Language Children

How do you explain this body language in children?

When a child hits another child hurting them, they sometimes pat the hut area ‘better’. Why do they do this? Is it to like ‘reverse’ the violent action with a gentle one? To justify that they aren’t always violent?

they just do it to feel like they have done nothing wrong. children are often trained by their parents to always apologize and everything will be okay, however this trains them to use apology as a way to justify their actions.