ABSTRACT
Regret can be summarized as the sorrowful affect experienced from the realization that one’s past action or inaction has caused harm to the self. This chapter offers an opportunity to examine the capacity for the manifestation of regret in children and adolescents. The affect of regret was thus transformed from a symptom into a signal to activate her new capacity for reflective thinking. The recognition of harm to oneself or another and of cause and effect relationships, both necessary to experience regret and remorse, were still not regularly apparent to the child. Over time, perhaps, continued work around negative emotions in the parents and child will allow for greater affect tolerance, including constructive and durable experiences of regret and remorse. Circling back to the initial queries about regret, these four vignettes demonstrate that regret can be observed in young children and adolescents, but in a variety of presentations.
