Welcome back to become a calm mama. I am your host. I'm

Darlyn Childress. And today, we're gonna talk about when your

kid says, I hate you. Okay? That can be

one of the hardest things to hear as a parent,

and it can be one of the most triggering things that your kids say.

And so I wanted to give you some really

tangible, easy to apply strategies to help

change that pattern and also to give you some ways

to think about it so that it doesn't upset you so much. So let's get

right into it. And, essentially, today, I'm gonna be walking

through the Calm Mama process, which is calm,

connect, limit set, correct, using the

example of I hate you. So that's, you know, kind of the

model that I'm giving you is really the ComeMama process in action

around a very specific behavior. Alright. So

let's, like I said, dive right in. When your

child says I hate you,

what are they actually saying? Like

just thinking about a kid and their parent.

Kids don't hate their parents. Like, they just

don't. It would be very difficult. I mean, like, a teenager, an older

teenager might have a lot of resentment built up over

years, and they might feel genuine hate

because of the lack of connection that can be

repaired. That is something that is, you know,

more about the relationship dynamic that has happened over

time. But for the most part, little

kids, even up to, like, 15, 16, they

if they say I hate you, they're not really

saying, like, I hate you as a person, and I never wanna talk to you

again, and I want you out of my life. What they are trying to

say is I hate this. I hate this

rule. I hate this situation. I

hate your rules. It can even be specific. I hate

being alone. I hate, you know, being told no. I

hate having to do my homework. I hate

cleaning up. I hate the end of screen time. I hate

when you tell me no that I can't have the iPad. What your

child is really doing or or communicating is

their frustration, their disappointment, their anger, their hurt

about the circumstance they are in. And the

language that they have to describe that frustration

and that overwhelm and that hurt and anger and

all the big feelings that they have, the the tool that they have that, that

they can think of right there is to blame you, to say I hate you.

Because in their mind, you are the

circumstance that is blocking them from getting the thing they

want. And so they don't hate you. They hate

the circumstance. They are looking at you as if you created the

circumstance and that you can fix it. And they are mad, but

they're ultimately upset about the circumstance.

So I wanted to really frame this up because

it can look like, oh my god. My child is so

disrespectful or really embarrassing if they say it in front of other

people. And I wanna give you some space in

your head and in your heart to, like,

really see it as a as pain, as discomfort,

as disappointment talking. As you hear

it's like a Jedi mind trick for you. You hear the

child say, I hate you, and you in your mind,

and you turn it around, and you're like, oh, they hate this thing.

If you are able to do that, to

to reframe what they're saying and see that there is feelings

driving that sentence, that the

the sentence I hate you is really because they have a feeling that they

can't cope with, and this is their strategy that they're using to cope with

that feeling. When you're able to do that,

you will feel calm. You won't get

so charged up about it. You won't make the

sentence be the thing you need to discipline. Now I'm

gonna give you strategies of how to change that pattern

because I don't think you need to change that pattern because it's

disrespectful. The reason why you wanna change that pattern is

because it hurts your child.

If they are saying I hate you to their parent

and then they have to deal with that guilt afterwards and that

discomfort and the confusion in their mind because they're like, well, I don't

really hate you, but I hate this thing, but I don't know how to talk

about it. It's so confusing in their mind. And

we don't want your children to walk around with extra

pain, with extra confusion, with with extra

baggage for treating their parent badly. Kids don't

like doing that. So we are gonna change the pattern. I'm gonna give

you a a limit around that and how to how to implement that limit.

But I first want you to understand that we're not changing this pattern

because it's disrespectful, because it's rude. That's more

about the external and performance of it.

Instead, I want you to see it as this is a strategy my child

is using to to communicate their emotion, and this

strategy doesn't isn't healthy for them.

I mean, truthfully, it's not healthy for you either to hear that. But if you

were really neutral about it, it's kinda like if a little kid, like, a 3

or 4 year old's like, you're a poo poo head. Like, are you you're not

a poo poo head. Right? I mean, you're not like, oh my god. They think

I'm a poo poo head. You're able to go. Yeah. No. No. No. They're

mad. They're sad. Right? They're they don't have the

language to communicate this thing, you know, that

they feel. So when your child doesn't have that

the skill of the language to describe their feelings, that's always our

responsibility in emotional health and in

coaching our children towards emotional literacy. Remember,

I say this all the time but emotional literacy is I know what I'm feeling.

