselves, awareness of others. Lesson two in module two is all about social inferencing. Interpreting what other people mean by what they say, interpreting facial expressions, nonverbal communication. For those of us in the US, we tend to be very indirect. We tend to be very indirect communicators. We don't say what we actually mean. Part of it is trying to be polite. Part of it is just that's how our language and our culture tend to work. So sometimes it's really difficult for our students to understand what we mean by what we say. That's what we'll talk about next time. I'll see you then!