The alternative is never being able to be forgiven. In the real world we see the consequences of feeling like you can't be forgiven with kids and teens who get

The alternative is never being able to be forgiven. In the real world we see the consequences of feeling like you can't be forgiven with kids and teens who get labeled as "trouble makers". As soon as that label starts to become permanent and precede them, they live down to other people's expectations of them. When they start feeling like nothing they do will ever be good enough, and that no matter what they do they will be in trouble or someone will find fault with them, they stop trying to improve or stay out of trouble. See also the concept of stereotype threat. It's not (as I understand it) about "not facing consequences" so much as it is about being possible to be forgiven at all and therefore there is a reason to try to change and to try and make amends and to try to seek forgiveness. It also isn't enough in any interpretation I've seen to just "say you're sorry". You have to repent, and even secular definitions, let alone religious ones don't seem to interpret "repenting" as simply saying you're sorry.