I know how to talk about it, and I know what to do with those

feelings. So when your kid is saying I hate you,

they might not know what they're feeling or they don't might not know what it's

called. So we wanna name it anger, frustration, hurt, disappointment,

sadness. And then we wanna give our kids a better strategy.

Instead of saying I hate you, you can say I hate this.

And we need to train them, like, not train them like a dog, but,

like, expose them to a new pattern and give

them the opportunity to do that. Okay. So I think you've got that part.

You understand that it's not personal that

these are the words I hate you are just feelings being expressed. Your

child does not actually hate you, and they

it's in their best interest for you to teach them a new way to communicate.

So then how do you do that? Okay? So you imagine we are calm. Right?

That's the first part of the calm mama process

is your calm. Then the second part is connect.

So I want you to have a connection conversation with

your child outside of the moment that

they're saying I hate you. Okay? So this is sometimes I

call this preview. This is a pattern disruption. I

don't really have a clever name, but this is kind of like

when you see a pattern with your children, a behavior

that's driving you crazy, a behavior that doesn't work, it's a strategy

that's causing harm for them or others,

we are going to go and have a correction conversation, and then we're

gonna set a limit, and then we're gonna follow through. So that's the process.

So I want you to think about the connection tool. If you're a long time

listener, you know the connection tool is the tool that we

use to, give our kids access

to understanding what they're feeling based on how they're acting.

So you look at the child and, you know, you're like, okay.

You we do connection in our heart first. We go, okay. This kid really hates

the iPad rules, really gets mad whenever I say no

to cookie or whatever it is. Right? And then they say I hate you. So

you find the pattern. Great. That's the first part.

Then you talk to your child about it. Talk to your

child. You you talk with your child about it. Okay?

We go and we say. This is a script I'm giving you. So

we're saying, hey, kid. Hey,

honey. You know, I noticed that you have a pattern or

a habit that sometimes when you get really upset, you say I hate you. And

you say I hate you. Right? So if they're little, you're gonna use kind of

that dramatic affect. Right? You say, I hate you, mommy. Right? Or if

they're a little bit older, 8 or 9, you can be a little more matter

of fact. You could say, hey. I've noticed a pattern that when you get really

mad about something, you say I hate

you. Okay? So we're just narrating

what happens. And then we're gonna

name the feeling underneath it. You can

say, and saying I hate you makes a lot of

sense because you are really angry. I want like, you know, is that

what happens for you when you're feeling when you say I hate you, are you

really, really mad? You can ask the

question and let them answer. You can say, yeah, of course. Of course,

you're angry. Rules are hard. Being a kid is hard.

Yeah. It's this is this is difficult. So you're really spending a

minute validating the feeling and the difficulty that

they're experiencing. You say, it makes

perfect sense. Makes perfect sense that you would say I

hate you because you get overwhelmed, you get angry, and you wanna tell

me that. And so you say I hate you. Is that

right? Okay. So you give them some space to answer. And

then you say, listen, hon. I know you don't actually

hate me. I know you don't because we love each

other, and we we're very close. We love each

other so much. I know you love me. I know you don't hate me. So

in that moment, I think you're saying I hate this.

I don't like your rules. I don't like your

limits. I don't like when you say no to me. I don't like when you

take away the iPad. Are you

actually saying when you say I hate this, are you saying I I mean, when

you say I hate you, are you actually saying I hate this situation?

And then you pause and you let your child talk a little bit about it.

And they might even say, yeah. I hate that you have so many screen

time rules, or I hate that you make me go to the doctor, or I

hate that you say, that we can go to our friend's house

and then you change your mind all the time. So we give them a little

room to kinda complain about their life, and we

listen. This is the time when I think about listening,

compassionate listening really is just being available to their

thoughts and being neutral, not trying to convince

them, not defending yourself, not blaming them.

