When Kids Say “I Hate You!” What Should Parents Do?
Those three words from your child can cause you to feel hurt, fear, frustration, anger and sadness. These words when shared by a child toward the parent may humble even the most experienced parent. And if you’ve yet to experience those words, the dreaded “I hate you” will come to your ears sooner or later. Most of the time, your child may scream it at you in anger for not buying something at the store or providing something at he or she desires. You may also hear it yelled at you during a fit of rage or a force of manipulation when the child does not get his or her way. No matter how “I Hate You” is presented from the child, it most often stops a parent in their tracks and challenges the parent to go into a defensive mode of operation.
Five Ways A Parent Can Respond To
“I Hate You!”
As adults we are expected to respond to difficult situations with maturity. This, however, is not how it always works. If you overreact, get upset and makes comments such as, “I hate you too,” forgive yourself quickly and move on to a better solution. You need to know that a child’s screaming “I hate you” is not a reflection of your parenting skills, but an expression of the frustration your child is feeling for not getting his or her way, or for not being understood. If you snap back, that doesn’t help the situation.
Here’s one example of a helpful response. “I know you want to play outside, and I can understand why you’re angry, but dinner is ready and you have to come in.” Then add, “Take a time out and when you’ve cooled down, come eat dinner.” Below are five other ways to deal with, “I hate you:”
- Stop and wait. If hearing “I hate you” upsets you, it’s best to talk about it after you compose yourself, get your feelings together (the actions of anger out of your mind) and allow the moment to pass. Later in the day, or even the next day, in a friendly, upbeat manner say: “I understand that you were mad at me yesterday when you said, ‘I hate you,’ but in our house we don’t talk like that because it’s hurtful.” Spend time with your child discussing another way to let you know when he or she is angry or frustrated with you.
- Recognize the child’s feelings by listening. Anger does not go away just because you tell a child, “It’s not nice to feel that way,” or “You shouldn’t feel that way.” Anger loses its intensity when you begin to recognize and accept that the child has feelings. Once you have recognized the child’s feelings you can begin to establish guidelines for the inappropriate behavior.
- Help the child come up with other feeling word beyond the “I hate you.” While discussing and setting limits in #2, asked the child to share other feeling words. Sometimes children will share, “I really need that item because all my friends have it.” As a parent you can respond by saying, “I want to hear and understand where you are coming from. How do you feel when others have what you don’t have?”
- Remain calm. Or, as the kids say, “don’t freak out.” For children, being upset with parents, teachers and any authority figure, for that matter, is normal. Notice that I said “normal.” This does not mean that it’s “right,” or acceptable for a child to behave in this manner.
- Finally, it’s a good idea to let your children know that even we (parents) have feelings of anger and even hatred. Also share that “these feelings are natural and usually do not last long.” Tell your child that you love him or her. Always try to end the day by saying to your child, “I love you.”
Hi there, in my situation it is not my own child. My husband was caring for my niece for 3 hours while I was with her mum, my sister. My husband had been watching TV together with my niece and then asked her could he change channel after about an hour. While they sat together he heard her utter ‘I hate you’ when he turned to ask her what she said thinking he had misheard when she changed her line to ‘I hate it when you burp’. As we are not parents we are trying to figure out how to deal. He spoke with her about what she said and she tried to cover up. He explained that hate was not a good word to use bout someone and he left the room. We haven’t told my sister, a single parent, and not sure if we should but we want to be prepared should it happen again.
They lack discipline! You should never be -too- soft with your child. That seems to be the problem with parenting these days. What has changed in the past 10 years to cause this? Parenting wasn’t broke, so what are we trying to fix? To respond, a parent should know when their child is acting out; that was the first mistake. However, his response was fair. It surprises me how much people rely on parenting books these days. All the answers are right there in your childhood.