“I hate you mummy!” The good news about your child’s harsh words
There are few things in the world that hurt more than hearing your child say, “I hate you.”
Our child's words can cut deep.
We would literally sacrifice everything for our kids and they are yelling that they hate us?
Here is the good news. When kids yell harsh words this is actually a good thing. But before we get there, we need to look inwards about how these moments impact us as parents.
When your child screams:
“I hate you, you are the worst parent ever”
“I wish you were dead”
“You’ve ruined my life”
“You’re a poo poo head”
These words leave us feeling hurt.
Then we worry… “would I have dared speak to my parents that way?”
Which can lead to more anxiety about whether we are actually failing at raising a good kid, a kid who respects their elders.
This is a spiral that can have us responding in ways that don’t help like yelling, over reacting or using harsh words back.
Sometimes we can't help but take it personally and this can have us telling our child they are “hurting mummy’s feelings” this seems to make sense in the moment because we think this might teach our child that their actions have consequences. However, it’s really not helpful emotionally for our child, mainly because we are the grown up, so it’s up to us to lead the way out of this, and teach.
So let’s get right to the good news:
When your child says harsh words, this is actually a really positive sign of increasing regulation and impulse control.
Yep. You heard that right. It’s a good sign.
It takes a lot of emotional regulation and impulse control for little kids to move from using their bodies to express emotions and desired to ‘using their words’ to express discomfort, emotions and frustrations and the process of this stage of the developing brain can be a bit clunky as it comes online.
It’s clunky even when kids are really excellent communicators, simply because the ask of managing words and emotions in the moment takes a lot of skill. Let's be honest, even as adults we don't always nail this do we?
What can we do as parents and educators when kids use harsh words?
We can do two things in the moment:
- Not take the words personally and
- Encourage our kids to keep sharing about the feelings
IN the moment the best thing we can do is try to tune into the underlying emotion.
Just say you turn off the TV as agreed with your child and they start crying and then they get angry and yell “I HATE YOU MUMMY, you are ruining my LIFE”
Extreme words? For sure. Overly dramatic? Yep. But, by not taking it personally we see what these words are really about: “You really wanted more TV, I know it’s hard when we turn it off”….’
After allowing some time you might add. “It is hard when the TV goes off isn’t it? Do you know what? Maybe next time we can set a timer and I’ll give some more warding so it feels less of a shock when TV time is over?
What about when kids call each other names?
Welcoming the feelings doesn’t mean we sit back and let our kids call each other stupid. Much like when they hit each other physically, it’s important that there are boundaries around name calling because these things do hurt. We still want to get to the underlying emotion. “Hey, I won’t let you call your brother stupid. You are mad because he ripped your book, and I’d be mad too. It’s ok to be mad, but it’s not ok to call him names.
The role of emotion coaching
The biggest opportunity to help our kids build the skills that will help them go better next time happen outside of these moments. We need to make sure everyone is back to a place of regulation, where we are connected and calm and we bring it up.
We can help our child to understand again that the emotions are always ok, but the name calling can’t happen because it hurts. It’s in these moments we also have an opportunity to help kids rehearse what they might do ‘next time’ similar situations or emotions crop up.
Find the fire
The bottom line? We need to rise up above the words and tune into the emotional experience that caused them. The words are like the smoke alarm going off on the rood, dealing only with the words by pointing the hose at the smoke alarm leaves a fire raging and won’t help us our child. Find the fire which always lies in an emotion, and you will help your child continue to build that emotional regulation.
If your child is saying harsh or hurtful words I hope this gives you that glimmer of hope to know they are actually developing language, learning to express complex feelings and you are doing a beautiful job because they feel safe to express these big feelings with you.