It's like sometimes I say you wanna be as as

neutral as a piece of paper. Right? If you were

thinking about doing a journal and you were gonna write down all your

negative complaining terrible thoughts, the paper doesn't

talk back to you. It doesn't try to argue with you or convince you that

you're wrong or defend itself. Right? The paper is neutral.

So I want you to practice just listening. We're like, yeah. Okay. All of what

you just said made sense. I'm not changing the rules.

Okay? You just because someone tells you they don't like something and

you listen doesn't mean you then have to change.

Now if there's some genuine thing that you do that is

frustrating, you can apologize. You'll say, I can work on that. You know, if

you run late a lot or you change your mind a lot or

whatever thing happens and you have some responsibility, you can take

responsibility. Say, yeah. Thanks for letting me know. I'm gonna work on that.

So you give some room for this

connection conversation. Right? You allow some of the emotions and

some of their thoughts to come up, and you just create some space.

Now not every kid is gonna talk. That's fine. You

they're okay. Yes. No. Right? It's okay. Even like a 2

or 3 year old, they might not have much to say. That's fine.

We're just gonna let them know that they're

saying, I hate you because they have big

feelings. Their big feelings make sense. That's fine.

And it makes sense that they would say I hate you because they don't know

how to say I hate this. Okay.

So now we're gonna move forward and we're gonna

start to problem solve a little bit. So you can say to your

child when, you know, I

know you don't hate me, and I don't want you to say I hate you

and then feel bad later. So I'm not gonna let you say that anymore.

So this is where we're really kind of communicating that we're gonna set a limit

around this behavior. And I'm I wanna remind you, like I

said in the top of this episode, that your reason

for setting this boundary isn't because you

need to raise a respectful child who doesn't say I hate

you. No. We wanna raise a kid

who is able to communicate their real feelings with

their parent and then doesn't show up in

ways that don't work and then feels bad about it and carries that guilt

and shame with them throughout life. That's our reason

for saying to our child. I am not gonna let

you say I hate you anymore because then I I know you

don't hate me. I know you feel bad about it, and I want you to

be able to say I don't like the situation. I hate

this thing. Alright? So you can ask your child what do you think you can

say instead when you're gonna say when you wanna say

I hate you, what are some other things you could

say? So you problem solve and you get their

brain to start doing some thinking in advance.

Really, they're previewing the situation where

they would wanna say I hate you and they're problem solving and

they're planning a new behavioral strategy. They're coming up

with it in advance. Now will they be able to remember it?

Maybe, maybe not. But you're gonna keep talking about it and you're gonna keep

reminding them, uh-uh, I don't let you say I hate you

anymore. What What can you say instead? So you're gonna be

practicing it, but the first time you introduce it, you're gonna let them

problem solve. I hate this. I hate your rules. I

hate your I I hate being told no. I

don't like, you know, you, changing

your mind. Okay? We don't want our children to name

call. Name call is when you attack the person. We want our kids to be

able to talk about the situation

and separate the situation from the person so

that they can talk about the situation and their thoughts about the situation.

Not make it personal. We wanna help them not personalize things just like

you're not personalizing things. Yeah? I wanted to

say something else about this is that, you know,

when you teach your kids to separate circumstances from,

from people, they are actually able to do that for

themselves too. Because I don't want your child just to go around

saying, I hate myself. I hate me

because that's not a great thought to have

about yourself. Right? Instead, I would love for your

child to say, I hate when I,

make a mistake, or I hate when

I, you know, name call my brother

and get in trouble. I want them to start to be

able to separate themselves from their actions.

So by you modeling this by saying, I don't I I'm not gonna let

you say I hate you, but you can tell me that you don't like the

circumstance. You're actually giving them room in their brain to

separate circumstances from people, including themselves. Super

cool little tangent there. Okay. So you've

had this conversation, this connection conversation,

this pre problem solving. You're giving them some ideas of what

to do with their big feelings when they come up. So it's like you can't

say I hate you, but what can you do instead? So the connection

tool is narrating this the behavior, naming the emotion,

and then now what are the new strategies?

