“I really handled your pain poorly. I was scared and ashamed, and I blew it. Please forgive me. If I could do it over, I would respond like this ____.” (Relationships mended by forgiveness are powerful things.) When we model honesty and apologies, our kids learn in real time how to construct a life on truth. We interrupt the toxic trajectory of pretending before it becomes rooted and thus a thousand times harder to pull up. Perhaps”