I’m pretty sure I’m in the small minority here but I personally feel like apologies are a better fit for accidents and miscommunications. If you steal from someone, cheat on someone, intentionally harm someone, etc. saying sorry doesn’t do much for me because if you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place. I appreciate the apology, but that doesn’t move me. Trust is always regained through actions, not words. Perhaps you could argue that a person has a “change of heart.” Maybe that might make the apology more valid. But idk
Empty words are pointless. You’re supposed to have the change of heart. That’s supposed to be what I’m sorry means there.
That’s not often communicated to kids, especially when forced to apologize
Most often, when this happened to me, i wasn’t sorry, and i didn’t want to say what i didn’t feel
For me, it’s mostly the ritual for communicating beyond the incident. Then after that it’s an acknowledgement of hurt feelings and a reconciliation. It’s hardly ever about who was right and who was wrong, people rarely change their minds in such a short amount of time.