So you're say you're gonna say, okay. Great. We've

got a plan. Now I'm not gonna let you

say I hate you anymore. When you say it,

I'm going to tell you try again. Okay? So you

just let him know that there's gonna be a limit around it. So that's

a connection conversation in advance. Now you can't have these

conversations until you see a pattern. So really being

neutral about your kid's behavior and looking for patterns and looking for behaviors that

are making you mad is really helpful. Like,

thinking like, oh my god. That's so triggering to me. I hate it when my

kid does that. Like, whatever the thing is, then we're gonna

be calm about it. We're gonna understand that feelings drive behavior. We're gonna get to

compassion. We're gonna talk to our kid about the pattern, and then we're gonna set

the limit. And that's in advance.

Then, okay, now in the moment, you are

going to see yourself as

disciplining which really

discipline has a couple different meanings, right? One

is is training, Right? Training

someone of how to

act. Right? Or it can be a branch of knowledge.

Right? You know, like, sociology is

a branch of of of knowledge. It's a, new

discipline. Right? So we have our child and

we're trying to give them some knowledge and teach them some

strategies to figure out how to be in the world.

Right? So it can be seen as

negative, but really I see it as, you know, I'm very disciplined

in my in my habits. Right? We use that phrase, and

so I want my children to have the ability to

change their behavior, to change their habits, and I'm

gonna help them. So how does that look in the

moment your child says you say, okay. Let's just do the iPad.

The let's do it where they're like, can I have the iPad?

And you're like, no. Okay? Or you say

you're welcome to use the iPad on Saturdays Sundays as long as there's no problems

this week. K? You can have a great limit or whatever

or you just be like, no. It's fine. And then they're like, why?

I don't know. Why? Why are you can't you give it to me? Other kids

get it all the time, and other parents are nice, and you're mean,

and, you know, this is not cool, and and you're they're goading you

into having a conversation. Right? You can be really strong

there. You can be disciplined, as we say, and just say, oh, I'm

not open for discussion. I'm I'm not open for this

conversation. It's okay to be mad about my rules, but I'm not

really answering questions right now about my rules. You can say

that at any age, by the way. And then they're like, oh my

god. I hate you. And you say, uh-uh. Remember,

I'm not gonna let you say I hate you, but you are welcome to tell

me that you don't like something I'm doing. So

try again. You can say, I hate this. I hate your

rules. I hate this situation. Try again.

We really wanna give our kids the opportunity in the moment

to see their own pattern, to see their strategy,

to say, look, you're getting really mad. And instead of just

saying I'm really angry and I don't like this situation, you're

personalizing it, and you're saying I hate you.

So you can say, I know you don't hate me. It's okay to be

mad. It's not okay to say I hate you. Try

again. And then let

them figure out if they're gonna do you know, they might be like, ah, use

yeah. Yeah. I hate you. They may still keep doing it. They

may still stay in their pattern.

That's okay. We're gonna let them fail. We're gonna

let them make that mistake again.

A big part of this process, this parenting process that

you're learning is that kids are going to make

mistakes. They're not going to be able to self

correct in the moment. Their emotions are gonna get ahead of them. They're

gonna have a lot of big feelings. They're not gonna know what to do with

those big feelings, and they're gonna come out through their behavior.

And so we need to let them come out. We can set that

limit, remind them, reset, and then see what

happens. And then if they are able to keep it and

they reset, I'm sorry. I just don't like the situation. Great.

Okay. We'll talk about it in a little bit. We're we're all really upset right

now. So you can kind of delay

that conversation. Now they

might not be able to reset. They might not be able to kind

of pull put on the brakes of their own emotions. They might, oh, you

know what? I hate you even more. Okay.

So if they said that, that's fine. Okay.

Okay. You're really upset. Let them let that

emotion just fizzle out. It does. You don't need to do anything in the

moment. This is the whole thing about delaying consequences.

What are you supposed to do in the moment when your child is already upset

that you said no about something? The only thing you're gonna do is

threaten to take away more privileges in the future.

And it's just gonna create more negative emotion in both of you. It's not

worth it. Your child has a feeling they don't know what to do with. It's

coming out through their behavior. No problem. Delay.

