6-year-old accidentally kicks ball into neighbor's yard. Then plants the sweetest apology note for its return

Most neighbors have dealt with the occasional stray ball landing in their yard when kids are playing nearby. Usually, you toss the ball back over the fence and carry on with the day. But one six-year-old decided to handle the situation a little differently by leaving a handwritten apology note on the neighbor’s door. 

The note, later shared on Reddit by user u/surly_duff on March 11, showed the child apologizing for the mistake and promising to try not to let it happen again. "The neighbor's six-year-old left this on the door," the author said in their post, which has garnered 166k upvotes so far.

The message started with a greeting that looked like it had been corrected mid-sentence, turning what first read as "hi gays" into the intended "hi guys." From there, the young writer wrote, with broken spellings, "I Accidentally kicked my ball into your yard again, When you get a chants [chance] Please Throw it back. I am sarry [sorry]. I will tray [try] not to kick it over agen [again]. Thank! [sic]"

The author said they felt bad that they had been at work when the note was left and hadn’t seen it right away, and added that while they didn’t originally have plans to play soccer that weekend, they were now thinking about helping the young neighbor practice a little. "I'm definitely gonna help little dude brush up on some fundamentals," they said.

The combination of the heartfelt apology, the promise to do better, and the obvious effort behind the note clearly shows that a child is learning responsibility and empathy early on, which are signs of great parenting. A meta-analysis published in Child Development looked at 213 social and emotional learning programs involving 270,034 students.

It found that children who were taught skills like empathy, emotional awareness, and responsible decision-making showed an 11-percentile-point increase in prosocial behavior, including kindness, cooperation, and positive social actions, compared to children who did not receive that kind of support. Researchers also reported clear improvements in emotional control and how well children interacted with others.

The handwritten note melted a lot of readers, who shared how thoughtful it was in the comments. u/Requiem191 said, "I know the world is, you know, 'gestures everywhere' but it's stories like this one and the OP's that remind me things aren't all that bad on a wider scale. It's good to keep that in perspective, especially now." 

u/venom121212 shared, "The first time my son got sent to his room around this age, he wrote us a similar note that said, 'I miss u guys,' ran out of his room, threw it like a paper airplane into our room, and then sprinted back into his. They grow up too fast." u/Psychological_Art420 added, "I think I would frame this note and hang it on my wall, haha, it’s adorable."

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