Circle back later. K? The process, remember, I'm calm

about I hate you, I connect with them about I hate you, I set a

limit around I hate you, and then correct. So calm,

connect, limit set correct. So now we come back

and we say, hey. Remember yesterday or earlier

today, you said you hate me. Remember

that? And you said, you know, you said

I hate you. And I had said, you know, I want you to say I

hate this. Do you remember that? And, like,

no. I don't know. Who knows? Whatever they say is fine.

Okay. Listen, honey. I know you don't hate me,

but when you say I hate you to me, it does hurt

my heart. And I know it hurts your heart too

because I know you don't hate me. I know you love

me. So why don't you do

something that repairs the hurt that you caused?

Would you be willing to do something kind for me

to make that right and to show that how much we love each

other? I'd love to do something together with you because I know you

don't hate me. I know you love me. And why don't we show

how much we love each other? And then you can come up

with something that you both love to do. Why don't we go for a walk

together? Why don't we play with the dog for a minute? Why don't we, you

know, put together the snack tray, like, you know, the snacks or whatever?

Why don't we read a book together?

Why don't you, kid, do a little chore for me?

Because that would really repair and that would show me how much you love me.

I know you love me but I know you also probably wanna show me that.

So we're giving our kids an opportunity to repair

so that they feel better about their behavior and so that they

learn that their behavior has a consequence.

So with I hate you, right, that what they're what

the hurt is ultimately that they are hurting themselves

by, you know, saying they hate their parent, and that

feels gross and yucky. But if you give them a way to fix it, it

feels better. So the purpose of the

consequence isn't to cause them pain or shame, it's just to give them an

opportunity to make things right, mostly for

them. But you have to kind of hold it a little bit like, yeah. I

know. I don't I don't like it. It hurts my heart a little bit because

I know it's not true. I know you love me, and I know you wanna

show me you love me. So let's figure out a way you can do

that. So do you see how correction isn't

necessarily because you said, I I hate you. I'm not giving you

the iPad. Because you said I hate you, you know, I'm not

taking you to the park. It it it doesn't need to

be like a punishment like that. I'd rather be, hey.

I know you don't hate me. Why don't you show me some ways that you

love we love each other? And give them a

chance to show that. That will feel good to them.

Okay. I love you.

Anybody who's listening? And, you know, this

might be helpful in other relationships that you have of, like, you know,

when somebody says something personal to you, recognizing

that it's not actually personal, it probably has to do

with some emotion. And even with an

older teenager, you'd it doesn't have to be this big, you

know, like, okay. They hate me. Our relationship is broken and

ruined. It's like, no. This is probably years of some resentment

and some frustration, and let's go ahead and, you know,

work that out. That's, that's a topic for

a different podcast episode, and it's also something we

do in the emotionally healthy teens class, which is coming up. I

only teach this class twice a year, and the next, class starts

April 15th. We're gonna meet on Mondays at noon for 6

weeks. The class, is at noon,

Pacific, so 3 EST. And we're in that class,

we talk about really repairing our relationship with our teenagers and how to parent

them in a way that sets you up for the future so that you have

a good relationship as they head into adulthood. And sometimes that

means repairing some of the underlying resentment within

you and them. Because sometimes we feel like we hate our

kids. Right? But we're not, we don't. I know

you don't. It's always just your own feelings of

hurt and frustration about their behavior or

the circumstances that you're in that you don't know how to communicate.

So if you're curious about the emotionally healthy teen class, I recommend you go to

the website, comama coaching.com. Under programs, you'll

see teen class, and you can sign up and there it

includes a workbook and a lot of support. So I, you know,

I again, I'm not gonna teach that class again until October of

2024. So I encourage you to sign up if you're interested.

And, like always, if you wanna just chat with me and

connect and talk about the different ways I work with people, the different programs I

have, the other option is to book a consultation

with me, and you can do that right directly on my website, calm mama coaching.com.

And I'd be happy to talk with you and get to know you a little

bit. So this week, really thinking about

this phrase, I hate you if you have a kid that's in a pattern of

I hate you. This is your episode. Relisten to it.

And, if you have any questions or concerns, reach out to me.

Alright. I hope you are having a great week, and I will talk to you

next time.